Transboundary water management

In this post, I will discuss the transboundary risks that may arise from sharing the same water source. This refers to the challenges and problems that exist when several countries have shares in the e.g. same lake, as is the case with all the lakes I have presented in recent weeks. These conflict risks increase or change due to the influence of climate change on the conditions of the lakes. For this reason, I would like to recapitulate the changing climatic conditions and the impact of water resources.

Climate change is mainly characterised by the ever-increasing variability and regional scarcity. The generally weak institutional capacity must also be taken into account. Studies show that water resources (lakes & river basins) react very sensitively to the changing climatic conditions, as I have made clear in recent weeks. There are regional effects and changes. However, the projections for this century tend to predict a decline in water levels. An example is the Niger River basin in West Africa (Goulden et al., 2009)

Niger River basin

Another phenomenon is predicted in South Africa. At the moment there is already a great shortage of water, but the discharges are likely to decrease. Since the effects are changing, this requires adaptive water management. Regions must be able to act flexibly and to be prepared for uncertainties (Goulden et al., 2009). For water management to be properly managed at the political level, it requires an understanding of events and predictions for the future. 

 How countries with lakes and river basins can solve this task depends on several factors: “different economic resources, social vulnerability, institutional arrangements and levels of inequality within the basin” (Goulden et al., 2009). It can be said that the adaptation of one country can lead to another country suffering. This is precisely where the importance of cross-border cooperation begins, especially when a water resource is shared (Goulden et al., 2009). It has great consequences, for example, if a country located at the source of the river makes almost complete use of its capacity, and the countries located at the outflow of the river have less water or pollution at their disposal. But the problem is that the country concerned has the rights to do so (Thompson, 2019).

Studies show that cooperation between countries can be beneficial, also in terms of transboundary water management, that adapt to climate change. Nevertheless, there may be pre- and post-events for cooperating or non-cooperating. The different power relations that exist between the countries and their effects on decisions should not be disregarded. On the other hand, cooperation can also take place and common goals can be developed (Goulden et al., 2009).

It must also be understood that countries with different circumstances perceive and understand situations differently and assess them accordingly (Goulden et al., 2009). This, in turn, means that each country has different objectives and acts differently. Challenging situations (such as drought or floods) are therefore considered differently and can lead to major conflicts.

Connections between the topics of water and conflict were established by the Political Geography and that is: “fighting over resources, such as food and water, diminished by climate change impacts; and tensions caused by migration of large numbers of people fleeing climate impacts” (Goulden et al., 2009). Further studies are needed to address this issue and to investigate the correlation. 

Nevertheless, observations are made as water wars between countries that share a water source. These conflict potentials are certainly worth mentioning since more than 60% of the African population is living in a transboundary river basin. Half of the land surface is compromised of shared countries (Thompson, 2019). These figures clearly show the importance of dealing with the topic. Of particular interest is the fact that two-thirds of these transboundary rivers have no kind of association agreement.

transboundary river basins

Conflicts mainly arise when there is disagreement on the following issues privatisations, displacement by engineering (e.g. dams) and distribution. These challenges are becoming more extreme as the population grows, development varies and, of course, the effects of climate change manifest themselves in different ways (Thompson, 2019).
In my next post I'm going to pick out an example and use it to investigate the problem more closely.