Lessons From International Water Sharing Agreements for Dealing With Climate Change.
Acknowledging that various security concerns do arise from environmental change and increasing water scarcity and variability – though nearly always short of war – the book focuses on the cooperation-inducing characteristics of international freshwater resources, the treaties that countries have negotiated to resolve their disputes, and the mechanisms codified in treaties that make agreements more or less effective.
Treaty Mechanisms and Cooperation There have been calls for more transboundary water treaties to help deal with climate change and water scarcity, and the academic literature demonstrates that there is indeed a positive relationship between the presence of a treaty and subsequent cooperation in a given basin.
The type of water allocation mechanisms codified in an agreement also matters for treaty effectiveness under conditions of water scarcity and variability.
Certain allocation mechanisms are more effective in dealing with climate change and subsequent water variability.
In particular, basins governed by agreements that include an allocation mechanism that evinces both flexibility and specificity lead to more cooperation among the basin riparians than agreements that are either too rigid in determining the allocation or too vague.
But the Grand Renaissance Dam could provide benefits to Egypt and Sudan.
The Jordan In the Jordan River Basin, the relationship between Israel and Jordan dominates the hydro-regime.
Israel would deliver to Jordan only 25 million cubic meters per year until a desalinization plant was operational so as to provide the full quota.
We use the total renewable available water resources per capita as a measure for scarcity, which is based on the fact that the amount of water in circulation is more or less fixed and the world population increases over time.