2020

Assessing the proximity to the desired End State in complex Water systems: Comparing the Great Lakes and Rio Grande transboundary basins

Debora VanNijnatten Carolyn Johns

Scholars from diverse fields of inquiry agree on the need to redesign institutions for governance of complex transboundary water systems to become more ‘adaptive’, and they assume that this will lead to a ‘desired end state.’ However, the exact features of the desired end state are often not clearly delineated, and the relationship between attributes of adaptive governance and the desired end state is difficult to empirically assess.

Exploring Groundwater Recoverability in Texas: Maximum Economically Recoverable Storage

New paper published in TxWaterJournal where the authors used a method for estimating the limits of groundwater recoverability that accounts for some of the physical and economic constraints upon yields in aquifers from Texas

The devil’s in the details: data exchange in transboundary waters

Data exchange in transboundary waters is fundamental to advance cooperative water management. Nonetheless, the degree to which data are shared is not well understood. To gauge this degree, an assessment framework was developed and applied in 25 international river basins. The framework captures the degree to which a set of data parameters is exchanged among countries. A reasonable proportion of surveyed basins exchange some data, but the breadth of such exchange is often limited, and not regular. This paper highlights where data exchange can be improved and provides guidance on how indicators used in global assessment frameworks can motivate this improvement.

Transboundary water governance. Adaptation to climate change.

Guiding riparian management in a transboundary watershed through high resolution spatial statistical network models

The United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians (HBMI) built a stream temperature spatial statistical network (SSN) model for the Meduxnekeag Watershed.

A methodology to identify vulnerable transboundary aquifer hotspots for multi-scale groundwater management

Interested in how identify hotspots at risk of abstraction or reduced water quality?, see this paper were the authors analyzed transboundary aquifers in Malawi, south-eastern Africa

A socio-environmental geodatabase for integrative research in the transboundary Rio Grande

Enforcing transboundary water obligations through investment treaty arbitration: China, Laos and the Mekong River

Ana Maria Daza‐Clark

The study of the intersection between international investment law and international water law is not new. However, this intersection may be better understood through the analysis of specific case studies, regions and/or economic sectors.

An outlier detection approach for water footprint assessments in shale formations: case Eagle Ford play (Texas)

-Saúl Arciniega-Esparza, Antonio Hernández-Espriú, J. Agustín Breña-Naranjo, Michael H. Young & Adrián Pedrozo-Acuña

The increasing trend on water use for hydraulic fracturing (HF) in multiple plays across the U.S. has raised the need to improve the HF water management model. Such approaches require good-quality datasets, particularly in water-stressed regions. 

Assessing the proximity to the desired End State in complex Water systems: Comparing the Great Lakes and Rio Grande transboundary basins

-Debora VanNijnattena, Carolyn Johns

Scholars from diverse fields of inquiry agree on the need to redesign institutions for governance of complex transboundary water systems to become more ‘adaptive’, and they assume that this will lead to a ‘desired end state.’ However, the exact features of the desired end state are often not clearly delineated, and the relationship between attributes of adaptive governance and the desired end state is difficult to empirically assess.

Quantifying the United Nations’ Watercourse Convention Indicators to Inform Equitable Transboundary River Sharing: Application to the Nile River Basin

-Yared Gari , Paul Block, Getachew Assefa, Muluneh Mekonnen, and Seifu A. Tilahun

During centuries, East African riparian countries have debated sharing Nile River water. In this study, authors identified and evaluated appropriate indicators that best describe reasonable and equitable allocation of water to each country

Assessing the proximity to the desired End State in complex Water systems: Comparing the Great Lakes and Rio Grande transboundary basins

- Debora VanNijnatten, Carolyn Johns

Scholars from diverse fields of inquiry agree on the need to redesign institutions for governance of complex transboundary water systems to become more ‘adaptive’, and they assume that this will lead to a ‘desired end state.’ However, the exact features of the desired end state are often not clearly delineated, and the relationship between attributes of adaptive governance and the desired end state is difficult to empirically assess...

Reframing the transboundary water discourse: Contextualized international law in practice

Patricia Wouters, Sergei Vinogradov

Can international law improve transboundary water practice? this study in China explores the possible elements of a reconceptualized approach to international freshwater management. Read more here

Characterization of Surface Evidence of GroundwaterFlow Systems in Continental Mexico

-Alessia Kachadourian-Marras1, Margarita M. Alconada-Magliano2, JoséJoel Carrillo-Rivera3,Edgar Mendoza1, Felipe Herrerías-Azcue1and Rodolfo Silva

The dynamics of the underground part of the water cycle greatly influence the featuresand characteristics of the Earth’s surface. Using Tóth’s theory of groundwater flow systems, surfaceindicators in Mexico were analyzed to understand the systemic connection between groundwater andthe geological framework, relief, soil, water bodies, vegetation, and climate. Recharge and dischargezones of regional groundwater flow systems were identified from evidence on the ground surface.

An overview of Managed Aquifer Recharge in Mexico and its legal framework, Water, Special Issue on Managed Aquifer Recharge for Water Resilience

-Cruz Ayala, M.B. and Megdal, S.B.

In Mexico, one hundred of the 188 most important aquifers dedicated to agriculture andhuman consumption are over-exploited and 32 are affected by seawater intrusion in coastal areas...

Cruz Ayala, M.B. and Megdal, S.B. (2020) An overview of Managed Aquifer Recharge in Mexico and its legal framework, Water, Special Issue on Managed Aquifer Recharge for Water Resilience Vol 12(2), p. 474, 23 pp.

International Environmental Conflict Management in Transboundary River Basins

Ameneh Mianabadi, Kamran Davary, Hojjat Mianabadi & Poolad Karimi

Despite signing a bilateral water treaty in 1973, water utilization in the Hirmand River Basin (HRB) has been a source of dispute between Iran and Afghanistan for many decades. While Iran accuses Afghanistan of depriving it of the Hirmand water due to dam construction in the upper basin, Afghanistan assures that it enforces the treaty. An evident reduction of the Hirmand River flow to Iran in recent years is fully attributed by Afghanistan to a reduction in precipitation in the basin. 

Hydro-energy cooperation in South Asia: Prospects for transboundary energy and water security

-Udisha Saklani, Padmendra Shrestha, Aditi Mukherji, Christopher Scott

See how hydro-energy cooperation has emerged with governments increasingly shifting from bilateral to multilateral energy-sharing agreements, enhancing the potential for regional transboundary water governance.

Sustainable Use of Groundwater Resources in the Transboundary Aquifers of the Five Central Asian Countries: Challenges and Perspectives

-Yu Liu, Ping Wang, Hongwei Ruan, Tianya Wang, Jingjie Yu, Yanpei Cheng

Aquifers don't follow political borders, then, how to manage the transboundary groundwater? In this paper, authors explain how to develop strategies to enhance the protection strengthening international cooperation on transboundary aquifers in Central Asia

Building Resilience Through Transboundary Water Resources Management

The Earth’s climate is changing, affecting society mainly through hydrological changes; floods, droughts, and impaired water quality. Improved water management, specifically water governance, is needed to cope with these changes, especially in transboundary basins...

The exigencies of transboundary water security: insights on community resilience

- Robert G Varady, Tamee R Albrecht, Andrea k Gerlak, Margaret O Wilder, Brian M Mayer, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, Kacy C Ernst and Maria Carmen Lemos

Societies across the globe strive to achieve water security - that is, assure to sufficient water of acceptable quiality for humans and the environment for changing, sustainable societies and ecosystems...

Power in water diplomacy

-Sumit Vij

Interested in exploring the role of power and its interplay between actors in transboundary water diplomacy?

Water Resource Systems Analysis for Water Scarcity Management: The Thames Water Case Study

-MArk Morlye, Dragon Savic

Optimisation tools are a practical solution to problems involving the complex and interdependent constituents of water resource systems and offer the opportunity to engage with practitioners as an integral part of the optimisation process...

Collaborative water management across England – An overview of the Catchment Based Approach

-Rob Collins, David Johnson, Damian Crilly, Arlin Rickard, Luke Neal, Ali Morse, Michelle Walker, Rosie Lear, Clare Deasy, Nick Paling, Sarah Anderton, Chris Ryder, Peter Bide, Ashley Holt

Since 2013 England implemented the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) to drive collaborative water management, now almost 106 river catchments work with cross-sector partner organizations… read more here

Transboundary water cooperation in South Asia: a case of Brahmaputra River Basin

-Summit Vij

This policy brief discussion the conflicts and cooperation in the Brahmaputra river basin in South Asia. It draws from the experience of the Brahmaputra Dialogue, an informal dialogue process between the four riparian countries.

The 1944 Water Treaty and the Incorporation of Environmental Values in U.S.-Mexico Transboundary Water Governance

-Stephen P. Mumme

The 1944 US-Mex Water Treaty is the most important bilateral agreement on water resources between the two countries, read here how this is related with other shared environmental agreements to binational environment management?

THE SCIENCE, MANAGEMENT, AND GOVERNANCE OF TRANSBOUNDARY GROUNDWATER

-ROSARIO SANCHEZ AND JOHN TRACY

Groundwater is the most extracted natural resource in the planet and it provides around 45% of human freshwater needs (Eckstein 2017). Yet, the understanding and comprehension of our dependence on groundwater and its interactions with natural and human systems, is as limited and superficial as the existent — or nonexistent — regulatory and management systems in place.

Groundwater Storage Loss Associated With Land Subsidence in Western United States Mapped Using Machine Learning

-R.G. Smith, S. Majumdar

Land subsidence caused by groundwater extraction has numerous negative consequences and represents a challenge to measure and evaluate. In this paper, the authors applied machine learning to predict subsidence in California state.

Breaching Barriers: The Fight for Indigenous Participation in Water Governance

-Ryan E. Emanuel, David E. Wilkins

Indigenous peoples worldwide face barriers to participation in water governance, which includes planning and permitting of infrastructure that may affect water in their territories. In the United States, the extent to which Indigenous voices are heard—let alone incorporated into decision-making—depends heavily on whether or not Native nations are recognized by the federal government. In the southeastern United States, non-federally recognized Indigenous peoples continue to occupy their homelands along rivers, floodplains, and wetlands

Future transboundary water stress and its drivers under climate change: a global study

-Hafsa Ahmed Munia , Joseph H. A. Guillaume , Yoshihide Wada , Ted Veldkamp , Vili Virkki , Matti Kummu

Managing local demand is a key strategy to alleviate near future water stress on transboundary river basins

Hydrodiplomacy and adaptive governance at the U.S. - Mexico border: 75 years of tradition and innovation in transboundary water management

-Margaret Wilder, Robert Varady, Andrea Gerlak, Stephan Mumme, Karl Flessa, Adriana Zuniga-Teran, Chrsitopher Scott, Nicolas Pineda Pablos, Sharon Megdal

The United States and Mexico have engaged in hydrodiplomacy—a practice of transboundary water management that blends water diplomacy and science diplomacy–for more than 75 years, since the adoption of the Treaty of 1944 and the creation of the International Boundary and Water Commission. We examine six major turning points in U.S.-Mexico hydrodiplomacy to ascertain the key factors in the region’s history of resolving
transboundary water issues...

Impact of Transboundary Water Resources Management on WASH Services in Iraq

The Arab region is considered to be one of the world's poorest regions in terms of water availability and has been also described as the most likely to suffer from this crisis on a global level.

Transboundary water cooperation in South Asia: a case of Brahmaputra River Basin

-Sumit Vij

This policy brief discusses the conflicts and cooperation in the Brahmaputra river basin in South Asia.

The Transboundary Nature of the Allende–Piedras Negras Aquifer Using a Numerical Model Approach

-Laura Rodriguez, Rosario Sanchez, Hongbin Zhan, Peter S.K. Knappett

The Allende-Piedras Negras (APN) is one of the most important #transboundary #aquifer between Mex-USA. See in this paper a numerical apporach of the transboundary nature of the APN

A socio-environmental geodatabase for integrative research in the transboundary Rio Grande/Río Bravo basin (1)

Looking for spatial data for Rio Grande\Bravo Basin? Check out this paper where authors introduced a socio-environmental geodatabase with more than 145 GIS layers. Follow this link form more information

Transboundary water diplomacy among small states: a giant dilemma for Central American regionalism

-Harlan Koff, Carmen Maganda, Edith Kauffer

Effective Transboundary Aquifer Areas: An Approach for Transboundary Groundwater Management

-Rosario Sanchez, Laura Rodriguez, Cecilla Tortajada

Effective transboundary aquifer areas is a method that identifies the area of priority in the aquifer using pumping patterns or hot spots, offering a more effective, local and practical management option at the transboundary level...

Transboundary waters, conflicts and international cooperation - examples of the La Plata basin

-Isabela Battistello Esindola, Wagner Costa Ribeiro

This article details the case of the La Plata basin, a transboundary basin shared between Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. By addressing some cases of disputes between local and state actors in the La Plata basin, we show that even with an institutional framework for cooperation and transboundary water management, conflicts and tension might remain between riparian states.

Groundwater Management in the Borderlands of Mexico and Texas: The Beauty of the Unknown, the Negligence of the Present, and the Way Forward

-Rosario Sanchez, Gabriel Eckstein

The majority of stakeholders prefer a short‐term local or regional arrangements over long-term binational agreement for assuring the transboundary groundwater resources… water quality is the main driver of transboundary cooperation efforts...

A socio-environmental geodatabase for integrative research in the transboundary Rio Grande/Río Bravo basin

-Jack Friedman, Jennifer Koch, Sophie Plassin, Stephanie Paladino

Integrative research on water resources requires a wide range of socio-environmental datasets to better understand human-water interactions and inform decision-making. However, in transboundary watersheds, integrating cross-disciplinary and multinational datasets is a daunting task due to the disparity of data sources and the inconsistencies in data format, content, resolution, and language.

Fresh groundwater discharge insignificant for the world’s oceans but important for coastal ecosystems

-Elco Luijendijk, Tom Gleeson, Nils Moosdorf

Fresh groundwater discharge volume to world’s oceans is insignificant, however, plays an important role for estuaries...

Reconnesaince of chemically vulnerable areas of an aquifer under arid conditions with agricultural uses

Aurora Mendieta-Mendoza, Marusia Rentería-Villalobos*, David Chávez-Flores, Eduardo Santellano-Estrada, Carmelo Pinedo-Álvarez, Víctor Hugo Ramos-Sánchez

Agriculture is one of most important economic activities that requires large amounts of water, which, in addition to changes in climate, presents a major impact on the water availability. Excess of salt and nutrient con-centrations build up damages to soil such as reduced drainage and increase in anoxic conditions in the root zone, as well as decreasing productivity and usable farm lands.

Modified Transboundary Water Interaction Nexus (TWINS): Xayaburi Dam Case Study

-Richard Grunward, Wenling Wang, Yan Feng

The Mekong River comprises six riparian states and supports the livelihood of more than 65 million people. Although the rapid joint river development enlarges the pie of benefits, it also deepens existing conflict of interests and motivating downstream countries to use more power to get better control over shared waters. The purpose of the article is to operationalize a new Transboundary Water Interaction Nexus (TWINS) and interpret interchange of cooperation and conflict between Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam about the Xayaburi hydropower dam in the last 19 years (2000–2019)

A Metacoupling Framework for Exploring Transboundary Watershed Management

-Leandra Merz, Di Yang, Vanessa Hull

The metacoupling framework explores the relationships between coupled human and natural systems that are nested within multiple different scales, such apporach inform more holistic management of transboundary watersheds...

Governing Integrated Water Resources Management - Oliver Fritsch, David Benson - 2020

-Oliver Fritsch, David Benson

A catchment-based management approach, the participation of stakeholders and the wider public, an equitable allocation of water resources, full-cost pricing are key elements for Integrated Water Resources Management...