Kai Wegerich

International river basin organizations: variation, options and insights

Permanent international river basin organizations (IRBOs) come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from those which are mainly facilitative in nature to those empowered to act on their own. Although differences in IRBO types may have important impacts on transboundary water resources management, systematic analysis of variation in their structure and responsibilities is scant. This paper synthesizes and applies a typology to determine the structural composition, abundance, spatial distribution, scale and in-basin configurations of the different forms of IRBOs. The results provide a set of options for future IRBOs, and serve to ground-truth and nuance theoretical divisions between different types of organizations in transboundary basins.

Losing the watershed focus: a look at complex community-managed irrigation systems in Bolivia

Water policies tend to misrecognize the complexity of community-managed irrigation systems. This paper focuses on water allocation practices in peasant communities of the Bolivian interandean valleys. These communities manage complex irrigation systems, and tap water from several surface sources, many of them located outside the watershed boundaries, resulting in complex hydro-social networks. Historical claims, organizational capacity, resources availability, and geographical position and infrastructure are identified as the main factors influencing current water allocation. Examining the historical background and context-based conceptualizations of space, place and water system development are crucial to understanding local management practices and to improving water policies.

Is It Possible to Shift to Hydrological Boundaries? The Ferghana Valley Meshed System

The management of water resources according to hydrological boundaries at different implementation levels (river basin, irrigation system, or water user association) is promoted internationally. This approach to water management, especially for the basin, is starting to be challenged from different perspectives: representation within basins, appropriateness for basins in the south, and the challenges of merging boundaries for surface and groundwater sources. It has been challenged only recently in relation to its appropriateness for indigenously constructed (informal) irrigation systems. To these critiques, this paper adds the historical development and originally intended purpose of engineered irrigation systems and therefore calls into question whether it is always possible to introduce hydrological boundary management in the formal systems in Central Asia.

Meso-level Cooperation on Transboundary Tributaries and Infrastructure in the Ferghana Valley

The river basin management approach in the Syr Darya basin fragmented after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. However, this approach had already created dependencies between riparian states, such as transboundary water control infrastructure. At the national level, these states hardly cooperate, but at the province and district level, especially in the Ferghana Valley, which is shared by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, cooperation continues. This paper analyzes transboundary cooperation in the Ferghana Valley. On the periphery, conflict and cooperation still take place on both water management infrastructure and water sharing. The greatest hindrance to cooperation—border control—is outside the realm of water management, but is key given the property rights to water management infrastructure in the neighbouring riparian states.

Shifting to hydrological/hydrographic boundaries: a comparative assessment of national policy implementation in the Zerafshan and Ferghana Valleys

In the literature on the implementation of national policies there is an assumption that these get implemented uniformly within one country. Here, with a focus on the implementation of national policy on shifting from administrative to hydrological/hydrographic principles of water management in the Zerafshan Valley and the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan, this assumption is questioned. The case study demonstrates that national policies are resisted by lower-level bureaucrats, leading to diverse, even contradictory, outcomes of the same policy. The vested interests of a multiplicity of bureaucracies, the power of individual bureaucrats, and the discretional power given to bureaucracies in interpreting national policy are responsible for the different outcomes. The article calls for more comparative assessments across different regions for a better understanding of policy implementation.

Re-examining conflict and cooperation in Central Asia: a case study from the Isfara River, Ferghana Valley

While conflict and cooperation in Central Asia are mainly focused on the larger basins (Amu and Syr Darya) and the implementation of the agreement reached directly after independence (1991), here an analysis of the history of water-sharing agreements in the Isfara Basin is presented. The paper reveals that there have been fierce negotiations and renegotiations even during the Soviet Union period between the Central Asian riparian republics; agreement was reached mainly though engineering solutions that brought more water to the basin. The paper highlights that although water-sharing agreements were reached early on, the technical capability of implementing these agreements was lacking. Similarly, even after independence, agreements had been reached but lack of water control hindered their implementation.

Water resources in Central Asia: regional stability or patchy make-up?

This article explores the cooperation after independence on four Central Asian transboundary rivers. The paper shows that, even though the Central Asian states agreed in 1992 to continue with the basic water-sharing principles, new agreements had to be made. New agreements were only made in basins with large-scale water-control infrastructure, which have transboundary significance or are transboundary themselves. The inequitable water allocation between the riparian states has continued and has not triggered new agreements.

Competition and benefit sharing in the Ferghana Valley: Soviet negotiations on transboundary small reservoir construction

While there has been a regional and international focus on large reservoirs in Central Asia, smaller transboundary reservoirs within the Ferghana Valley have been overlooked. The valley is shared by Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, three riparian countries of the upstream Syr Darya. Located within the valley are many small transboundary tributaries and reservoirs. An analysis of the initial proposals and documented negotiations for four of these reservoirs reveals a changing pattern of benefit sharing. These past approaches call into question the argument that the boundaries set by the Soviets did not matter, as well as the assumption that Moscow as a hegemon planned infrastructure in order to divide and rule Central Asia.

Introduction: Water and Security in Central Asia—Solving a Rubik's Cube

In Stucki, V.; Wegerich, Kai; Rahaman, M. M.; Varis, O. (Eds.). Water and security in Central Asia: solving a Rubiks Cube. London, UK: Routledge

Late developers and the inequity of “equitable utilization” and the harm of “do no harm”

This paper critically examines the Helsinki Rules (1966), the United Nations Convention (1997) and the Berlin Rules (2004), looking at their emphasis on the principle either of equitable utilization or of doing no harm and analysing the effect of these principles on late developers within a river basin. The analysis reveals that these rules increasingly favour first developers. Today, late developers have even less incentive to subscribe to these rules, but instead must either utilize their own dominance or have a powerful ally to develop their water resources. Given the Millennium Development Goals, the existing recommendations on the sharing of international rivers should be revised so as not to favour the early developers.