Scarperation : an empirical inquiry into the role of scarcity in fostering cooperation between international river riparians

The environment and security literature has argued that freshwater scarcity often leads to inter-state conflict, and possibly acute violence. The contention, however, ignores the long history of hydro-political cooperation exemplified by hundreds of documented agreements. Building on a theory that considers the relationship between scarcity and hydro-political cooperation, this paper empirically investigates why treaties are negotiated for some rivers and between some riparians, and not others. The paper suggests that long-term water scarcity has a significant influence on levels of cooperation. Additional variables considered include trade, level of governance among the riparian states, and the geography of the river. Findings confirm that cooperation and scarcity embody a concave (inverted U curve) relationship. Governance has a positive impact on cooperation. In addition, riparians may either arrange the use of their scarce water resources via a treaty or trade (and indirectly exchange [virtual]water). Scarcity, governance, and trade were found to be most salient in explaining levels of cooperation while geography is significant in some of the estimates.Water and Industry,Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Environmental Economics&Policies,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Water Conservation

Negotiation And Cooperation Along International Rivers: Scarcity, Bargaining Strategies, And Strategic Interaction

Focusing on the cooperative history of international water, epitomized by hundreds of documented water agreements, the paper argues that cooperation is most likely when the resource is neither abundant (when there is no real impetus for cooperation) nor highly scarce (where there is little of the resource to divide among the parties or the degradation too costly to manage)

The impact of water supply variability on treaty cooperation between international bilateral river basin riparian states

This paper assesses the impact of water supply variability on treaty cooperation between international bilateral river basin riparian states. Climate change is anticipated to change the variability of water supply, as well as its expected magnitude. Previous studies have focused mainlyon water scarcity, measured in terms of mean precipitation or per capita water availability in the country, as a trigger for conflict or cooperation. The water variability measure used here captures both annual runoff variability and precipitation variability over periods of 30 and 100 years. The analysis used economic and international relations data to identify incentives for international cooperation in addressing water supply variability. The authors find that small-to-moderate increases in variability create an impetus for cooperation, although large increases in variability would reduce incentives for treaty cooperation. Stronger diplomatic and trade relations support cooperation, while uneven economic power inhibits cooperation. Various measures of democracy/governance suggest different impacts on cooperation across the basin riparians. The findings have policy implications in the context of preparedness for impacts of climate change on the water sector.Water Supply and Sanitation Governance and Institutions,Water and Industry,Town Water Supply and Sanitation,Drought Management,Common Property Resource Development

Climate change and the institutional resilience of international river basins

In the existing 276 international river basins, the increase in water variability projected by most climate change scenarios may present serious challenges to riparian states.This research maps the institutional resilience to water variability in transboundary basins and combines it with both historic and projected variability regimes, with the objective of identifying areas at potential risk of future hydropolitical tension. To do so, it combs existing international treaties for sources of institutional resilience and considers the coefficient of variation of runoff as a measure of past and future water variability. The study finds significant gaps in both the number of people and area covered by institutional stipulations to deal with variability in South America and Asia. At present, high potential risk for hydropolitical tensions associated with water variability is identified in 24 transboundary basins and seems to be concentrated mainly in northern and sub-Saharan Africa. By 2050, areas at greatest potential risk are more spatially dispersed and can be found in 61 international basins, and some of the potentially large impacts of climate change are projected to occur away from those areas currently under scrutiny. Understanding when and where to target capacity-building in transboundary river basins for greater resilience to change is critical. This study represents a step toward facilitating these efforts and informing further qualitative and quantitative research into the relationship between climate change, hydrological variability regimes, and institutional capacity for accommodating variability.This is the author's peer-reviewed Uncorrected Proofs manuscript and is copyrighted by The Author(s), as accepted by the publisher. The final article is published by SAGE Publications and can be found at: http://jpr.sagepub.com/.Keywords: transboundary, river basin organizations, freshwater treaties, water variability, resilience, climate changeKeywords: transboundary, river basin organizations, freshwater treaties, water variability, resilience, climate chang

Treaty principles and patterns: Negotiations over international rivers

Conflicts over transboundary freshwater resources arise, to a large degree, because property rights are not clearly defined. International water law provides only hints and suggestions as to how states should resolve their water disputes—legal principles and clauses are rather ambiguous and contradictory. But conflict creates the need for cooperation, achieved by means of negotiations, and the specific outcome of negotiations is almost always codified in an international treaty. The work here investigates bilateral water agreements for rivers with specific geographical configurations and aims to answer a fundamental question: how and why bilateral treaties vary in their design? In fact, by considering actual treaties, one can "back out" the implicit property right. (For example, if a downstream state pays an upstream state to reduce its pollution, it can be said that the no harm principle does not stand). This dissertation will examine international freshwater treaties to deduce the nature of treaty remedies used for resolving conflict for rivers shared by two countries. Geography and economics are the main variables used to explore treaty design. This work is important not only because it investigates how particular variables determine different outcomes (by means of hypotheses testing). It will also tell us how international legal principles and property right conflicts are expressed and negotiated in practice and will, therefore, have implications for the resolution of ongoing or future interstate conflicts over a given river. A further aim of this research agenda is to probe the question of why conflict and cooperation over international rivers takes place, and by extension, why water treaties are negotiated in some cases and not others. This more general question will set the stage for the main research goals of this dissertation

Preventive diplomacy, international relations, conflict resolution and international water law: implications for success and failure of the Israeli-Palestinian water conflict

After the cold war, environmental conflicts have become a predominant issue for analysis as a function of state security, negotiation, conflict resolution and preventive diplomacy. Conflicts over water are perhaps one of the most dominant issues in the environment-security dialectic. Specifically, water conflicts in the Middle East are of very serious concern given the aridity of the region, population growth, its relative low development, and the historical protracted conflict that has plagued the region. While the paper discusses issues relevant for global water conflicts, it focuses on the Israeli-Palestinian water conflict (given its centrality to the regional conflict). It considers the historical claims, international legal claims and negotiating positions of the parties. It also makes references to the water negotiations that took place during the 2000 Camp David talks. The paper then shows how environmental preventive diplomacy may be applied to the water conflict in the Middle East by referring to several related guidelines including theories of international relations, conflict resolution and international law and demonstrates their relevance to preventive diplomacy and the Israeli-Palestinian water conflict.preventive diplomacy; Israeli-Palestinian water conflict; security; international relations theory; conflict resolution theory; international water law; up-stream and down-stream positions; joint management institutions.

Scarcity and Cooperation Along International Rivers

Scarcity is often argued to be an important variable associated with explaining both conflict and cooperation over international freshwater. Yet it is the relationship between scarcity and cooperation that deserves additional scrutiny and, subsequently, rigorous empirical investigation. Building on existing literature, this article highlights the relationship between water scarcity and interstate cooperation. A model is introduced hypothesizing that cooperation is most likely to take place when the resource is neither abundant (when there is no real impetus for cooperation) nor highly scarce (when there is little of the resource to divide among the parties or the degradation too costly to manage). Rather, formal coordination in the form of an international water treaty is most likely to ensue at levels of moderate (or relative) scarcity. An inverted U-shaped curve, rather than a linear interaction, is consequently suggested for the relationship between water scarcity and cooperation. To illustrate this relationship, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) test is conducted using seventy-four country dyad observations, an associated scarcity index, and corresponding international treaty observations. Overall, results support the scarcity-cooperation assertion. Future research is needed to investigate this relationship in a more empirical and econometrically rigorous fashion. (c) 2009 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Scarcity and Cooperation along International Rivers: An Empirical Assessment of Bilateral Treaties

Water scarcity is popularly associated with inter-state conflict, yet the academic literature also touts scarcity as an important variable for understanding cooperation over international freshwater. Building on studies that consider the relationship between scarcity and hydro-political cooperation, this paper empirically investigates why water treaties are negotiated for some rivers and between some riparians, and not others. Rather than considering a linear relationship between scarcity and cooperation, this study hypothesizes a curvilinear relationship expecting agreements to emerge in situations where scarcity is moderate rather than very low or high. Additional variables considered for understanding treaty formation include level of governance among the riparian states, prevailing power dynamics along the river, overall inter-riparian relations (measured by trade, diplomatic ties, and militarized disputes), and the geographical configuration of the entire river. The hypothesized curvilinear relationship between water scarcity and cooperation finds significant support in the empirical analyses. Governance, diplomatic relations, and trade are likewise found to be salient in explaining the levels of cooperation. The geographical configuration of the river was significant in only part of the estimates, and the militarized disputes variable was found to be insignificant across all models. Finally, while results confirm that cooperation may not depend on power asymmetries within riparian dyads, as suggested by some theories, the paper does find support for the contention that more developed states are in a position to provide incentives, such as financial transfers, to less-developed states so as to facilitate an international agreement

A Global Analysis of Water-Related Terrorism, 1970–2016

© 2019, © 2019 Taylor & Francis. Terrorist organizations destabilize governments through violent and coercive acts that include the use of water resources as a target. Scholars in security studies recognize water as a strategic resource but have yet to systematically quantify and describe how water is used in the case of terrorism. This paper explores this gap at the nexus of the larger fields of terrorism and environmental security by offering methods to codify types of water-related terrorism events. Using the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, which includes information on terrorist events around the world, and employing aggregate data analysis, we highlight trends over time and space. We found that water-related terrorism is a method of terrorism widespread across most of the world and that water infrastructure is the main target of choice by most terrorist organizations. We identified 675 incidents of water-related terrorism that occurred in seventy-one countries. We identified terrorist organizations with the highest numbers of incidents and transboundary water basins most at risk for water-related terrorism incidents. This collective analysis identifies and codifies the number and type of water-related terrorism incidents that occurred from 1970 to 2016; describes spatial and temporal trends of those incidents; and provides information for decision-makers regarding water-related terrorism targets and associated risk