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TRANSBOUNDARY WATER MANAGEMENTSusceptibility of 10 river basins of the HKH region to water scarcity and potential adaptation strategiesDGEDGDEDDGUPSyr Darya (SD)GDFPRPEDUPDGFPGDRPUPAmu Darya (AD)RPYellow (YE)FPDGDGIndus (IN)EDGDPopulation (million)< 1415 - 2324 - 2526 - 4142 - 5152 - 7071 - 162163 - 203204 - 432433 - 601EDUPFPGDRPEDUPGanges (GA)DGPotential causes for future scarcityDG = dependence on glacier meltGD = groundwater depletionRP = reservoir potentialFP = future precipitationED = projected economic development in termsof GDP and population growthFPGDRPUPFPEDUPRPBrahmaputra (BR)DGIrrawaddy (IR)GDFPSalween (SA)RPDG Mekong (ME)EDEDGDUPFPRPYangtze (YA)UPDGFPEDUPGDRP´0 250 500 1,000 1,500KilometresRadar charts show qualitative ranking between low susceptibility and/or large coping capacity (1) and high susceptibility and/or small coping capacity (5).DGFPGDRPSource: By permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Geoscience (Immerzeel WW, Bierkens MFP (2012) Asia’s water balance. Nature Geoscience 5:841-842), © 2012while helping to maintain a steady supply of water for downstreamusers who are often across borders, especially in the HKH region.In conclusion, the HKH region holds vast reservoirs of water andthe origins of 10 major river systems. Climate change, directly throughimpacts on temperature and precipitation regimes and indirectlythrough changes in the cryosphere, is likely to have a serious impact onthe region’s water supply and pose a significant threat to environmentalsustainability and economic development. Regional water cooperationoffers an important mechanism to support natural resource management.The ideal of a transboundary river basin organization may not beenvisaged in the immediate future because of the geopolitical realitiesand the inherent complexity of coordinating the activities of the variousactors involved in shared water systems. However, important steps canstill be made based on recent global and regional processes and conventions.Development of the regional knowledge base on climate changeimpact, green hydropower development, flood risk reduction, earlywarning and sharing of information and knowledge provide promisingentry points for fostering water cooperation in the region. Knowledgehubs such as ICIMOD offer avenues for bringing together commercial,academic, government and civil society organizations to generate technicallysuperior schemes, help secure financial resources and facilitatebroader water cooperation.ICIMOD: fostering regional cooperation on waterThe HKH Hydrological Cycle Observation System (HKH-HYCOS)initiative aims to strengthen hydrometeorological monitoringcapacity and is establishing a regional flood information systembased on state-of-the-art communication and informationdissemination technology to save lives and property in theregion. By early 2013 the project had upgraded 24 realtimeobservation networks in four countries (Bangladesh,Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan) and established an efficientdata transmission and acquisition system to enable accurateforecasting and effective early warning in the region.The Koshi Basin Programme, an example of ICIMOD’stransboundary river basin approach, promotes cooperationamong China, India and Nepal to maximize benefits such asirrigation and hydropower while minimizing adverse events suchas floods and landslides. The programme fosters interactionand reconciliation of the interests of the various actors at thebasin scale. Its approach to river basin management integratesscientific, economic, social and ecological knowledge to supportpolicy and decision-making to promote the sustainable use oftransboundary water resources and develop ‘win-win’ solutionsthat can be supported by all three countries. Particular focus isgiven to issues of gender and inequality and their linkages todrivers of change and river basin management, as well as to thepotential of employing incentive-based mechanisms to improvewater use efficiency and productivity.[ 69 ]