Management of Transboundary Rivers and Lakes

Historically, global water demands have increased steadily with population growth and the subsequent rise of various types of human activities. With a steadily growing world population, and mankind’s eternal quest for higher and higher standards of living, there is no doubt that the demands on our natural resources, both nonrenewable and renewable, will continue to augment well into the foreseeable future. Water, a renewable resource, will be no exception to this general trend.

The literature on international river basin management has recently undergone an upsurge in high quality empirical research, with a number of distinct schools emerging. Examples of this include the outputs of the team working on the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database (TFDD) under Aaron Wolf at Oregon State University; the research into global water regimes by Ken Conca and his team at Maryland University; the group working at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO) under the capable leadership of Nils Petter Gleditsch; and the efforts by Peter Ashton and his team working at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the African Water Issues Research Unit (AWIRU) in South Africa. This chapter will focus on specific outputs of these four efforts by using the Southern African Hydropolitical Complex (SAHPC) as a case study example. The first output is the finding by Wolf et al. (2003:29) that 17 international river basins are at risk, 8 of which are in Africa. The second is the conclusion by Conca and his team that there are some doubts on the emergence of an international regime for the management of transboundary river basins that is based on a converging set of core normative elements, via a global-framework or a basin-cumulative path (Conca and Wu 2002; Conca et al. 2003; Conca 2006:106). The third is the finding by Gleditsch et al. (2005) that where endemic water scarcity occurs in a shared river basin, there are substantial long-term incentives for the investment in water management measures to avoid conflictual outcomes.

The Okavango River Basin presents an incredibly dynamic and complex situation. It is a double challenge: first to convey the river’s importance in a policy-relevant way to all kinds of people interested in its management, and second to draw upon a vast literature in hopes of making useful suggestions for the way forward. Four sections follow. The first deals with the basin’s exceptional bio-cultural diversity. The second examines ongoing political economy, environmental, and international constraints to the basin’s sustainable conservation and development. The third section deals with the pioneering shift in the mid-1990s for Southern and Central Africa from a conflict-laden nationalist approach to international waters to the formation of the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM) in 1994 and to a “water for peace” approach. The final section presents some suggestions on the way forward during the 21st century.

The sustainable governance and management of river and drainage basins of the Middle East is of critical importance for economic development in the region. Arriving at a sustainable use of the region’s water resources forms a major challenge in the context of the region’s aridity, rainfall variability and water scarcity. The long-term sustainability of the resource is also affected by a number of volatile factors. These include, for example, conflicting territorial and resource claims, continued population growth, and immigration and refugee flows. These challenges have often raised the question over water resources ownership and management at the local level and between riparian states. Increasingly, however, these challenges are also seen as opportunities to start-up or intensify dialogue amongst stakeholders and institutions and stimulate innovations at different levels.

Finland, which is situated in northern Europe, is very rich in water resources. It has about 60,000 lakes of various shapes and sizes and is a Baltic Sea riparian country. Most of the aquifers are situated in gravel and sand eskers. According to the Water Poverty Index, Finland is the highest-ranking country in the list of the world’s water-rich nations. Only 2.2% of the water available in Finland is actually used each year.

The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) system is considered to be one transboundary river basin even though the three rivers of this system have certain distinct characteristics and flow through very different regions for most parts of their lengths. Not only each of these three individual rivers are big, but each one of them have tributaries which are important by themselves in social, economic and political terms, as well as in terms of water availability and use. Many of these tributaries are also of transboundary nature (Ahmad et al. 2001; Biswas and Uitto 2001).

The internationally shared river Indus and its five main tributaries rise in the Himalaya, carry a very large flow seasonally and have served as a cradle for one of the ancient civilizations of the world. The river basin supports the largest irrigated agricultural area and can be viewed as the birth-place of the art and science of irrigation. This chapter, while tracing the history of irrigation in the Indus, also lists the politically profound changes that engulfed this region and shaped the destiny of one of the most densely populated and agriculturally productive regions in the world. In particular, the chapter focuses the readers’ attention the tumultuous developments of the past 60 years, the conflicts around the Indus waters intricately woven with the political conflicts, partition of India, the much acclaimed Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 between the two successor countries, and how the Treaty has been worked thus far. It tries to capture the present-day events and project the author’s perceptions for the future.

During recent years, numerous events and documents in the water sector have endorsed integrated water resources management (IWRM) and a basin-wide approach to river management. The Mekong River is a good example of an international river basin that involves multiple sectors and actors and thus needs integrated management. The Mekong River Commission (MRC) has partly adopted this task, but faces many constraints such as the absence of the two upstream countries.

At first glance, shared basins should rank high on China’s agenda. Just over one-third of the country’s land area, 3,200,000 km², lies in 19 international river basins (Gleick 2000: 249).¹ Only Russia (8 million km²), the US (6 million km²) and Brazil (5 million km²) have a greater basin area. With the notable exception of its long and arid interface with Mongolia, China shares a river basin along most of its 22,000 km land border with 14 countries and two special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau) (Fig. 9.1).

Management of the shared waters of the Great Lakes has been a matter of concern in relations between Canada and the United States for more than 100 years. How the two countries have addressed water management conflicts reflects many factors, including their history, commonalities and differences in their legal and political systems, evolution of the larger binational relationship, economic integration, each country’s domestic political priorities and environmental agendas, among others.

The Río de la Plata drainage basin is one of the five greatest drainage basins in the world with special particularities to be recognized and admired. It is formed by the discharge of waters from five countries — Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Bolivia and Paraguay — extending over some 3,100,000 km².¹ The basin as a whole has a mean annual precipitation of 1,100 mm ranging from desert zones in the Upper Bermejo river basin to sub-tropical regions in the Upper Paraguay river. Such a diversity derives from the interconnection of a number of sub-basins. Each sub-basin — the Tieté, Paranapanema, Paraná, Iguazú, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bermejo, Pilcomayo, Iguazú, Salado del Norte, and Río de la Plata rivers — has its own rich characteristics and their confluence extends geographically until reaching the common terminus of the Río de la Plata.² These sub-basins spread over extensive territories of some of the basin countries, and their features will be briefly described to provide the physical characteristics that will introduce the institutional and legal framework.³