Governing environmental change in international river basins: the role of river basin organizations

Abstract

Environmental change such as variability in water availability, extreme events like floods and droughts, or water pollution pose a serious challenge to the effective management of internationally shared water resources. River basin organizations (RBOs) play an important role in addressing such challenges, developing responses and building resilience. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ability of RBOs to respond to changes by identifying institutional mechanisms and management practices that have been established by the respective institutions to react to transformations in the basins’ environment. Drawing on the literature of neo-institutionalism and hydropolitics, an analytical framework is developed that includes the following potential determinants for adaptive capacity: membership structure, functional scope, decision-making mechanisms, data and information sharing, dispute-resolution mechanisms, finances and donor support. Subsequently, the framework is applied to two case studies, the Okavango and the Mekong Basin. It is found that the inclusion of adaptation mechanisms contributes to ensuring river basins’ resilience to environmental change while the lack of RBO-internal adaptation mechanisms can hamper resilience and threaten sustainable development. Among these, the membership structure, functional scope as well as data and information-sharing mechanisms are particularly important for building the basis for long-term resilience to change.

Keywords:

• Water resources management
• environmental and social change
• adaptation
• institutions
• river basin organizations
• Mekong
• Okavango

Notes

The concept of IWRM has become very popular among water managers in the last decades. IWRM supporters seek to manage waters in an integrated manner (beyond sectoral borders and including all stakeholders) along the waters’ natural borders (e.g. at the basin scale) and combining sustainable water management/protection of ecosystems with socioeconomic development issues.

While it is acknowledged that some RBOs governing a single-specific issue have been successful in some basins (e.g. the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine), it needs to be noted that in such cases, other RBOs do cover other (non-navigational) issues in the respective basin, thus ensuring integrated river basin governance in spite of an institutional separation of issues.

Also Botswana had developed plans to use the river resources in the early 1990s, including the Southern Okavango Integrated Water Development Project which foresaw water abstraction for large-scale irrigation and improved water supplies for delta communities. The plans were, however, suspended when local and international environmental organizations demonstrated great resistance. Angola during the 1970s identified a number of possible sites for hydro dams that have, however, never been realized (Scudder 2008).

Agreement Between the Governments of the Republic of Angola, the Republic of Botswana, and the Republic of Namibia on the Establishment of a permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM), signed on September 15, 1994, Windhoek, Namibia.

Agreement Between the Governments of the Republic of Angola, the Republic of Botswana, and the Republic of Namibia on The Organisational Structure for the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission (OKACOM), signed on April 17, 2007, Maun, Botswana.

NCUs are informal management units linking project coordination at OKACOM level with the national level of the member countries.

Consequences of severe floods are already altering the country's development opportunities. For instance, floods in 2000, 2001 and 2002 have reduced the annual value of Vietnam's agricultural production in the delta by US$200 to 300 million (MRC 2010, p. 91).

Agreement on the Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin, signed on April 4, 1995, Chiang Rai, Thailand.

The history of joint flood management and, especially, forecasting is much longer in the LMB. Following severe floods in 1966, member states of the Mekong Committee (MC) established a forecasting system which was operational in the early 1970s. Further improvements were made in the late 1970s, following a devastating flood in 1978. FMMP is thus built on a history of cooperation among LMB riparian states in the field of flood management, acknowledging the benefits of joint efforts in managing and mitigating the floods of a transboundary river.

(1) The Regional Flood Management and Mitigation Center, (2) Structural Measures and Flood Proofing, (3) Transboundary Issues, (4) Emergency Management, and (5) Land Use (MRC 2002, p. 6).

These four main outcomes of MRC CCAI are (1) adaptation planning and implementation is piloted and demonstrated throughout the region; (2) improved capacity to manage and adapt to climate change at different levels; (3) strategies and plans for adaptation at various levels are in place and/or regularly updated and integrated with appropriate development plans, with implementation monitored and reported on a regular basis; and (4) regional cooperation, exchange and learning implemented through partnerships (MRC 2009d, p. 16).

This includes the development of assessment tools for hydropower impacts on various sectors, including, for instance, the study of barrier effects of hydropower dams to fish migration, the analysis of specific design requirements for locks in order to ensure navigation on the river. This includes the acquisition, collection and analysis of hydropower-related data within the MRC, at the disposal of stakeholders in the basin.

In this context, several binding principles have been established: data and information exchange should be arranged in an efficient, equitable, reciprocal and cost effective manner; member states will provide data and information to MRCS on issues concerning water resources, topography, natural resources, agriculture, navigation, flood, infrastructure, urbanization, environment, administrative boundaries, socioeconomic development and tourism; and MRC will ensure standards for data exchange and set modalities for sharing.

Interestingly, in the MRC institutional dispute resolution comes before bilateral negotiations among the conflicting parties, thus structuring the dispute resolution the opposite way of most other RBOs. This is, however, not the place to further investigate whether this particularity in dispute resolution significantly affects MRC's overall effectiveness with regard to adaptation.

Member contributions are to be increased by 10% each year until 2014 in order to ensure that financial requirements for the core functions, estimated at about US$2 million, are covered entirely by member states. Programme funding, however, will remain dependent on donor funding until, at least, 2030 (MRC 2009c).