Shared Watercourses and Water Security in South Asia: Challenges of Negotiating and Enforcing Treaties

Abstract

Shared water resources have influenced South Asia’s geography and history, as well as riparians’ responses to the challenges of utilizing, managing, and protecting such resources. Because of scarcity, population growth, and climate change impacts on all the riparians, national calls for water security have become louder. Consequently, collaboration among the nations of South Asia for ensuring equitable sharing of such water resources has not been optimal. While most countries do not have reliable systems for data generation, those possessing some hydrological data consider them state secrets, restricting their exchange. Even when treaty obligations exist, data-sharing practices are ad hoc, and the range of information shared is limited. Thus, negotiating new transboundary water treaties amongst South Asia’s riparian countries has become a daunting task, and enforcing existing ones remains a real challenge.

Collective deliberation or just the state (in)action: how do we change the hydrodiplomacy landscape in South Asia?

“…India and Pakistan are muddled with the increasing issue of water scarcity, Bhutan and Nepal are struggling with the poor governance of water resources, and Bangladesh's dilemma is with managing the water flow as most of the surface water flows into the country from external sources (Khalid et al, 2014;Shan et al, 2020). Several plans by state governments for constructing hydropower infrastructure to ensure water and energy security further complicate the situation (Salman & Uprety, 2018). These developmental plans are often considered threats by downstream riparians as, in the majority of the cases, such plans and decisions are unilateral, with no joint planning, financing, or management (Vij et al, 2020a), further leading to an air of speculation ripe with perceived and actual threats (Salman & Uprety, 2018).…”

“…Several plans by state governments for constructing hydropower infrastructure to ensure water and energy security further complicate the situation (Salman & Uprety, 2018). These developmental plans are often considered threats by downstream riparians as, in the majority of the cases, such plans and decisions are unilateral, with no joint planning, financing, or management (Vij et al, 2020a), further leading to an air of speculation ripe with perceived and actual threats (Salman & Uprety, 2018).…”