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INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON WATER SCIENCES AND RESEARCHUnderstanding the Global WaterSystem for Water CooperationSina Marx and Anik Bhaduri, Global Water System Project, International Project Office, Bonn, GermanyThe imperative to strive for more cooperation in waterissues lies in the very nature of the resource: water is notonly an irreplaceable and non-substitutable resource, butit is also vital to all aspects of human development and ecosystems.As a universal solvent, water is the thread that links allaspects of human and natural systems. 1Global environmental changes which affect these complex systemswith added uncertainties call for cooperation to find integrated andcoordinated responses. A large number of these global changes areman-made. The impacts of human action on the natural processes ofour planet are in fact so immense that a number of scholars argue wehave entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. The termexpresses the notion that nowadays humankind can be counted asa global force in its own right, and therefore must be consideredas a key driver to the future development of all living species –including ourselves. The paradox of this situation is that we tend toinduce these major global changes without adequate knowledge ofthe systems we are manipulating.Global changes call for new and integrated forms of cooperation – such as the jointmanagement of land and water resources for future generationsImage: UN Photo/Martine PerretTherefore, after a long tradition of focusing on local orregional processes in water research, there is increasingrecognition of the importance of properly understandingthe dynamics as well as its different elements and components.Besides the physical and biogeochemical elements,humans play a major role impacting the system by withdrawingwater for household consumption, industries,food and energy as well as adding external matter to thewater, such as fertilizers and pesticides from agricultureor waste water from cities and industries. Moreover,we are changing the course and flow of rivers throughinfrastructure development. Despite these massiveinterventions, we are still lacking sufficient water supplyto satisfy our basic needs and human rights and willcontinuously have to struggle in order to achieve this,given the increasing demands on global water resourcesto meet consumptive, industrial and agricultural waterneeds. Similarly, feeding the growing population of ourplanet and enabling a dignified life for everyone cannotbe accomplished without achieving water security forboth humans and nature through a massive increase insustainable cooperation toward this end.To facilitate the cooperation required for global watersecurity, we need more knowledge on how to managethe global water system: “A prerequisite for selecting theright way to intervene is to know enough to act wisely”. 2The Global Water System Project (GWSP) wasestablished in 2004 as a long-term research projectto understand the role of human induced changes tothe water cycle that had become global in magnitude.Through multi- and interdisciplinary cooperationbetween researchers, the aim of GWSP was to promotethe understanding of the manifold connections, bothwithin the global water cycle and with other socioecologicalsystems. Such knowledge is required to enablesocieties to properly respond to these changes in workingtowards water security. An understanding of the watersystem is also pertinent in terms of water cooperation,since the global connections between different sectors,scales and actors and the challenges arising from globalchange call for new forms of cooperative arrangements.After nearly a decade of global water research withinGWSP, it has become apparent that such new formsof cooperation need to include improved monitoringof resources, cooperation between sciences and disciplinestowards global assessments of the state of natural[ 288 ]