TRANSBOUNDARY WATER MANAGEMENT: CAN ISSUE LINKAGE HELP MITIGATE EXTERNALITIES?

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (01) ◽  
pp. 1250002 ◽  
Author(s):  
KIM HANG PHAM DO ◽  
ARIEL DINAR ◽  
DAENE MCKINNEY

Managing transboundary river basins is never easy and usually involves conflicts. This paper introduces a special class of games with externalities and issue linkage to promote cooperation on transboundary water resources. The paper analyzes whether issue linkages can be used as a form of negotiations on sharing benefits and mitigating conflicts. It is shown that whenever opportunities for linkages exist, countries may indeed contribute towards cooperation. In particular, if the linked games are convex, the grand coalition is the only optimal level of social welfare.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloé Meyer

This map presents 286 transboundary river basins (2016) and 592 transboundary aquifers (2015). 154 countries share river basins or aquifers with one or more of their neighbours. Some of this countries (30) lie entirely within one or more transboundary basins, making this shared resource a essential one. The extent of those transboundary resources highlights the importance for countries to cooperate with each other for the sound management of shared waters. Basin Groundwater Transboundary


Author(s):  
Zhiying Shao ◽  
Fengping Wu ◽  
Fang Li ◽  
Yue Zhao ◽  
Xia Xu

With the rapid development of social economy and global climate warming, scarce transboundary water resources, as one of the basic resources for socio-economic development, have increasingly become the focus of basin countries. To investigate the socio-economic impacts of different water diversion quantity from transboundary river basins, we used a system dynamics (SD) model to reflect interactions between population, water resources, and socio-economic development, and applied it to a case study in Xinjiang to simulate its change tendency from 2011 to 2030 from the temporal dimension. Then, four water diversion quantity of transboundary river basins and four alternative socio-economic development patterns were designed to comprehensively evaluate these impacts of water diversion quantity change on the socio-economy of the region along the river under different socio-economic development patterns. The results indicate that (1) there was a positive correlation between water diversion quantity and the economic output value of the region along transboundary river basins, and the marginal benefit of transboundary water resources would decrease gradually; (2) considering the difficulty of water diversion from transboundary river basins and the protection of downstream water use and ecological health of transboundary river basins, we believe that increasing the transboundary water resources by 20% was more conducive to the sustainable development of Xinjiang’s socio-economy; (3) through the comparison of dynamic evolutions of socio-economic development and water impacts under four socio-economic development patterns, it is best for Xinjiang to plan its future development in the coordinated development of economic-resource scenario. Following this scenario, not only would the total output value of the socio-economy be better than other scenarios, but this also helps to alleviate the contradiction between the water supply and demand, which expected there would be a water shortage of 1.04 billion m3 in 2029 under 20% increase in water diversion quantity. Therefore, appropriate water diversion quantity, reasonable adjustment of industrial production growth rate, reduction of water consumption quotas of different industries and domestic water quota, and improvement of collection and treatment rate for sewage should be given priority in water resources management decision-making in Xinjiang or other arid regions along transboundary river basins.


Water Policy ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 1053-1069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davison Saruchera ◽  
Jonathan Lautze

Secretariats are an increasingly common feature in Africa's transboundary river basin organizations (RBOs). Non-secretariat-based forms of transboundary RBOs nonetheless also exist, and such forms of cooperation have often functioned effectively. These realities drive questions about the rationale and role for secretariats. This paper employs two approaches to compare secretariat-based RBOs vis-à-vis RBOs without secretariats in Africa. First, we compared the degree to which five governance instruments, determined to enable effective transboundary water management, are contained in treaties creating secretariat-based RBOs versus treaties creating non-secretariat-based RBOs. Second, the costs and benefits of six African transboundary RBOs – three with secretariat and three without – were compared based on a survey of regular costs and volume and number of projects. Key findings are that RBOs with secretariats have achieved stronger governance and secured more investment than RBOs without secretariats. Costs associated with operating secretariats appear justified by their benefits. These findings help to lay an improved basis for selecting desired models of RBOs in Africa's transboundary basins.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose M. Gonzalez ◽  
Evgenii S. Matrosov ◽  
Emmanuel Obuobie ◽  
Marloes Mul ◽  
Laetitia Pettinotti ◽  
...  

New dams impact downstream ecosystems and water infrastructure; without cooperative and adaptive management, negative impacts can manifest. In large complex transboundary river basins without well codified operating rules and extensive historical data, it can be difficult to assess the benefits of cooperating, in particular in relation to new dams. This constitutes a barrier to harmonious development of river basins and could contribute to water conflict. This study proposes a generalised framework to assess the benefits of cooperation on the management of new dams in water resource systems that do not have formal sharing arrangements. Benefits are estimated via multi-criteria comparison of historical reservoir operations (usually relatively uncooperative) vs. adopting new cooperative rules which would achieve the best results for riparian countries as evaluated by a water resources simulator and its performance metrics. The approach is applied to the Pwalugu Multipurpose Dam (PMD), which is being built in Ghana in the Volta river basin. The PMD could impact downstream ecosystems and infrastructure in Ghana and could itself be impacted by how the existing upstream Bagre Dam is managed in Burkina Faso. Results show that with cooperation Ghana and Burkina Faso could both increase energy production although some ecosystem services loss would need to be mitigated. The study confirms that cooperative rules achieve higher overall benefits compared to seeking benefits only for individual dams or countries.


Author(s):  
Phimthong Kouangpalath ◽  
Karen Meijer

AbstractThe construction of hydropower plants on transboundary rivers is seldom done with equal benefits to all riparians, and therefore presents coordination and cooperation challenges. Without a supra-national authority in charge of transboundary river basins, coordination between sectors (water, energy and environment) and cooperation between countries largely depends on willingness of the individual nation states and the power relations between these countries. This paper discusses how the interests and relative power positions of actors in transboundary water management shape the outcomes, and what roles are played by River Basin Organisations and foreign investors (especially in hydropower development). These issues are illustrated with examples from the Mekong river in Southeast Asia (Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam), the Euphrates-Tigris (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Kuwait) and the Çoruh in Turkey and Georgia.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liying Guo ◽  
Fuqiang Tian ◽  
Jing Wei ◽  
You Lu

<p>Transboundary water problems are complex systems, which involve interdependence and interconnectedness between elements, uncertainty and feedbacks between processes, and emergence and adaptation through evolution of the systems. There is nearly no way to formulate transboundary water problems in an equation fitting-one-size-for-all. As nature-human coupled systems, transboundary water problems should consider actual stakeholders and parties in context-specific situations as well as natural conditions.</p><p>News media are good recorders for us to have an insight into the transboundary water problems down-to-earth. Local news media are the first-hand and direct reflections of societal values among the riparian countries and stakeholders, and are documentaries of what is going on in transboundary river basins. International news media are also good sources to know about how people in the world perceive transboundary river issues from the perspectives as “outsiders”. Therefore, text analysis of news articles concerning conflict and cooperation on transboundary river basins can tell us a whole story about the past history and on-going “real” life in the basins.</p><p>To uncover the patterns and dynamics of conflictive and cooperative events on a global scale, people usually read news articles, extract information manually in the past, which is tedious and time-commanding. In the era of big data, we collect large news media datasets automatically, and employ machine learning techniques to do data mining out of those news media data. The aim of our research is to minimize manual labor in searching, filtering, reading and understanding the related news media articles by computer, and to provide potent tools for researchers to retrieve useful information  in the related areas. To validate our methodology, we look Mekong River Basin and Brahmaputra River Basin as case studies into details. To apply our methodology in a global scale, we intend to draw a world map with a timeline to show how water conflict, and cooperation occurs, grows, and transforms. By capturing characteristics of the life cycles of water conflict and cooperation, we aim to throw light upon water management in transboundary river basins, provide some hints for water resources decision-makers, and enhance global water security.</p>


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tales Carvalho-Resende

The Environmental Water Stress in Transboundary River Basins indicator focuses on the water quantity aspect and considers hydrological alterations from monthly dynamics of the natural flow regime due to anthropogenic water uses and dam operations. For more information, visit: http://twap-rivers.org/ Basin Stress Surface water Transboundary


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 54-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucile Medina

The Grupo Gestor Binacional de la Cuenca del Río Goascorán (GGBCG) was created in 2007 as an original initiative managing a shared basin in the Eastern part of El Salvador-Honduras boundary. In less than twenty years, the issue of confrontation in this border area has led to a logical approach to reconciliation and cooperation through shared management of the Río Goascorán basin. This article analyzes the ways in which the actors involved understand this cooperation. The initiative that is studied is part of a regional context that is of interest for the management of transboundary river basins. Several elements relevant to the analyzed case are addressed, including the difficulty of cross-border action and shared management, the turnover of the actors involved, and the forms of institutionalization on which the management of transboundary watersheds can be based. Spanish Este artículo se interesa en la conformación del Grupo de Gestión Binacional de la Cuenca del Río Goascorán (GGBCG) en el año 2007, como una iniciativa original de gestión de una cuenca compartida en la parte oriental de la frontera Honduras-El Salvador. El artículo muestra cómo en menos de veinte años, la problemática de enfrentamiento en este sector fronterizo dio lugar a una lógica de acercamiento y de cooperación por medio de la gestión compartida de la cuenca del Río Goascorán. También se analizan las formas en que los actores involucrados conciben la cooperación alrededor de la cuenca. El presente artículo resalta varios elementos de reflexión a través del caso analizado: la dificultad de la acción transfronteriza y de la gestión compartida; la renovación de los actores involucrados; así como las formas de institucionalización sobre las cuales puede basarse la gestión de cuencas transfronterizas que invitan a interrogarse sobre la conformación del GGBCG. French Cet article s'intéresse à la constitution depuis 2007 d'un Grupo Gestor Binacional de la Cuenca del Río Goascorán (GGBCG) comme initiative originale de gestion d'un bassin partagé sur la partie orientale de la frontière Honduras-El Salvador. L'article montre comment, en moins de vingt ans, la problématique d'affrontement sur ce secteur frontalier longtemps en litige a laissé la place à une logique de rapprochement et de coopération par le biais de la gestion partagée du bassin du Río Goascorán. Il analyse également les formes sous lesquelles les acteurs impliqués conçoivent la coopération autour du bassin. L'initiative étudiée s'inscrit dans un contexte régional d'intérêt pour la gestion des bassins hydrographiques transfrontaliers. Cet article met en lumière plusieurs éléments de réflexion à travers le cas analysé : la difficulté de l'action transfrontalière et de la gestion partagée ; le renouvellement des acteurs mobilisés ; les formes d'institutionnalisation sur lesquelles peut reposer la gestion de bassins transfrontaliers, que la création du GGBCG invite à interroger.


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