1. International Water Management,
The Preservation of Ecosystems, and
Human Well-Being
Global Perspectives Capstone
Kynan Witters Hicks
Courtesy of James F. Scott
2. Outline
• Motivation
• Water: International Issue
• Research Question
• Thesis
• Methods
• Ways of Knowing
• Case Studies
• Arguments and Evidence
• Proof of Thesis
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
4. It matters to us
Ecosystems Services
Direct:
- Drinking water
- Irrigation for agriculture
- Hydroelectric power generation
- Recreation
- Spiritual value
Indirect:
- Nutrient transportation and cycling
- Habitat for flora and fauna (fish)
- Climate control
Motivation
5. Alarming Facts
1. Degraded Ecosystems Services
Approximately 60% of ecosystem services
examined are degraded or used unsustainably
- United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
2. Valued Ecosystem Services
Value of 17 ecosystem services for 16 biomes
average $33 trillion per year
- Nature
Motivation
6. Conflict
Insecurity and Instability
"water challenges - shortages, poor water quality,
floods, - will likely increase the risk of instability and
state failure, [and] exacerbate regional tensions....“
- U.S. Intelligence Council, 2012
Motivation
7. Three-part challenge
1. Conserve freshwater resources and
ecosystems
2. Provide for human well-being
3. Mitigate conflicts over water
Motivation
8. Crossing Political Boundaries
“The regions that have been shaped by this geography -- beyond nations -- will
have to respond to this threat collectively or regionally.”
- Sebastian Conrad and Presenjit Duara
Water: International Issue
9. Holistic International Management
1. 1966 Helsinki Rules on the Uses of the Waters of
International Rivers
- International Law Association in Helsinki, Finland
2. 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Non-Navigational Uses of the International
Watercourses.
Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)
Water: International Issue
10. Research Question
How can riparian nation-states sharing an
international watercourse manage for
sustainability across diverse geographical regions
and political and socio-economic contexts in order
to effectively provide for the welfare of people and
the protection of ecosystems?
Research Question
11. Thesis
The extent to which riparian nation-states sharing an
international watercourse are able to effectively provide for
the welfare of people and the protection of ecosystems
depends upon:
(1) the environmental, political, and socio-economic
contexts in which they are placed
(2) the degree to which they implement three pillars of
Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) for
successful transboundary water sharing: participate
actively and equitable, protect and preserve freshwater
ecosystems, and include stakeholders in decision-making
Thesis
13. Context Variables
• Political
- Political integration and democratic decision-making in regional
institutions, policy, and legislation
- Individualism vs. cooperation among nation-states in decision-making
- Water management structure
- Water management in practice
• Socio-economic
- Social and economic trends
- Public norms and values
- Stakeholder representation in policy
- Stakeholder representation in practice
• Natural (Environmental)
- Pollution from industrial, agricultural, and urban waste
- Disruption of rivers’ natural hydrological flows
- Destruction of wetlands, natural habitats, and/or fish populations
Methods
14. Ways of Knowing
Braided Approach:
• Interpretivism
• Annales
• Critical Inquiry
Ways of Knowing
17. Danube River Basin
• Pollution during the Cold War
• Formation of the European Union, 1951
• Water Framework Directive (WFD), 2000
• International Commission for the Protection of the Danube
River (ICDPR)
• Increase in democratic decision-making, government
transparency, encouragement of public participation in
planning
Case Studies
19. Mekong River Basin
• 2nd wave of regionalism
• Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) & Mekong River
Commission (MRC)
• Regional pressure to develop rapidly
• 85% of population live in rural areas, many having
water related occupations
• Rapid occupational change in rural areas
Case Studies
20. Argument # 1
Danube Region
• Extensive
Hydromorphological
alterations (dams,
channels, etc.)
• Extensive pollution
Mekong Region
• Growing number of
Hydromorphological
alterations (dams,
channels, etc.)
• Mild pollution
Both regions face human-caused environmental challenges that
are currently degrading and destroying freshwater ecosystems
and, consequently, threatening human well-being
Arguments and Evidence
21. Arguments and Evidence
Figure illustrates places along the length of the Danube River in which the DRB is at
risk, possibly at risk, or not at risk from hydrological alterations, hazardous
substances, nutrient pollution, and organic pollution. The country abbreviations are
as follows: DE - Germany, AT - Austria, SK - Slovak Republic, HU - Hungary, HR -
Croatia, RS - the Republic of Serbia, RO - Romania, - BG - Bulgaria
Source: International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), " Danube River Basin Strategy for Public Participation in River Basin
Management Planning 2003-2009," 6.
22. Arguments and Evidence
Figure shows the cumulative active storage of dams and reservoirs that have been
constructed in 6 countries It is predicted that the total storage capacity of
reservoirs will significantly increase from about 52km3 to over 100km3 in 2022.
Source: Alebel Abebe Belay, Shah Md. Atiqul Haq, and Vuong Quoc Chien, "The Challenges of Integrated Management of Mekong River Basin in
Terms of People's Livelihood," Journal of Water Resources & Protection 2, no. 1 (January 2010): 61.
23. Argument # 2
Danube Region
• WFD provides legal and policy
structure
• ICDPR provides institutional
structure
• Literature finds basin nations
applying/working to apply
water resource management
based on internationally
recognized principles
Mekong Region
• Absence of legal and policy
structure
• GMS and MRC provide
institutional structure
• Literature finds water
management for ecosystem
protection and social well-
being largely non-existent
The establishment of legal, policy and institutional structures at
the international level are critically important for sustainable
management
Arguments and Evidence
24. Argument # 3
Danube Region
• Decentralization of
management
• Political will to participate in
IWRM
• Challenges exist: lack of
finance, rapidly shifting
responsibilities, etc.
Mekong Region
• Centralized management
• Strong political interest in
large-scale infrastructural
development
• Small scale examples of IWRM
projects
Decentralization of water management and political will to
participate in IWRM influences the ability of national and local
agents to practice sustainable management
Arguments and Evidence
25. Argument # 4
Danube Region
• High and very high Human
Development Index (HDI)
• Increases in democratic decision-
making, government
accountability, and transparency
• Greater encouragement of public
participation in planning
• Increase sensitivity and activism
toward environmental problems
Mekong Region
• Low and very low HDI levels
• Lack of democratic decision-
making, transparency and
government accountability
• Widespread poverty
• Majority of people largely
disempowered to participate in
planning/ decision-making
High levels of individual freedom and democracy and low levels
of poverty facilitate stakeholder inclusion in planning/decision-
making and sustainable water management
Arguments and Evidence
26. Proof of Thesis
• Strong legal, policy, and institutional
structures
• Decentralization of management
• Increases in democracy, transparency
The extent to which riparian nation-states sharing an international
watercourse are able to effectively provide for the welfare of people and the
protection of ecosystems depends upon (1) the environmental, political, and
socio-economic contexts in which they are placed and (2) the degree to which
they implement three pillars of Integrated Water Resource Management
(IWRM) for successful transboundary water sharing: participate actively and
equitable, protect and preserve ecosystems, and include stakeholders in
decision-making.
• Relatively active participation in IWRM
• Greater inclusion of stakeholders in
planning/ decision-making
• Environmental protection projects
Proof of Thesis
Danube Region
Progress toward sustainable management
27. Proof of Thesis
• Absence of legal and policy structures
• Weak institutional structures
• Centralization of management
• Widespread poverty, low levels of
democracy and transparency
The extent to which riparian nation-states sharing an international
watercourse are able to effectively provide for the welfare of people and the
protection of ecosystems depends upon (1) the environmental, political, and
socio-economic contexts in which they are placed and (2) the degree to which
they implement three pillars of Integrated Water Resource Management
(IWRM) for successful transboundary water sharing: participate actively and
equitable, protect and preserve ecosystems, and include stakeholders in
decision-making.
• Relatively inactive participation in
IWRM
• Exclusion of stakeholders in planning/
decision-making
• Lack of environmental protection
Mekong Region
Unsustainable management
Proof of Thesis
29. Bibliography
Beach, Heather L., J. Joseph Hewitt, and Edy Kaufman. Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Resolution Theory, Practice, and Annotated References. Tokyo;
New York: United Nations University Press, 2000. PDF e-book.
Belay, Alebel Abebe, Shah Md. Atiqul Haq, and Vuong Quoc Chien. "The Challenges of Integrated Management of Mekong River Basin in Terms of
People's Livelihood." Journal of Water Resource & Protection 2, no. 1 (January 2010): 61-68.
Conrad, Sebastian, and Presenjit Duara. Viewing Regionalisms from East Asia. Washington D.C.: American Historical Association, 2013.
Costanza et al., “The Value of the World’s Ecosystem Services and Natural Capital,”Nature, 15 May 1997, pp. 253-60.
Cunningham, Mary Ann. "Eastern European Pollution." In Environmental Encyclopedia, 485-88. 4th ed. Vol. 1. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Detroit: Gale,
2011.
Dinan, Desmond. Even Closer Union: An Introduction to European Integration. 3rd ed. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2005.
Hensengerth, Oliver. "Transboundary River Cooperation and the Regional Public Good: The Case of the Mekong River." Contemporary Southeast Asia 31, no.
2 (August 2009): 326-49.
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR). "About Us" ICDPR. Last modified 2014. Accessed February 17, 2014.
http://www.icpdr.org/main/icpdr/about-us.
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICDPR. "Danube River Basin District Management Plan," (2009).
Kaika, Maria. "The Water Framework Directive: A New Directive for a Changing Social, Political and Economic European Framework." European
Planning Studies 11, no. 3 (2003): 299-316.
Kreamer, David K. "The Past, Present, and Future of Water Conflict and International Security." Journal of Contemporary Water Research and Education 149,
no. 1 (December 2012): 87-95.
Krongkaew, Medhi. "The development of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS): real promise or false hope?" Journal of Asian Economics 15 (2004): 977-98.
Loures, Flavia, Dr. Alistair Rieu-Clarke, and Marie-Laure Vercambre. Everything you need to know about the UN Watercourses Convention. World Wildlife
Fund. 2010.
Mekong River Commission. State of the Basin Report 2010. N.p.: n.p., 2010.
O'Regan, Dermot, Caroline Sullivan, and John Bromley. Local governance in Integrated Water Resources Management in the Danube Basin: a working paper.
N.p.: LoGo Water, 2007.
Solomon, Steven. Water: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, and Civilization. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 2010.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Southern African Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Edited by R. Biggs and R. J. Scholes. Pretoria, South Africa:
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, 2004.
Bibliography
Editor's Notes
Pause
Researchers are calling the 21st century the “age of water scarcity”
Human activities since the industrial revolution have started to exhaust our freshwater resources and degrade our freshwater ecosystems
This is currently one of the defining issues of our time and will be in the the future if not addressed appropriately
Freshwater provides a variety of direct and indirect services that we depend on to survive
There are some very alarming facts about our worlds freshwater resources and ecosystems
They are being degraded
We don’t realize how much they are valued. It is hard put a dollar value on ecosystem services but one study estimated they are valued at an average of $33 trillion
Similarly, it is predicted that water scarcity will increase tensions and the potential for conflict in the future
I see our current challenge for managing water as coming in three parts:
Conserve freshwater resources and ecosystems
Provide for human well-being
Mitigate conflicts over water
However, this becomes challenging because the majority of the world’s freshwater reserves are stored in rivers and lakes that cross political boundaries. This is a map of the Danube River in central and eastern Europe, which touches 19 different countries
Fortunately, there have been international organizations that also seen a need for international management frameworks that manage international waterways holisitically and at the basin-level, instead of at the nation-state level.
Two of the most prominent international water management frameworks accepted by the majority of the international community are listed above.
They embody a set of best-practices for water management called IWRM. The goal of IWRM is to adhere to the three primary pillars of sustainability: economic prosperity, social equity, and environmental sustainability.
I wanted to see how riparian nation-states (nation-states sharing an international water basin)…
Can manage for sustainability across diverse geographical regions and political and socio-economic contexts…
In order to provide for the welfare of people and protection of ecosystems…
In order to answer this research questions, my thesis comes in two parts. I will break it down.
The extent to which riparian nation-states can manage for sustainability depends upon…
the environmental, political, and socio-economic contexts in which they are placed
the degree to which they implement three pillars of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) for successful transboundary water sharing: participate actively and equitable, protect and preserve freshwater ecosystems, and include stakeholders in decision-making
In order to test my thesis, I identified two different sets of independent variables that influence a nation-states ability to manage for sustainability.
So, if the goal is to management for the welfare of people and the protection of ecosystems (my dependent variable)
Then, the implementation of best- management principles of IWRM (that I talked about in my thesis) and the presence of certain natural, socio-economic, and political context variables influence this outcome
It was kind of hard to see on the last slide, but here are my context variables. While I don’t have time to talk about all of them, I will touch on a few of them as I go on.
Before I get into my case studies, I want to talk about the “ways of knowing” that I used for my study. “Ways of Knowing” shape how we assign meaning to what we study. I use a braided approach, which just means that I use a mixture of “Ways of Knowing”
Interpretivism – I recognize that the management of water is situated within distinct cultural context, and is going to be different in each geographical region.
Annales - The Annales were a group of historians that looked at history with a variety of different disciplinary lenses. I will be looking at my cases studies through environmental, political, and socio-economic lenses.
Critical Inquiry – The idea that knowledge must be connected to action, and in this presentation I am challenging current models of international water management in order to preserve freshwater ecosystems, provide for human well-being, and mitigate conflict over water
I picked two case studies very intentionally because…
From the research I had already done, I predicted that the Danube case study would be a positive example of sustainable management
And the Mekong case study to be a more negative example of sustainable management
Like I said before, the Danube river basin touch 19 different countries, and is a river of critical importance to the countries that share its waters
Pollution during the Cold War
- During the Cold War, the Soviet Union drew extensively from the resources of heavy industry, which were very polluting to the environment and the river. It is predicted by some that the Danube River will never fully recover from this pollution.
Formation of the European Union, 1951
- The formation of the European Union in 1951 is critically important for international water management in the Danube Region because it encourages political and economic integration and promotes cooperation over international water management.
Water Framework Directive
- The WFD is a legal framework for water management in the European Union that stipulates that water must be managed at the basin-level with regard to environmental and ecosystemic considerations and encourages IWRM
Increase in democratic decision-making, government transparency, encouragement of public participation in planning
- there have been increases in central and eastern Europe after the Cold War, which has had a positive influence on international water management
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICDPR)
- ICDPR is the primary international organization that responsible for putting the policies of the WFD into practice
The Mekong River basin touches 6 countries, and is considered one of the most biodiverse rivers in the world, second to the Amazon River. It provides an abundance of services to the region and it is important that its ecosystems and biodiversity be preserved.
2nd wave of regionalism
- After the Cold War, countries in the Mekong Region that were once a part of Soviet and NATO alliances began to form new political and economic coalitions with themselves
Greater Mekong Subregion & Mekong River Commission – the primary international water management organizations
- promote the development of large-scale infrastructure projects on waterways in order to spurr economic trade, growth
- claims to promote the use of IWRM, protection of ecosystems, but its efforts are largely mitigated partly due
Regional pressure to develop rapidly
- The economies of Mekong countries have be steadily growing after the end of the Cold War, which is largely driven by some of the more economically powerful countries in the region like China and Thailand. Therefore, countries are not as focused on projects that protect ecosystems
85% of population live in rural areas, many having water related occupations in agriculture and the fishing industry
Rapid occupational change in rural areas
- one in every six households have had to change occupation because of declining productivity and services of the Mekong River's ecosystems.
Pollution in the Danube Region is considered the most critical problem to ecosystems and human well-being
Fewer hydromorphological alterations in the Mekong Region but there are already studies that show that major dams in China are having affects on fish populations and the river’s annual flood cycles which people depend on for survival in the lower basin.
Literature finds that basin nations are applying water resource management based on international recognized principles of IWRM coordinated by the ICDPR
The capital of Austria, Vienna, is an example of this and is regarded as an "Environmental Model City" in the DRB because it has coordinated with local government, NGOs, business and industry, and the public to comply with both global and regional regulations regarding water resources policy and management.
- high standards for water pollution control
Political will to participate in IWRM – the literature that I have looked at suggests that countries and communities both inside the European Union and outside of the European Union are willing to put principles of IWRM into practice
Human Development Index – average achievements in health, knowledge, and Income
Greater encouragement of public participation in planning – The ICDPR provides a forum in which select stakeholders and the general public can provide feedback on water management practices and projects and discuss relevant issues
Eurobaramoter
Human Development Index – average achievements in health, knowledge, and income
Human Development Index – average achievements in health, knowledge, and income
