Claudia Sadoff

Cooperation on International Rivers A Continuum for Securing and Sharing Benefits

Abstract It is generally accepted that conflicting demands over international rivers will intensify. There is an active debate on whether this will lead to “water wars” or to unprecedented cooperation. Framing the debate in this manner, however, tends to cast the concept of cooperation as all-or-nothing, implying that “cooperation” is an extreme, in direct opposition to “war.” This conceptual construct obscures the many practical levels of cooperation that states can undertake to their mutual advantage. It is important to recognize that it is entirely rational that states will always have a “national agenda” for a river that they share with other states, and that they will cooperate if it serves that national agenda. In practice, there can be a continuum of levels of cooperation, from simple information sharing, to joint ownership and management of infrastructure investments. Furthermore, it may not necessarily be the case that “more” cooperation reaps “more” benefits in all river basins. There are many different types of benefits that can be secured through the cooperative management of international waters, with each individual basin offering different potential cooperative benefits with different associated costs. For each international basin, the optimal mode of cooperation will depend on a mix of factors including hydrologic characteristics, the economics of cooperative investments, numbers and the relationships of riparians, and the costs of parties coming together.

Water and sanitation

Asset management planning provides a structured and auditable process for planning long term investment in infrastructure. The irrigation sector has a pressing need for an efficient means to facilitate strategic investment decisions based upon a clear overview of objectives, options, costs, benefits and competing needs. This paper describes research carried out in Indonesia to assess the feasibility of transferring asset management planning procedures developed for the United Kingdom water industry to the irrigation sector. The 6-month study found notable similarities and some differences between the two applications. Modified procedures were developed accordingly and tested in field trials. It is concluded that there are significant opportunities for the application of the approach as developed in the UK using statistically based sampling procedures. From the experience of the study and the field trials the approach is found to be highly relevant and practicable.

Water security in one blue planet: twenty-first century policy challenges for science

Water-related risks threaten society at the local, national and global scales in our inter-connected and rapidly changing world. Most of the worlds poor are deeply water insecure and face intolerable water-related risks associated with complex hydrology. Most of the worlds wealthy face lower water-related risks and less complex hydrology. This inverse relationship between hydrological complexity and wealth contributes to a divided world. This must be addressed if global water security is to be achieved. Using a risk-based framework provides the potential to link the current policy-oriented discourse on water security to a new and rigorous science-based approach to the description, measurement, analysis and management of water security. To provide the basis for this science-based approach, we propose an encompassing definition rooted in risk science: water security is a tolerable level of water-related risk to society. Water security policy questions need to be framed so that science can marshal interdisciplinary data and evidence to identify solutions. We join a growing group of scientists in asserting a bold vision for science leadership, calling for a new and comprehensive understanding of the planets water system and societys water needs.

Coping with the curse of freshwater variability

Institutions, infrastructure, and information for adaptation Coping with variable and unpredictable freshwater resources represents a profound challenge to climate adaptation. Rainfall, snowmelt, soil moisture, and runoff can vary from zero to large quantities, over a range of time scales and in ways not well predicted by climate models. Extreme floods and droughts are the most obvious manifestations, but hydrologic variability can also have chronic impacts. Water security involves managing these risks so that they do not place an intolerable burden on society and the economy (1). We discuss interlinked roles of institutions, infrastructure, and information in managing those risks.

The Challenge of Improving Water and Sanitation Services in Less Developed Countries

This paper argues that there are many challenges to designing and implementing water and sanitation interventions that actually deliver economic benefits to the households in developing countries. Perhaps most critical to successful water and sanitation investments is to discover and implement forms of service and payment mechanisms that will render the improvements worthwhile for those who must pay for them. In this paper, we argue that, in many cases, the conventional network technologies of water supply and sanitation will fail this test, and that poor households need alternative, non-network technologies. However, it will not necessarily be the case that specific non-network improved water supply and/or sanitation technologies will always be seen as worthwhile by those who must pay for them. We argue that there is no easy panacea to resolve this situation. For any intervention, the outcome is likely to be context-dependent. An intervention that works well in one locality may fail miserably in another. For any given technology, the outcome will depend on economic and social conditions, including how it is implemented, by whom, and often on the extent to which complementary behavioral, institutional and organizational changes also occur. For this reason, we warn against excessive generalization: one cannot, in our view, say that one intervention yields a rate of return of x % while another yields a return of y %, because the economic returns are likely to vary with local circumstances. More important is to identify the circumstances under which an intervention is more or less likely to succeed. Also for this reason, when we analyze a few selected water and sanitation interventions, we employ a probabilistic rather than a deterministic analysis to emphasize that real world outcomes are likely to vary substantially.

Africa's International Rivers : An Economic Perspective

Cooperative management, and development of Africas international rivers holds real promise for greater sustainability, and productivity of the continents increasingly scarce water resources, and fragile environment. Moreover, the potential benefits of cooperative water resources management, can serve as catalysts for broader regional cooperation, economic integration, and development - and even conflict prevention. But riparians will pursue joint action only when they expect to receive greater benefits through cooperation than through unilateral action. Economic analysis can be used to make the case for cooperation on international rivers, using tools that will help identify, and measure the potential incremental benefits of cooperation, determine the distribution of benefits among riparians, and assess the feasibility, and fairness of alternative management, and investment scenarios. Where such schemes yield benefit distributions, not perceived as equitable among riparians, economic tools could also be used to calculate, design, and implement arrangements for redistribution. In all of these ways, economics can play an important role in enabling the management of international rivers, helping to motivate, design, and implement cooperative water resources management.