Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

S H A R I N G W A T E R : D E F I N I N G A C O M M O N I N T E R E S T / 3 1 9root of some of the world’s most successful institutions. Theidea concerns the distribution of benefits from water use –whether from hydropower, agriculture, economic development,aesthetics or the preservation of healthy aquatic ecosystems –not the distribution of water itself. This forms the basis for theconcept of ‘virtual’ water and distributing water use benefitsallows for agreements where both parties benefit. Multi-resourcelinkages may offer more opportunities for creative solutions tobe generated, allowing for greater economic efficiency through a‘basket’ of benefits. The Colombia River Basin Treaty (UnitedStates/Canada) provides an example of such an approach. Asimilar approach was used in 1994 to form the Southern AfricanPower Pool (SAPP) in which power generated from a hydropowerscheme in one country feeds a regional distribution networksupplying countries without sufficient hydropower generationcapacity. This has been a positive driving force for regionalcooperation and the efficient use of energy. The value of the‘virtual water’ concept in relation to food benefits is discussed ingreater detail in chapter 8.■ Detailed conflict resolution mechanisms: many basins continue toexperience disputes even after a treaty is negotiated and signed.Thus, incorporating clear mechanisms for resolving conflicts is aprerequisite for effective, long-term basin management. TheRhine River basin is a good example of this.As probably all of the examples of hydrodiplomacy involve supportfrom the international community, one may have to conclude that theirencouragement and participation is an essential ingredient for success.Identifying Indicators forTransboundary BasinsLittle exists in the environmental security literature regardingempirical identification of indicators of future water conflict. Themost widely cited measure for water resources management is MalinFalkenmark’s (1989) Water Stress Index, which divides the volumeof available water resources for each country by its population.Though commonly used, Falkenmark’s index has been critiqued on anumber of grounds, mostly that it accounts neither for spatialvariability in water resources within countries nor for thetechnological or economic adaptability of nations at different levelsof development. To account for the latter critique, but not theformer, Ohlsson (1999) developed a Social Water Stress Index,which incorporates ‘adaptive capacity’ into Falkenmark’s measure,essentially weighting the index by a factor based on the UnitedNations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Human DevelopmentIndex. While Ohlsson’s is a useful contribution, he also misses thespatial component. Similarly, neither Falkenmark nor Ohlssonsuggest much about the geopolitical results of scarcity, focusinginstead on implications for water management.The only author to explicitly identify indices of vulnerability thatmight suggest ‘regions at risk’ for international water conflicts isGleick (1993). He suggested four indicators:■ ratio of water demand to supply;■ water availability per person (Falkenmark’s Water Stress Index);■ fraction of water supply originating outside a nation’s borders; and■ dependence on hydroelectricity as a fraction of total electricalsupply.Gleick’s indices, like Falkenmark’s and Ohlsson’s, focus on the nationas the unit of analysis and on physical components of water andenergy. These indicators were neither empirically derived nor tested.The need for an empirical methodologyAnother more empirical approach 6 to identifying indicators ofpotential for water-related conflict or cooperation in internationalbasins has been taken by researchers at Oregon State University ina recent three-year study of all 7 international river basins (asdefined in Wolf et al., 1999) 8 over the period from 1948 to 1999.Utilizing existing media and conflict databases, a dataset wascompiled of every reported interaction, where water was the driverof the event, 9 between two or more nations, whether conflictive orcooperative. Each interaction involved water as a scarce and/or6. For more information, see Wolf, et al. (forthcoming).7. This includes a total of 265 basins for historical analysis. There are currently 263transboundary basins: 261 were identified by Wolf et al. (1999), two from that listwere merged as one watershed as new information came to light (the Benito andNtem), and three additional basins were ‘found’ (the Glama, between Sweden andNorway; the Wiedau, between Denmark and Germany; and the Skagit, between theUnited States and Canada). In historical assessments, we also include two basinsthat were historically international, but whose status changed when countries unified(the Weser, between East and West Germany; and the Tiban, between North andSouth Yemen).8. In that paper, ‘river basin’ is defined as being synonymous with what is referred to inthe United States as a ‘watershed’ and in the United Kingdom as a ‘catchment’, orall waters, whether surface water or groundwater, which flow into a commonterminus. Similarly, the 1997 UN Convention on Non-navigational Uses ofInternational Watercourses defines a ‘watercourse’ as ‘a system of surface andunderground waters constituting by virtue of their physical relationship a unitarywhole and flowing into a common terminus’. An ‘international watercourse’ is awatercourse, parts of which are situated in different states (nations).9. Excluded are events where water is incidental to the dispute, such as thoseconcerning fishing rights, access to ports, transportation or river boundaries. Alsoexcluded are events where water is not the driver, such as those where water is atool, target or victim of armed conflict.