Shared Water Resources Management (JP)

by Ruth Vollmer, Reza Ardakanian, Matt Hare, Jan Leentvaar, Charlotte van der Schaaf and Lars Wirkus; UN-Water Decade Programme on Capacity Development (UNW-DPC)

Transboundary cooperation on water as one aspect of good water governance will become increasingly important in the future. A global legal framework for cooperation on water exists (see Box 1); yet it lacks binding force in many parts of the world. A variety of factors, ranging from hydrogeographical features of the basin to the socio-political realities and donor commitment, determine the likelihood and eventual shape of transboundary water cooperation. Cooperative institutional arrangements can be categorized according their purpose (single vs. multi-purpose cooperations) and their cooperation intensity, including a greater or lesser transfer of authority to a joint body. It must be recognized that cooperative institutional arrangements in this context cover an extremely broad spectrum, a fact that is not always clear because of the different uses of the term ‘institution’. And despite growing attention to and support for this topic, the institutional capacities of transboundary cooperative mechanisms are often weak compared to the challenges they face.

The recent international workshop on Institutional Capacity Development in Transboundary Basins  was the impetus for considering, in this paper, the requirements for capacity development to support
cooperative mechanisms.

This publication comprises the proceedings of the UNESCO Chair Workshop on "International Strategy for Sustainable Groundwater Management: Transboundary Aquifers and Integrated Watershed Management" held on 6 October 2009 at the Laboratory of Advanced Research A, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba City, Japan in conjunction with the JSPS-DGHE Joint Research Project Meeting. The workshop was hosted and organized by the Terrestrial Environment Research Center, University of Tsukuba, Japan and the Institute of Geoecology, Mongolian Academy of Sciences (MAS) for the UNESCO Chair, JSPS-DGHE Joint Research Project, Education Program of Environment Diplomatic Leader, University of Tsukuba, Japan, UNESCO Office Beijing and the Japanese National Committee for UNESCO-IHP. The scientific workshop and meeting was also one of the important activities within the framework of implementation of the UNESCO Chair on Sustainable Groundwater Management in Mongolia.

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6 October, 2009 

Background report to Deliverable 1.3.1, Status: Final, Author: Gert Becker, Date: 18. 6. 2005.

The Tisza river basin (TRB) originates in the Carpathian Mountains in the territories
of Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine and is the largest catchments area (157 218 km2)
among the 15 sub-basins of the Danube Basin (801 463 km2).
The Tisza flows (average discharge of 794 m3/sec) through the Pannonian flood plain
of eastern Hungary and joins in Serbia-Montenegro the Danube.
The river can be divided into 3 main parts:
- the mountainous Upper Tisza in the Ukraine (including the tributaries of
Romania)
- the Middle Tisza in Hungary, receiving the tributaries Bodrog and Sajo from
the Carpathian mountains in Slovakia and Ukraine and the Szamos, Koros and
Maros draining Transylvania in Romania
- the lower Tisza downstream of the Hungarian-Serbian border, where it
receives the Begej and small tributaries through the Danube-Tisza Canal
system and joints the Danube between Novi Sad and Belgrade.
The mean discharge at the confluence with the Danube is 766 m3/s, ranging from
a low 371 m3/s to a 1% peak discharge of 3867 m3/s (Schnellmann 2002, ICPDR
2004).

by J. de Schutter, Rotterdam, October 2009.

Potential conflict areas for scarse water sharing are found in numerous places around the world and vary much in both complexity and urgency.

Usually problems are still solved by force (of upstream countres) and not by negotiation and sonsensus.

Water resources sharing requieres a common framework for decision making, common access to information, openness and participation.

Water resources sharing requires an agreed institutional and legal framework and ways to enforce decisions.

Desision support systems based on joint monitoring data, shared databases and agreed indicators are powerful tools in IRBM.

The Nethelands, with international partners should use its specific water management experience and ambitions to be the international legal centre of world to establish a Global Centre for Water Law and Governance.