Complexity of Transboundary Water Conflicts

Description

‘Complexity of Transboundary Water Conflicts’ seeks to understand transboundary water issues as complex systems with contingent conditions and possibilities. To address those conditions and leverage the possibilities it introduces the concept of enabling conditions as a pragmatic way to identify and act on the emergent possibilities to resolve transboundary water issues. 

Based on this theoretical frame, the book applies the ideas and tools from complexity science, contingency and enabling conditions to account for events in the formulation of treaties/agreements between disputing riparian states in river basins across the world (Indus, Jordan, Nile, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Colorado, Danube, Senegal and Zayandehrud). It also includes a section with scholars’ reflections on the relevance and weakness of the theoretical framework.

List of Illustrations; Foreword, Lawrence Susskind; Prologue, Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam; Part I The Conceptual Argument of the Book and a Case Illustration; Chapter One Complexity and Contingency: Understanding Transboundary Water Issues, Shafiqul Islam and Enamul Choudhury; Chapter Two The Meaning and Logic of Enablement to Explain Complexity and Contingent Actions, Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam; Chapter Three Bridging Complexity and Contingency: Role of Three Enabling Conditions to Resolve Water Confl icts in the Indus and Jordan Basins, Enamul Choudhury and Shafi qul Islam; Part II River Basins around the World: Case Studies; Chapter Four The Resolve to Cooperate on Danube: Enabling Conditions for Transboundary Water Cooperation, Tahira Syed; Chapter Five Governance of the Brahmaputra Sub- basin: Exploring the Enabling Conditions, Nilanjan Ghosh and Jayanta Bandyopadhyay; Chapter Six The Ganges River Water Sharing Agreement between Bangladesh and India: In Search of New Mechanisms to Meet New Challenges, Ashok Swain; Chapter Seven Agreement on Declaration of Principles on the GERD: Interdependence or Leveling the Nile Basin Playing Field?, Salman M. A. Salman; Chapter Eight Refl ections on the Colorado River, Kevin Wheeler; Part III Critical Refl ection on the Argument of Complexity and Contingency and the Role of Enabling Conditions; Chapter Nine Building a Shared Understanding in Water Management, Bruno Verdini; Chapter Ten Zayandehrud Water Issues: How Can a Negotiated Approach Be Developed?, Mehdi Fasihi Harandi; Chapter Eleven Refl ections on Enabling Conditions through the Lens of Power Asymmetry, Naho Mirumachi; Chapter Twelve Is the Engagement of Third Parties an Enabling Condition of Transboundary Water Cooperation?, Paula Hanasz; Chapter Thirteen From Pulp to Paper: How Understanding Laws Enhances Cooperation and Enables Water Security, Alexandra Campbell- Ferrari and Luke Wilson; Epilogue, Shafi qul Islam and Enamul Choudhury; Notes on Contributors; Index.

Sujets

• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Diplomacy
• Environmental policy
• Public policy
• International relations
• Treaty
• Diplomatie (homonymie)

Informations

• Publié par: Anthem Press
• Date de parution: 07 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783088713
• Langue: English

Extrait

Complexity of Transboundary Water Conflicts
Anthem Water Diplomacy Series
More effective resolution of our increasingly complex, boundary-crossing water problems demands integration of scientific knowledge of water in both natural and human systems along with the politics of real-world problem solving. Water professionals struggle to translate ideas that emerge from science and technology into the messy context of the real world. We need to find more effective ways to bridge the divide between theory and practice and resolving complex water management problems when natural, societal and political elements cross multiple sectors and interact in unpredictable ways. The Anthem Water Diplomacy Series is a step in that direction. Contributions in this series will diagnose water management problems, identify intervention points and possible policy changes, and propose sustainable solutions that are sensitive to diverse viewpoints as well as conflicting values, ambiguities and uncertainties.
Series Editor
Shafiqul Islam—Tufts University, USA
Editorial Board
Yaneer Bar-Yam—New England Complex Systems Institute, USA
Qingyun Duan—Beijing Normal University, China
Peter Gleick—Pacific Institute, USA
Jerson Kelman—Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Greg Koch—Global Water Stewardship, The Coca Cola Company, USA
Dennis Lettenmaier—University of Washington, USA
Patricia Mulroy—Southern Nevada Water Authority, USA
Ainun Nishat—BRAC University, Bangladesh
Stuart Orr—WWF International, Switzerland
Salman Salman—Fellow, International Water Resources Association (IWRA), France
Poh-Ling Tan—Griffith Law School, Australia
Vaughan Turekian—American Association for the Advancement of Science, USA
Anthony Turton—University of Free State, South Africa
Sergei Vinogradov—University of Dundee, UK
Patricia Wouters—University of Dundee, UK
Complexity of Transboundary Water Conflicts
Enabling Conditions for Negotiating Contingent Resolutions
Edited by
Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam
Anthem Press
An imprint of Wimbledon Publishing Company
www.anthempress.com
This edition first published in UK and USA 2018
by ANTHEM PRESS
75–76 Blackfriars Road, London SE1 8HA, UK
or PO Box 9779, London SW19 7ZG, UK
and
244 Madison Ave #116, New York, NY 10016, USA
© 2018 Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters © individual contributors
Cover Design: Amanda C. Repella
The moral right of the authors has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above,
no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means
(electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise),
without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978-1-78308-869-0 (Hbk)
ISBN-10: 1-78308-869-9 (Hbk)
This title is also available as an e-book.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Foreword
Lawrence Susskind
Prologue
Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam
Part I The Conceptual Argument of the Book and a Case Illustration
Chapter One
Complexity and Contingency: Understanding Transboundary Water Issues
Shafiqul Islam and Enamul Choudhury
Chapter Two
The Meaning and Logic of Enablement to Explain Complexity and Contingent Actions
Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam
Chapter Three
Bridging Complexity and Contingency: Role of Three Enabling Conditions to Resolve Water Conflicts in the Indus and Jordan Basins
Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam
Part II River Basins around the World: Case Studies
Chapter Four
The Resolve to Cooperate on Danube: Enabling Conditions for Transboundary Water Cooperation
Tahira Syed
Chapter Five
Governance of the Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Exploring the Enabling Conditions
Nilanjan Ghosh and Jayanta Bandyopadhyay
Chapter Six
The Ganges River Water Sharing Agreement between Bangladesh and India: In Search of New Mechanisms to Meet New Challenges
Ashok Swain
Chapter Seven
Agreement on Declaration of Principles on the GERD: Interdependence or Leveling the Nile Basin Playing Field?
Salman M. A. Salman
Chapter Eight
Reflections on the Colorado River
Kevin Wheeler
Part III Critical Reflection on the Argument of Complexity and Contingency and the Role of Enabling Conditions
Chapter Nine
Building a Shared Understanding in Water Management
Bruno Verdini
Chapter Ten
Zayandehrud Water Issues: How Can a Negotiated Approach Be Developed?
Mehdi Fasihi Harandi
Chapter Eleven
Reflections on Enabling Conditions through the Lens of Power Asymmetry
Naho Mirumachi
Chapter Twelve
Is the Engagement of Third Parties an Enabling Condition of Transboundary Water Cooperation?
Paula Hanasz
Chapter Thirteen
From Pulp to Paper: How Understanding Laws Enhances Cooperation and Enables Water Security
Alexandra Campbell-Ferrari and Luke Wilson
Epilogue
Shafiqul Islam and Enamul Choudhury
Notes on Contributors
Index
Illustrations
Figures
4.1 Overview map of the Danube River
4.2 Overview of OECD Water Governance Principles
5.1 The Brahmaputra sub-basin in South Asia
5.2 Physiographic zones of the Brahmaputra sub-basin
5.3 Relative hydrographs of the Brahmaputra sub-basin
5.4 Land use and land cover in the Brahmaputra sub-basin
5.5 Average annual suspended sediment load of some important tributaries of the Brahmaputra River
5.6 Jurisdiction map of Brahmaputra Board
5.7 Organizational structure of the OGLOBS
6.1 The Ganges Basin
7.1 The Nile River Basin
8.1 The Colorado River Basin
10.1 The transboundary nature of the Zayandehrud basin
Tables
4.1 Countries sharing Danube with percentage coverage in the basin
5.1 Mean monthly rainfall across five stations within the Brahmaputra sub-basin
5.2 Summary reach information including length, area and land use for the Brahmaputra sub-basin
5.3 Relative positions of the river basins of India in terms of per capita availability in 2011
5.4 Present and projected water availability and demand in the Brahmaputra sub-basin including Bangladesh
10.1 General characteristics of the Zayandehrud River
10.2 Water problem categories and the solution approaches
10.3 Supply and uses of the Zayandehrud River since four decades (in mcm)
10.4 The Zayandehrud water budget (in mcm)
10.5 Urban and industrial water uses of Zayandehrud
10.6 The Nine-Point Act vs enabling conditions
Boxes
4.1 Complexity and water security characteristics of the Danube River Basin
4.2 Key agreements and treaties on Danube
FOREWORD
Enamul Choudhury and Shafiqul Islam bring an entirely new perspective to the study of transboundary water conflict. It is not possible, they argue, to identify the common causes of conflict between countries or parts of countries that must share water resources. Whatever commonalities appear to exist, and whatever general theories seem to hold, are likely to be swamped by the underlying dynamics in each situation. The key features of the underlying context—what they call enabling conditions—are crucial to understanding what’s happening in each water conflict. Whatever cause-effect model or general explanation analysts think they have found, regardless of how many conflicts they study, complexity science suggests that every transboundary water conflict is, in fact, emergent. That is, it will continuously evolve as the unique underlying features in each case interact and fold back on each other in dynamic and unpredictable ways.
So whatever might have caused a dispute—countries seeking to assert their sovereignty, rapid urbanization demanding a redistribution of potable water, construction of new energy infrastructure, changing environmental conditions affecting agricultural production and so on—the presenting features in each conflict and the opportunities to intervene will keep evolving. The ebb and flow of political, economic, ecological and other forces are almost impossible to forecast with confidence. Therefore, those who seek to intervene have no choice but to proceed on a contingent basis. That is, they must generate a wide range of scenarios describing what might happen as underlying conditions interact with proximate causes and effects in surprising ways, and they must be inventive with regard to the efforts they formulate to intervene in the hope of resolving a dispute, or moving it in a less contentious direction. There cannot possibly be a “best” method of resolving transboundary water disputes that is likely to work in all situations, or even promise to provide a good starting point. The stakeholders and decision makers in each situation have to share their concerns, collect information together, consult with scientists and engineers to formulate possible courses of action, perhaps undertake experiments and certainly arrange for close monitoring of changing conditions if they want to have any hope of achieving their interests.