Water Security Policy Research Articles

Characteristics and features of Kazakhstan’s water security policy

Amidst the complex geopolitical dynamics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan grapples with urgent water security issues exacerbated by climate change, underscoring the critical need to examine this issue within the context of regional security. Therefore, this study seeks to comprehensively analyze Kazakhstan’s water security policy, examining its various elements and components at national and regional levels. Using system analysis and statistical techniques, data were collected from an array of sources, including strategies, development plans, statistical reports, analytical articles, methodological guidelines, and official government and international organization websites. The analysis revealed key challenges in Kazakhstan’s water security, including deteriorating infrastructure, outdated management practices, vulnerability to floods and low water levels, inadequate training, and regulatory deficiencies. A novel approach is offered by examining current trends in Kazakhstan’s water security domain, which involves scrutinizing the activities of relevant state bodies and analyzing regulatory frameworks amid rapid climate shifts. Additionally, the heightened potential for conflict across the continent was recognized. Despite earnest attempts to mitigate these challenges, the country confronts imminent water shortages exacerbated by heightened consumption and dwindling runoff from neighboring states. In light of these findings, policymakers and stakeholders are urged to devise robust policies and management strategies aimed at fortifying water security and addressing the underlying vulnerabilities in this critical domain.

Analysis of the evolution of water culture and water security in the Weihe River Basin over a 100 year-period

The significance of water culture in addressing water crises and ensuring water security has garnered considerable attention, emerging as a focal point in global change and water science research. Water culture is a societal adaptation to changes in hydrological systems. However, this needs to be acknowledged within contemporary discourse on water security governance. This study utilized historical policy document data from many sources, including local municipal records from Shaanxi and Gansu, and water conservancy records. It aimed to identify the significant nodes and stages of policy transformation in the Weihe River Basin (WRB) during the last century (1949–2020). This study employed a content analysis method to elucidate the evolutionary patterns of water culture in the study region during the previous century. Drawing on the co-evolution framework, our investigation delved into the reciprocal relationship between changes in water culture and the evolution of water security in the WRB. Our findings indicated that water culture transformation in the WRB has undergone four significant stages: the Disaster-Resistant Hydraulic (1949–1966), Irrigation Hydraulic (1967–1998), Resources Hydraulic (1999–2010), and Ecological Hydraulic (2011–2020) phases. Water security assessment showed that policy attention varied across the different stages. The disaster-resistant hydraulic phase primarily addressed water-related disaster concerns, whereas the irrigation hydraulic phase emphasized the scarcity of water resources. The resource hydraulic phase focused on ensuring the security of the water environment, while the ecological hydraulic phase placed emphasis on safeguarding water sustainability. Moreover, we found that prevailing water policies prioritize resolving isolated issues; however, water security is a multifaceted systemic matter that requires a comprehensive approach. This study has the potential to offer policy makers a more comprehensive and systematic perspective, enabling them to enhance their understanding of the underlying nature of the problems. Additionally, this study can assist in developing future water security policies.

Политика водной безопасности Казахстана

Ensuring water security holds a crucial position in the strategic planning of nations worldwide. The guaranteed access to water resources and their rational utilization are deemed priorities in the development of strategies within this domain. In the specific context of Kazakhstan, effective water resource management stands out as a key factor in shaping a robust model of national security on a global scale. This research aims to identify the characteristics and features of Kazakhstan’s water security policy by analyzing elements and components at both the national and regional levels. To achieve this, a systemic analysis method was employed to assess the water security situation and identify positions within regional and international organizations. The study delves into the key elements and structural components of Central Asia’s water security policy, shedding light on the peculiarities of national strategies adopted by individual countries in the region. The paper provides an overview of both negative and positive aspects of Kazakhstan’s activities in planning access to river resources, summarizing the main outcomes of such efforts. Additionally, the study analyzes the uniqueness and specificity involved in forming a security strategy to ensure rational access to river sources in Kazakhstan. The results of this research serve as a foundational basis for further scientific exploration. They can be utilized for the development and implementation of innovative tools and methods in security policy within the national strategies of water management.

Examining past and projecting future: an 800-year streamflow reconstruction of the Australian Murray river

Managing water security and sustaining ecosystem functions under future warming poses substantial challenges for semi-arid regions. The Murray–Darling Basin (MDB) is particularly vulnerable given the considerable demand for water that underpins Australia’s agricultural production and contribution to the national economy. Understanding future drought risk requires a robust assessment of natural variability in drought length, frequency, and magnitude. In the absence of long instrumental records, past drought characteristics can be inferred from paleo-records. We reconstruct over 800 years of Murray River streamflow using a suite of tree-ring chronologies from regions with strong climate teleconnections to the MDB. The reconstruction (1190–2000 CE) captures a broad spectrum of natural climate variability, not fully represented in instrumental records, contributing to an improved understanding of the occurrence rate of multi-year droughts. We found that the Millennium Drought, which occurred in the 2000s, was the most severe (joint duration, magnitude, and peak) during the 800-year reconstruction. The return period of this event is estimated to be ∼2500 years. However, droughts in the early-1200s were of a longer duration and similar magnitude to the Millennium Drought. We used climate models to assess how the occurrence probability of severe droughts might change in the future. Compared to the 800-year baseline, climate models project an increase in future drought severity. While the increase in drought occurrence is within the uncertainty range for most future projections, the driest forecast shows a significant increase in the likelihood of severe droughts compared to natural variability. Our results highlight the need for water management strategies not to rely solely on instrumental data as it may not fully represent current and future risks. Ensuring a resilient MDB under future warming will require a robust water security policy that captures a broader range of natural and anthropogenic variability than currently recognised.

Development and application of regional urban water security indicators

The study conceptualises water security indicators in the regional urban context for water security policy formulation and implementation. The paper used a Process Analysis Method (PAM) to develop and apply a set of Urban Water Security (UWS) indicators suitable for the regional urban water authorities. The UWS indicators were calibrated and validated by the relevant stakeholders of the northern, tropical, urban region of Queensland, Australia. Although the priorities for different regional cities vary, the indicators are expected to help water authorities monitor, measure and track their policy performance over time.

Influence of forest infrastructure on the responses of ecosystem services to climate extremes in the Midwest and Northeast United States from 1980 to 2019

Forests provide several critical ecosystem services that help to support human society. Alteration of forest infrastructure by changes in land use, atmospheric chemistry, and climate change influence the ability of forests to provide these ecosystem services and their sensitivity to existing and future extreme climate events. Here, we explore how the evolving forest infrastructure of the Midwest and Northeast United States influences carbon sequestration, biomass increment (i.e., change in vegetation carbon), biomass burning associated with fuelwood and slash removal, the creation of wood products, and runoff between 1980 and 2019 within the context of changing environmental conditions and extreme climate events using a coupled modeling and assessment framework. For the 40-year study period, the region’s forests functioned as a net atmospheric carbon sink of 687 Tg C with similar amounts of carbon sequestered in the Midwest and the Northeast. Most of the carbon has been sequestered in vegetation (+771 Tg C) with more carbon stored in Midwestern trees than in Northeastern trees to provide a larger resource for potential wood products in the future. Runoff from forests has also provided 4,651 billion m3of water for potential use by humans during the study period with the Northeastern forests providing about 2.4 times more water than the Midwestern forests. Our analyses indicate that climate variability, as particularly influenced by heat waves, has the dominant effect on the ability of forest ecosystems to sequester atmospheric CO2to mitigate climate change, create new wood biomass for future fuel and wood products, and provide runoff for potential human use. Forest carbon sequestration and biomass increment appear to be more sensitive to heat waves in the Midwest than the Northeast while forest runoff appears to be more sensitive in the Northeast than the Midwest. Land-use change, driven by expanding suburban areas and cropland abandonment, has enhanced the detrimental heat-wave effects in Midwestern forests over time, but moderated these effects in Northeastern forests. When developing climate stabilization, energy production and water security policies, it will be important to consider how evolving forest infrastructure modifies ecosystem services and their responses to extreme climate events over time.

Türkiye’s Water Security Policy: Energy, Agriculture, and Transboundary Issues

Water security refers to the availability of adequate quantities and qualities of water for societal needs and resilient ecosystems in the context of current conditions and future global change. Achieving water security is directly linked to food and energy security, protecting and preserving ecosystems, and addressing key vulnerabilities and risks from climate change. Good water governance –including transboundary cooperation– is a critical feature of any effort to achieve water security. Yet the concept of water security remains abstract and broad. In an attempt to make the concept of water security-relevant in practice, this paper delineates Türkiye’s water security policy and practices through institutional and cross-sectoral (energy and food) analysis. Specific attention is paid to Türkiye’s transboundary water security policies.

(Re-)orienting the Concept of Water Risk to Better Understand Inequities in Water Security

As populations grow and climate patterns change, difficult trade-offs in water security must be made. Re-allocation of water resources and re-distribution of water security outcomes will inevitably raise questions of equity. Equity is a central component of water security but often underemphasised, hence we still lack nuanced insights to how equity is understood and operationalised by water managers and users. The concept of risk is increasingly used in water security policy and practise but has been weakly integrated with equity considerations. We offer a contextual study that explicitly unpacks risk and inequity in water security across multiple scales; we have analysed lived water experiences and their hydrosocial drivers in a major river basin in Ethiopia. This is based on 61 interviews from seven rural kebeles, government organisations at woreda, zonal, regional and federal level and local and international NGOs as well as 17 industrial water user surveys. With our findings, and drawing on existing studies, we offer a theoretical framework for embedding water risk in equitable water security considerations. We find that when water risk is (re-)oriented from a biophysical framing, towards one centred on water-related values, it can be suitably embedded within hydrosocial framings of water security. This approach offers unique insights into how inequities are understood, within uneven power and political dynamics, which is critical for interventions that seek to deliver more equitable water security and meet social development targets.

Policies on seawater desalination and water security in China: Evolution, challenges and recommendations for the future

To ensure water security, the Chinese government started to desalinate seawater early, rolling out policies on seawater desalination, with them ranging from science and technology to the industrialization of seawater desalination. And desalinated seawater is moving into a unified allocation of water resources. In this paper the evolution of policies on seawater desalination was analyzed and the seawater desalination policies attached to water security policies were emphasized. Meanwhile, the content analysis method was used. The characteristics of the evolution of policies can be as follows: First, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has continually become one of the main policy-making departments; second, changes are not continuous and demand-side policy tools account for the least; third, the policy tools provided by the water security policies basically show a downward trend. Although Chinese government has made progress in seawater desalination policies, there are still challenges for further development such as imperfect policy system, proportion of multi-sectoral policies, the combination of policy tools, and unsatisfactory condition policy tools provided by the water security policies. Finally, recommendations were proposed in the paper, including to accelerate the promulgation of laws and regulations, to pay more attention to joint policies, to strengthen talent training and special technical support, as well as to stimulate the development of demand-side policy tools and leverage the role of water security policies.

Methods of Collecting Data in Irrigated Areas and their Limitations

Inconsistent statistical data sets for irrigation areas at the national level can have a major impact on food and water security policies. Remote sensing can solve this problem, but doubts about its reliability hinder its leading role. Integrating statistical data sets and remote sensing-based methods seems desirable and more likely to be recognized by decision makers. Therefore, scientists must understand the basis and limitations of statistical data sets derived from the national level. The irrigated area data collection methods of seven Asian countries were reviewed, namely China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, and Thailand. The factors that cause data uncertainty and the limitations of data collection methods are emphasized. In addition, an analysis of the distribution of irrigation density was carried out to understand the relationship between the spatial dispersion pattern of the irrigation area and the uncertainty in its statistical records. The survey found that the statistics of irrigation districts are mainly based on information provided by water users and farmer associations, which are self-reported or collected through interviews in surveys and censuses. The main reasons for the discrepancies are lack of resources to frequently list irrigated land, inconsistent data collection methods, unknown whereabouts of small crops, illegal and unregulated water use, and bureaucratic and political restrictions

Environmental water security policy in the EU, Ukraine and other developing countries

Purpose. To determine the key principles of environmental security of aquatic ecosystems in the context of sustainable use of natural resources and socio-economic development. Methodology. Comparative analysis and systematic approach. Findings. Principal aspects of water resources management in the states of the world are analyzed in the context of the provisions of the sustainable development concept. Comparison of countries with different levels of development has allowed identifying key methodological provisions that are implemented in the environmental policy ofwater. An approach to determination of the limiting indices of the impact on the environment is proposed. It was revealed that most post-Soviet countries do not use the concept of ecological system and ecosystem services in their legislative framework, which today are an integral part of the environmental policy and legislation of developed countries. The basic principles of the ecological safety of aquatic ecosystems are as follows: a water body (surface or underground ones) is a complex, functionally integrated and self-regulating ecological system. It cannot be considered as a volume with a resource for biological and amenity needs; priority in the water use should be given to the living components that exist in it and ensure its functional integrity. Any aquatic ecosystem should be economically assessed not only in terms of available water resources, but also considering other ecosystem services, particularly, the diversity of its biotic components. All these principles and the approach presented, if introduced into domestic legislation, will allow achieving progress in the field of ecological safety of aquatic ecosystems and sustainable social economic development. Originality. An approach has been improved which determines the efficiency of environmental policy in the field of water resources safety through a correlation analysis of water consumption and population size. Practical value. The research results allow for quantitative assessment of water resource management. The results of the study on the influence of the factor of freshwater resources on the socio-economic development of countries and regions of the world suggest that there is a strong statistically significant correlation in this system of connections.

A Systems Approach to Municipal Water Portfolio Security: A Case Study of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area

We present a rigorous quantitative, systems-based model to measure a municipality’s water portfolio security using four objectives: Sustainability, Resilience, Vulnerability, and Cost (SRVC). Water engineers and planners can operationalize this simple model using readily available data to capture dimensions of water security that go far beyond typical reliability and cost analysis. We implement this model for the Phoenix Metropolitan Area under several scenarios to assess multi-objective water security outcomes at the municipal-level and metropolitan area-level to water shocks and drought. We find the benefits of adaptive water security policies are dependent on a municipality’s predominant water source, calling for a variegated approach to water security planning across a tightly interrelated metropolitan area. Additionally, we find little correlation between sustainability, resilience, and vulnerability versus cost. Therefore, municipalities can enhance water security along cost-neutral, adaptive policy pathways. Residential water conservation and upstream flow augmentation are cost-effective policies to improve water security that also improve sustainability, resilience, and vulnerability and are adequate adaptations to a short-term Colorado River shortage. The Phoenix Metropolitan Area’s resilience to drought is higher than that of any of its constituent municipalities, underscoring the benefits of coordinated water planning at the metropolitan area-level.

Identification of regional water security issues in China, using a novel water security comprehensive evaluation model

Abstract In order to solve regional water security issues, such as shortage of water resources, the aggravation of water pollution, the destruction of the ecological environment, etc., this study proposed the flood control security index, resource security index and ecological security index, respectively, according to the construction principle of human development index. Based on the above security indexes, a novel water security comprehensive evaluation model is established by combining the coupling coordination degree model and the state space model. The proposed model has the advantage of simple operation and fast data speed, which is convenient for water security evaluation in different periods and regions. Taking China as an example, the water security conditions were evaluated from 2007 to 2016 for 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China, including flood control security index, resource security index, ecological security index and water security level of each region, and the specific problems of water security in each region were obtained. The evaluation results are consistent with the actual situation in each region, which provides the scientific basis for the local government authorities to formulate the corresponding regional water security policy.

Water Security Policies in Iraq (Strategic Perspective)

Water security is a central environmental issue at the global level for economical, political and health consequences in the economies of developing countries. The concept of virtual water is a new tool in water resources management. Water crises are a global problem of long-term economic repercussions and an unbalanced conflict between the supply and demand sides in needing water, which leads to imbalance in the water balance structure and consequently in water policies. And it is particularly important for effective water governance(water management, and its governance) through water politicization, the use virtual water and dealing with water as an economic commodity rather than a free one. The analysts and economic researchers are calling for the era of water in the third millennium instead of the era of oil that characterized at previous years. The research concluded that, in economic terms, water is expected to become a commodity sold and bought as any economic commodity. Water security should be studied from the point of view that relates the problem of water through three dimensions. The first one is related to climate variables and the second to the mismanagement and planning of water resources and the last dimension is the regional because the water sources originate from outside the Iraqi borders. Finally, the research recommends the necessity to move away from linking water with political positions and politics because politics is a rapidly changing world. As the countries of the upstream from the strategic perspective to apply the concept of political economic works to trade bartered oil for water and internationalization of the issue to take a regional dimension and internationally revealing the seriousness of the water situation in Iraq.

Virtual water flow pattern of grain trade and its benefits in China

Urbanization, industrialization and their associated water shortage pressures have brought great challenges to agricultural development and water security. Understanding the virtual water flow involved in the grain trade is critical to ensuring water security and agricultural production. However, there are few studies on the comprehensive benefits provided by virtual water flow in the grain trade. This paper proposes a linear optimization model to fill this gap. The model is used to estimate the virtual water flow via interregional grain trade within China in 2015 and corresponding benefits to resources, the economy, and the environment from both outflow and inflow comparative perspectives. Three results characterize the virtual water flow pattern of interprovincial grain trade in China in 2015: (1) In terms of resource benefit, 31. billion cubic meters of water resources were saved, accounting for approximately 39.7% of the total virtual water flow. (2) A positive economic benefit was realized, with an increase of 6.4 trillion yuan in industrial value added. (3) Certain regions with a high crop green water occupation index account for a considerable proportion of the green water of the local agricultural ecosystem. Simultaneously, massive output of virtual water would aggravate the destruction of terrestrial ecosystems. Finally, the results suggest that promoting the marketization of water resources, improving water productivity, exploring regional compensation mechanisms and improving green water conservation capacity should be considered for water security policies.

An assessment of household water insecurity in a rapidly developing coastal metropolitan region of Indonesia

Water security in the Cirebon Metropolitan Region (CMR) is under threat from regular flood and drought events, rapid urbanisation and climate change. This study used the Guttman’s scale approach to assess household water insecurity in the CMR. Factor and cluster analyses were then applied to confirm the results and identify issues that shaped household water insecurity in four urbanisation levels in the CMR, namely urban, urban/peri-urban transition (UPT), peri-urban, and rural. Data were obtained through surveys of 225 farm households and 205 non-farm households using face-to-face interviews. The study shows spatial variations of water insecurity concerning urbanisation and farm and non-farm households. The study indicates that dominant factors shaping household water insecurity in the CMR are (i) unacceptable levels in water risks and (ii) inadequate water sources and services to satisfy the population’s needs in relation to health, livelihood, ecosystems, and production. Flooding in the region significantly affects water insecurity of UPT farm and non-farm households, while droughts affect rural farm and non-farm households. The methodology used in this study provides an analytical framework to better understand socio-ecohydrological issues underpinning farm and non-farm household water insecurity and for developing an evidence-based water security policy in a rapidly urbanising region.

Informing National Food and Water Security Policy through Water Footprint Assessment: the Case of Iran

Iran’s focus on food self-sufficiency has led to an emphasis on increasing water volumes available for irrigation with little attention to water use efficiency, and no attention at all to the role of consumption and trade. To better understand the development of water consumption in relation to food production, consumption, and trade, we carried out the first comprehensive water footprint assessment (WFA) for Iran, for the period 1980–2010, and estimated the water saving per province associated with interprovincial and international crop trade. Based on the AquaCrop model, we estimated the green and blue water footprint (WF) related to both the production and consumption of 26 crops, per year and on a daily basis, for 30 provinces of Iran. We find that, in the period 1980–2010, crop production increased by 175%, the total WF of crop production by 122%, and the blue WF by 20%. The national population grew by 92%, and the crop consumption per capita by 20%, resulting in a 130% increase in total food consumption and a 110% increase in the total WF of national crop consumption. In 2010, 26% of the total water consumption in the semi-arid region served the production of crops for export to other regions within Iran (mainly cereals) or abroad (mainly fruits and nuts). Iran’s interprovincial virtual water trade grew by a factor of 1.6, which was mainly due to increased interprovincial trade in cereals, nuts, and fruits. Current Iranian food and water policy could be enriched by reducing the WFs of crop production to certain benchmark levels per crop and climatic region and aligning cropping patterns to spatial differences in water availability and productivities, and by paying due attention to the increasing food consumption per capita in Iran.

(Des)Conexões Estado-Sociedade no Brasil: Um Estudo Sobre a Experiência de Construção de Cisternas no Semiárido

Renovar a relação Estado-Sociedade, no Brasil, tem sido assunto em pauta nas últimas décadas. Nesse debate, inserem-se perspectivas teóricas como a Governança Pública e a Gestão Social, com suas devidas particularidades e algumas convergências. Simultaneamente, experiências consideráveis têm sido empreendidas, no país, através de formas colaborativas de gestão entre agências públicas e outros atores sociais. Abordando uma experiência dessa natureza, no âmbito da política de segurança hídrica no Semiárido brasileiro, este trabalho utilizou um design de pesquisa qualitativa. Foram empregados dados documentais e entrevistas, produzindo as narrativas para a análise realizada. Como resultado, procura-se evidenciar e discutir formas renovadas de gestão, forjadas na experiência acessada, destacando o provimento de soluções coletivas mediante papel ativo de famílias e organizações locais. Assinala-se, porém, a permanência de restrições, como a tendência de, frente às múltiplas lógicas de ação, contornar problemas decorrentes por mecanismos que inibem maior engajamento cívico.

A spatial evaluation of global wildfire-water risks to human and natural systems

The large mediatic coverage of recent massive wildfires across the world has emphasized the vulnerability of freshwater resources. The extensive hydrogeomorphic effects from a wildfire can impair the ability of watersheds to provide safe drinking water to downstream communities and high-quality water to maintain riverine ecosystem health. Safeguarding water use for human activities and ecosystems is required for sustainable development; however, no global assessment of wildfire impacts on water supply is currently available. Here, we provide the first global evaluation of wildfire risks to water security, in the form of a spatially explicit index. We adapted the Driving forces-Pressure-State-Impact-Response risk analysis framework to select a comprehensive set of indicators of fire activity and water availability, which we then aggregated to a single index of wildfire-water risk using a simple additive weighted model. Our results show that water security in many regions of the world is potentially vulnerable, regardless of socio-economic status. However, in developing countries, a critical component of the risk is the lack of socio-economic capability to respond to disasters. Our work highlights the importance of addressing wildfire-induced risks in the development of water security policies; the geographic differences in the components of the overall risk could help adapting those policies to different regional contexts.

The use of indicators in environmental policy appraisal: lessons from the design and evolution of water security policy measures

ABSTRACTDrawing up environmental policy options is a complex activity which involves defining and weighing the merits and risks of various alternative courses of action governments could pursue. In its modern version, this task typically involves formal policy analysis or ‘policy appraisal’, that is, policy work specifically undertaken to generate and evaluate policy options in order to address problems or issues on a policy agenda. Indicators play a powerful but under-investigated role in this process. To shed light on this issue, the paper conducts a case study of the design and evolution of policy indicators in water security policy formulation, examining both their utilization and impact. The paper documents the origins of water security policy indicators; assesses their relevance and influence in policy formulation and identifies the reasons for the emergence of certain preferred indices, despite their having several well-known limitations. In particular, the discussion flags the significance of the political advantages surrounding their ease of use and interpretation, rather than their technical merits, as a key factor affecting the continued utilization and influence of specific indicators in environmental policy and planning.