scholarly journals Water-Energy Nexus in Shared River Basins: How Hydropower Shapes Cooperation and Coordination

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phimthong Kouangpalath ◽  
Karen Meijer
Keyword(s):  
River Basins ◽  
Transboundary Rivers ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Energy And Environment ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Hydropower Plants ◽  
Water Energy Nexus ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
The Individual

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.

Transboundary water resources of the world

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chloé Meyer
Keyword(s):  
River Basins ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Transboundary Water Resources ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
The World ◽  
Sound Management ◽  
Transboundary Resources ◽  
Transboundary Aquifers ◽  
Transboundary Basins

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

scholarly journals System Dynamics Model for Evaluating Socio-Economic Impacts of Different Water Diversion Quantity from Transboundary River Basins—A Case Study of Xinjiang

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (23) ◽  
pp. 9091
Author(s):  
Zhiying Shao ◽  
Fengping Wu ◽  
Fang Li ◽  
Yue Zhao ◽  
Xia Xu
Keyword(s):  
Economic Development ◽  
Water Resources ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Water Diversion ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Development Patterns ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Transboundary Water Resources ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Socio Economic Development

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.

Socio-hydrological approach to understand conflict and cooperation dynamics in transboundary rivers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
jing wei ◽  
Mohammad Ghoreishi ◽  
Felipe Souza ◽  
You Lu ◽  
Fuqiang Tian
Keyword(s):  
Hydrological Regime ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Feedback Loops ◽  
Transboundary Rivers ◽  
Socioeconomic Conditions ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Transboundary Watersheds

<p>Transboundary river basins share a complex network of environmental, economic, political, social and security interdependencies. Consequently, transboundary river systems are characterized by evolving conflict and cooperation dynamics between riparian states. The current literature on transboundary watersheds does not identify the key feedback loops between interconnected political, cultural, institutional and socioeconomic factors. This work compares sociohydrological models of three transboundary rivers (Nile River, Columbia River, and Lancang-Mekong River) with distinct characteristics in terms of hydrological processes and socioeconomic conditions. Conflict/cooperation dynamics within these three models were found to be driven by hydrological regime, economic benefits, power imbalance and institutional capacity. By comparing the contextual factors of the emergent conflict/cooperation dynamics across these three river basins, our synthesis study aims to present a general framework that explains how conflict/cooperation dynamics emerge from the interaction between human and hydrological systems.</p>

scholarly journals Quantifying Cooperation Benefits for New Dams in Transboundary Water Systems Without Formal Operating Rules

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jose M. Gonzalez ◽  
Evgenii S. Matrosov ◽  
Emmanuel Obuobie ◽  
Marloes Mul ◽  
Laetitia Pettinotti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Water Conflict ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Operating Rules ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Negative Impacts

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.

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
Keyword(s):  
Water Management ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Optimal Level ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Issue Linkage ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Transboundary Water Resources ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Transboundary Water Management ◽  
Games With Externalities

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.

Conflict and Cooperation Analysis on Transboundary River Basins Using News Media Text Mining Approach

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liying Guo ◽  
Fuqiang Tian ◽  
Jing Wei ◽  
You Lu
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Water Conflict ◽  
Transboundary Water ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Conflict And Cooperation ◽  
The Past ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Water Problems

<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>

scholarly journals How downstream sub-basins depend on upstream inflows to avoid scarcity: typology and global analysis of transboundary rivers

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hafsa Ahmed Munia ◽  
Joseph Guillaume ◽  
Naho Mirumachi ◽  
Yoshihide Wada ◽  
Kummu Matti
Keyword(s):  
Water Use ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Global Analysis ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Transboundary Rivers ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Local Water

Abstract. Countries sharing river basins are often dependent upon water originating outside their boundaries; meaning that without that upstream water, water scarcity may occur, with flow-on implications for water use and management. We develop a formalisation of this concept using water stress and shortage as indicators of water scarcity, and including both persistent and occasional scarcity. Dependency occurs if water from upstream is needed to avoid either persistent or occasional water scarcity. This can be diagnosed by comparing different types of water availability on which a sub-basin relies, starting with reliable local runoff (available even in a dry year), followed by less reliable local water (available in the wet year), reliable dry year inflows from possible upstream area, and finally less reliable wet year inflows from upstream. At the same time, possible upstream water withdrawals reduce available water downstream, influencing the latter two water availabilities. In this paper, we further present a typology describing how scarcity and dependency evolve in transboundary river basins, and use this typology for a global analysis of transboundary river basins at the scale of sub-basin areas (SBAs). Four groups of SBAs are identified that experience scarcity and dependency differently depending on their i) location in the basin, and ii) hydro-climate characteristics, specifically the level of reliable support provided by natural upstream inflows. Each group has its own set of transitions in scarcity and dependency category, driven by changes in local water demand and/or upstream withdrawals. Our results show that almost one billion people (33 % of the total transboundary population) live in SBAs that are dependent on upstream water to avoid stress because of their own water use, while 500 million people (17 % of the total transboundary population) live in SBAs dependent on upstream water to avoid possible shortage. The identification of groups and their transitions enables discussion of the pathways SBAs might take in future, potentially contributing to further refined analysis of inter and intrabasin hydro-political power relations and strategic planning of management practices in transboundary basins.

Exploring the Politics of Institutional Fragmentation in Transboundary River Basins

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Bréthaut ◽  
Laura Turley
Keyword(s):  
River Basins ◽  
Transboundary Rivers ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Institutional Fit ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Regulatory Frameworks ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Independent Decision ◽  
Institutional Fragmentation

Institutional fragmentation has been less addressed by research when considering the specific context of transboundary river basins, settings that are often characterized by multiple regulatory frameworks as well as by a great range of uses and users of the river that intervene at different institutional levels. Considering that such contexts represent fertile ground for reinforced use rivalries and exacerbated power relations, it is key to focus on the very nature and results of such institutional fragmentation; in other words, it is necessary to explore the politics of institutional fragmentation in transboundary rivers. Three main bodies of literature are suggested as insightful perspectives to provide enhanced understanding of such contexts: (a) institutional fit literature: challenges of fits between institutions and ecosystems, (b) legal pluralism: interplay and co-existence of different normative orders, (c) polycentric governance: coordination modalities between different and independent decision-making centers.

Environmental Water Stress in Transboundary River Basins

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tales Carvalho-Resende
Keyword(s):  
Water Stress ◽  
Surface Water ◽  
Environmental Water ◽  
River Basins ◽  
Water Quantity ◽  
Natural Flow Regime ◽  
Transboundary River ◽  
Transboundary River Basins ◽  
Natural Flow ◽  
Water Uses

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

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