Five challenges to the future of transboundary water governance

Abstract

This repository item contains a single issue of Issues in Brief, a series of policy briefs that began publishing in 2008 by the Boston University Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future.Pardee 2013 Graduate Summer Fellow Leeann Sullivan uses the Okavango River in Southern Africa as a case study to discuss the key challenges of the future of transboundary water governance. She argues that while local-level management has been successful thus far, climate change and rapid socio-economic development pose basin-wide challenges that communities cannot address alone. By creating a regional framework to help communities tackle issues of communication, governance, financial stability, resource allocation, and data management, water managers may be able to strengthen political and environmental resilience in the basin. She concludes that lessons drawn from the integration of management systems in the Okavango could inform practices for sustainable water management in a more global context