Transboundary Water Management in Latin America: Personal Reflections

Biswas, Asit K.

doi:10.1080/07900627.2011.610981

Cited by 13 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Even though the role of state actors as the key players in international water affairs is not questionable, it is agreed that their role has been insufficient to understand actual challenges of transboundary water management. The World Bank was mediator in the signing of the Indus River Basin treaty between India and Pakistan; the United Nations Environmental Program on the Zambesi River agreement between its riparians; and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) over the Mekong River Basin agreement (Biswas, 2011b;Eckstein, 2011). The case of international organizations as key player in negotiators between coriparian river basins and the development of new governance scheme is well documented.…”

Section: Countrymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Population growth and extensive and intensive water use for irrigation, combined with drought persistence as climate change imposes new precipitation regimes in the region, are also identified as common challenges (Castro-Ruiz and Gonzalez-Avila, 2012). Industrialization and immigration to the region incentivized by the North America Free Trade Agreement of 1994 have accelerated population growth (quadrupled since 1945) and overallocation of water rights in the region has reached its limits (Biswas, 2011b). Nevertheless, since the 1980s and more permanently since the 1990s, drought conditions and climate variability have exposed the limitations of the 1944 US-Mexico Treaty.…”

Section: The Rio Grande/río Bravo Del Norte River Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

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World Water Supply and Use: Challenges for the Future

Khedun

Flores

Rughoonundun

et al. 2014

Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems

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Section: Countrymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Rio Grande/río Bravo Del Norte River Basinmentioning

confidence: 99%

World Water Supply and Use: Challenges for the Future

Khedun

Flores

Rughoonundun

et al. 2014

Encyclopedia of Agriculture and Food Systems

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“…Therefore, water resources can act as a destabilising or stabilising influence. This impacts how each state seeks to ensure a stable and reliable supply of water for economic development and so how they look to achieve water security [32,33]. Water, particularly transboundary water, can be seen as a security issue as change in the resource, due to re-allocation, disaster or degradation, can cause political tensions, social unrest, and can contribute to armed conflict [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stagnant Rivers: Transboundary Water Security in South and Southeast Asia

Williams¹

2018

Water

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Transboundary rivers are increasingly difficult to govern and often involve issues of national security, territoriality, and competition. In developing countries, the management and governance of these rivers is dominated by a particular decision making group, often comprised of politicians, bureaucrats, and engineers. These groups perpetrate a technocratic paradigm towards the management of transboundary water, with limited genuine international cooperation. The transboundary water situation in South and Southeast Asia is becoming increasingly fraught as the geopolitical context is changing due to China's increased involvement in regional issues and climate change. With over 780 million people dependent on these rivers, their governance is vital to regional and international stability. Yet, the technocratic management of transboundary rivers persists and is likely to become increasingly unsustainable and inequitable. A discourse-based approach is applied to consider transboundary water governance in the shifting South and Southeast Asian context. The result is an alternative perspective of why governance approaches on transboundary rivers have resisted meaningful reform.In developing Asian countries, the state is often dominant in water governance. As a result, water governance tends to be dictated by state-centric thinking and bureaucratic management policies that support the state's role [5]. Even in the era of governance and decentralisations, governments are reluctant to concede sovereignty and so states often retain power through re-regulation. This redraws the boundaries of a state's mandate and shifts power structures without detracting from state power [6].The group responsible for water governance is termed the 'hydrocracy' [2], or the hydraulic bureaucracy [7]. This group comprises of bureaucratic agencies responsible for designing, planning and implementing water resources management, and elite decision makers. The decision makers are those who hold influence and responsibility for actions concerning water allocation, utilisation, and general transboundary water resources management. In the developing world, this group is often dominated by engineers and technocratic thinking. The hydrocracy is, in essence, a state creation, and consequently reflects state objectives and concerns. As such, states can utilise this group to strengthen their legitimacy [7], and the hydrocracy commonly maintains that the state has a duty to develop its water resources [2].The hydrocracy has a history of dominance in governing transboundary water [8]. Its power largely relies on maintaining the cyclical planning-to-construction process of hydraulic infrastructure development. Consequently, the interests of the hydrocracy are often shared by politicians, construction companies, landed elites and development banks. This actor constellation is described as forming an 'iron rectangle' between businesses, politicians, bureaucrats and development banks in the developing world [7]. As a result, alternative groups and interests ar...

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“…For example, in the Latin American region, less than 10% of point sources (sewage discharge, agricultural waste discharge and oil spills) of pollution are managed in an environmentally acceptable manner. However, the control of non-point sources (urban and agricultural runoff) has been ineffective (Biswas and Tortajada, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Non-point sources of pollution are of major concern in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries (Biswas and Tortajada, 2006). In the Rotorua District of New Zealand, nine to twelve lakes are heavily polluted with nutrients (Burns et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%