Water quality in international river basins

Abstract

The major issue of pollution control in water quality management is too often postponed or neglected in treaties concerning international river basins. Deterioration of transboundary waters cannot be dealt with unilaterally, and is often treated by the affected parties as secondary to the primary goal of economic development, even in settings conducive to high levels of pollution. This frequently results in environmental crises.

This paper focuses on the way in which water quality is addressed in seven selected international basin accords. A framework for the structured comparisons of these basins is presented, based on the following four major forces that were found to influence the extent to which pollution issues were encompassed within the accords: flash-points, financial capacities, globalization/regionalization, and political windows of opportunity.

The extent to which the above forces were mobilized to influence the water quality aspects of the treaties that have been studied, varies in accordance with: the severity of the water quality problem in relation to the basins' physical and human settings; the level of competitive uses of basin waters; the level of economic development of each riparian and the co-basin states as a whole; the locational setting and political power asymmetry among riparian states; and whether or not the institutions or agreements are basin-wide. The forces identified in this study are meant to provide some guidance to the factors conducive to failure or success.

Introduction

While water quality has recently become a major issue in the management of international river basins, it tends to be ignored in many international water treaties. Such treaties deal extensively with issues of allocation, and often with navigation and hydro-electric and flood control developments. However, not only are anti-pollution measures absent from older treaties, they are all too often slighted in current agreements, despite the fact that unilateral efforts to control pollution cannot prevent deterioration of water quality. Today's reality is that, even when treaties do include basin-wide regulations on water pollution, for the most part, accords lack the institutional mechanisms to mitigate the impact of unchecked economic development on water quality.

The need for water quality to be included in international treaties reflects the profound impact of economic, technological and demographic change upon the water environment. Until the modern agricultural, industrial and chemical revolutions, the explosion of the world's population and the spread of urbanization, water quality was a non-factor in both domestic and international politics. Even after lowered quality became a major hazard, the general public had little awareness of the issue. Monitoring devices were rudimentary and data accumulation was limited.¹ Moreover, strongly entrenched agricultural and manufacturing interests disregarded environmental consequences in their zeal to use new technologies to maximize profits.

Kovacs (1986)describes river pollution as an integrated, environmental problem resulting, not only from unregulated industrial pollutants and accidental spills, but also from such factors as airborne and other non-point source pollutants, urbanization, deforestation, erosion and intensified agriculture.

The combination of scientific findings that have exposed water pollution hazards, and aroused public concern, has now given political prominence to water pollution issues. Both a cause and a result of this prominence is that pollution measurement has become more accurate, and the identification of pollution causes has become more sophisticated.

Sensitivity to the systemic nature of pollution is greatest in highly developed, post-industrial societies, where anti-pollution measures embrace, not only monitoring and mitigation, but also the beginnings of sustainability policies. As the high-tech, financial service, telecommunications, and recreation and tourist industries outstrip agriculture and traditional manufacturing in their economic significance, the major polluters have begun to lose much of their traditional political clout. At the same time, throughout the world, environmental movements have become an increasingly powerful political force. They have orchestrated broad public awareness of environmental issues, including those related to water, and placed considerable pressure on offshore manufacturers to conform to higher environmental standards in those parts of the developing world to which they have shifted operations.

This paper focuses on the way in which water quality is addressed in seven selected international basin accords. A framework for the structured comparisons of these basins is presented, based on the following four major forces that were found to influence the extent to which pollution issues were encompassed within the accords.

• Flash-points—chemical and oil spills, concentrations of dead fish, outbreak of water-borne disease, and the devastating affect of drought and flooding on water supplies. Public attention galvanized by television and news of disaster on other news media, heightening the sense of crisis and spurring calls for governmental actions.

• Financial capacities—prosperity, as in the US, Europe and Japan, enables wealthy governments to finance water quality projects in their own and neighboring basin countries. Regional agencies and international institutions, like the World Bank and IMF, provide support for projects in poorer countries.

• Globalization/regionalization of industry—offshore operations of firms speed economic development and increase pressures on water sources. On the other hand, these firms are also subject to activist environmental groups within their own countries, which pressure them to adopt better practices in their foreign facilities with regard to the environment.

• Political windows of environmental opportunity—major shifts in national power balance or alliances, domestic political changes, new regional frameworks. In addition, anti-pollution measures may be used as trade-offs for advancing other political or economic goals.

The extent to which the above forces were mobilized to influence the water quality aspects of the treaties that have been studied, varies in accordance with: the severity of the water quality problem in relation to the basins' physical and human settings; the level of competitive uses of basin waters; the level of economic development of each riparian and the co-basin states as a whole; the locational setting and political power asymmetry among riparian states; and whether or not the institutions or agreements are basin-wide.