Eco-profile approach in watershed and river basin management for addressing water rights and conflicts at micro scale

In the world, river basins often interwoven into two or more states or prefectures and because of that, disputes over water are common. Nevertheless, not all shared river basins are associated with water conflicts. Rivers in Japan and Malaysia play a significant role in regional economic development. They also play a significant role as water sources for industrial, domestic, agricultural, aquaculture, hydroelectric power generation, and the environment. The research aim is to determine the similarities and differences between the Sagami and Muda River Basins in order to have a better understanding of the governance needed for effectively implementing the lessons drawn from the Sagami River Basin for improving the management of the Muda River Basin in Malaysia. This research adopts qualitative and quantitative approaches. Semi-structured interviews were held with the key stakeholders from both basins and show that Japan has endeavored to present policy efforts to accommodate the innovative approaches in the management of their water resources, including the establishment of a river basin council. In Malaysia, there is little or no stakeholder involvement in the Muda River Basin, and the water resource management is not holistic and is not integrated as it should be. Besides that, there is little or no Integrated Resources Water Management, a pre-requisite for sustainable water resources. The results from this comparative study concluded that full support and participation from public stakeholders (meaning the non-government and non-private sector stakeholders) is vital for achieving sustainable water use in the Muda River Basin. Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) approaches such as the introduction of payments for ecosystems services and the development of river basin organization in the Muda River Basin should take place in the spirit of political willingness.

Under conditions of legal pluralism, conflicts over water are often played out as conflicts between different legal orders, between the law of the state and local (traditional, customary) legal forms. This chapter discusses some of the characteristic properties of water rights and of conflicts over water and over water rights. It starts with a story about a water conflict in West Sumatra. This story is used later to illustrate some of the complexities of conflicts over water and water rights, in Indonesia and elsewhere. The chapter highlights that the rights to control, own, and allocate water and other natural resources are usually interwoven with political organization and define who has the right of socio-political control over water, who has the right to allocate water over different uses and users, and who has the right to use water. They also define obligations of the different holders of water rights. Keywords: Indonesia; legal pluralism; political organization; socio-political control; water conflicts; water rights; West Sumatra

River Basin Restoration and Management is the result of two workshops that took place at the 4th IWA World Water Congress: The Restoration of Degraded River Basins and River Basin Management Using Machine Learning. The Restoration of Degraded River Basins set out to share experience in the institutional, policy, and public participation elements of restoration programmes, the ‘soft’ issues surrounding restoration of a degraded river basin and the development of the river basin plan. The resulting papers include a number of case studies from a variety of river basins in Israel, South Africa, United Kingdom, Australia and Central Europe. The River Basin Management Using Machine Learning workshop highlighted and compared the two different approaches to watershed management: the physically based modelling approach relying on the system physics versus the data driven modelling approach based on exploring the system ‘data behaviour’. The workshop was motivated by the recent rapid advance in information processing systems. These have pushed the hydrological research community to explore the possibilities of using intelligent systems aimed at automatically-evolving models of natural phenomena. This is the discipline of machine learning (ML), the study of computer algorithms that improve automatically through experience. This title belongs to Water and Environmental Management Series (WEMS) ISBN: 9781843395102 (Print) ISBN: 9781780402581 (eBook)

1. Introduction to Adaptation to Climate Change through Water Resources Management: A Systems Approach Elena Lopez-Gunn and Dominic Stucker Part 1: Responding to Extremes 2. Drought and Water Scarcity: Discourses and Competing Water Demands in the Context of Climate Change in Arid Sonora, Mexico Katherine Curl, Carolina Neri and Christopher Scott 3. Adaptation to Climate Change-exacerbated Water Scarcity, Droughts, and Flashfloods: The Khojabakirgansai, a Small Transboundary Tributary of the Syr Darya in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan Dominic Stucker, Jusipbek Kazbekov, Murat Yakubov and Kai Wegerich 4. Climate Change and Floods along the Brahmaputra: Migration Factors in Bangladesh Robert Stojanov, Barbora Duzi and Jiri Jakubinsky 5. Farmers' Perceptions of and Responses to Annual Flood Events in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta: Adapting to Climate Change Impacts Van Kien Nguyen and Kim Alexander 6 Adapting Water Resources Management to Drought and Water Scarcity in Australia's Murray-Darling Basin: Impacts and Legacies of 'The Big Dry' Samantha J. Capon Part 2: Adapting Livelihoods 7. Water Management Institutionalization in the Argentinean Pampas: A Shift from Rain-fed to Groundwater Irrigated Agriculture in the Context of Climate Change Constanza Riera 8. Water for Rice Farming and Biodiversity: Exploring Choices for Adaptation to Climate Change in Donana, Southern Spain Lucia De Stefano, Nuria Hernandez-Mora, Ana Iglesias and Berta Sanchez 9. Local Perceptions of Climate Change and its Impacts on Indigenous Fruit Trees: Water, Adaptation and Sustainability in Benin Belarmain Fandohan and Aida Cuni Sanchez 10. Climate Change Adaptation and Water in Semi-arid Regions: A Case Study of the Limpopo River Basin, Southern Africa Stanley T. Mubako and Nazia Mintz-Habib Part 3: Ensuring Equity 11. Whitewashing Indigenous Water Rights in Canada: How can we Indigenize Climate Change Adaptation if we Ignore the Fundamentals? Heather Castleden and Emily Skinner 12. Equity Matters: Introducing the Capabilities Approach in Adaptation to Climate Change in River Basins in Ghana and Peru Annelieke Douma, Danielle Hirsch, Ken Kinney, and Ralph Lasage 13. Climate Change Impacts on Housing and Property Rights in Nigeria and Panama: Toward a Rights-based Approach to Adaptation and Mitigation Idowu Ajibade and Damilola Olawuyi 14. Climate Change and Transboundary Initiatives in the Jordan River Basin: Can Civil Society Show the Way? Lucy Michaels 15. State Fragility and Adaptation to Climate Change in Water Scarce Areas: A Case Study of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan Humaira Daniel and Zahid Ahmed Part 4: Planning for Adaptation 16. Barriers and Aids to Developing Adaptive Capacity in the Water Sector: South Florida Water Management Case Study Jessica Bolson and Galen Treuer 17. Adopting the Framework of River Basin Planning for Climate Change Adaptation in Spain Elisa Vargas, Elena Lopez-Gunn, Gema Huelva and Teodoro Estrela 18. The Discursive Framing of Climate Threats and Opportunities in the Netherlands' Water Sector Arwin van Buuren and Jeroen Warner 19. Irrigation Water Conservation and Market-based Approaches: Balancing Agricultural and Urban Water Demands in the Face of Climate Change in Jordan's Azraq Basin Raed Al-Tabini, Octavio A. Ramirez, Richard Phillips and Frank A. Ward Part 5: Conclusion 20. Barriers and Bridges to Adaptation to Climate Change through Water Resources Management: A Synthesis Dominic Stucker and Elena Lopez-Gunn

Evaluating participation in WFD river basin management in England and Wales: Processes, communities, outputs and outcomes

Facing Global Environmental Change

For a long period of time, in Tanzania, the management of water resources was through informal traditional system. However, the complexities of the current nature of water resource use tend to overshadow the capacity performance of local informal institutions in managing water resources. There is an inevitable call for redesigning operational structures of the local informal arrangements to achieve good models of management and organizational standards in traditional water uses, enhance rational and efficient water uses, and hence reduce water conflicts. Using a case study of water user associations in Kimani sub-catchment, this paper reveals that water user associations (WUAs) were created so as to modify the traditional systems, in a sense that they are legally recognized, and as such, they have legal supports that ensure their enforceability. In the Kimani sub-catchment, WUAs are the major institutions owning water rights, and therefore responsible for water distribution to their members. They are instrumental in negotiations and dispute resolution between different water users. Despite the good work done by WUAs, this paper reveals that the absence of water rights and good grazing areas for pastoralists, simple penalties to some of the wrongdoers, poor leadership and general management skills of WUAs, as well as lack of conflict management skills of the committees involved in resolving water conflicts, are some of the challenges facing WUAs operations. This paper further proposes some workable recommendations to improve the performance of WUAs in the study area.

As a consequence of rapid economic growth since the transition to a market economy, China has been facing diverse and serious environmental problems. This chapter presents the achievements of China’s water environmental policy and resource management through case studies with comparisons to Japanese experiences. This chapter focuses on water, which is not only a key driver of economic and social development but also an essential element of the natural environment. It first reviews the evolution of environmental policies in both countries to show that they have been shifting from ex post regulatory measures to Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) toward more sustainable and integrated watershed management. It then examines three examples of water environment policies during the periods of rapid economic growth in both countries: the emission surcharge system based on the Polluter-Pays Principle (PPP), inter-sectoral water rights transfer, and Participatory Irrigation Management (PIM) at the rural community level. Finally, policy implications from the case studies and the challenges and future prospects for the post-economic growth and population decline phases in China and Japan are discussed.KeywordsEnvironmental policyIntegrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)Polluter-Pays Principle (PPP)Water right marketParticipatory Irrigation Management (PIM)

Texas is a large state whose water resources vary from relatively abundant in the eastern half of the state to relatively scarce in the western half. In addition, Texas is one of five states nationwide that allocates surface water through a system that merges riparian rights and prior appropriation rights. In some locations and climatic conditions, water rights have been over-allocated, creating a predicament where the legal availability of water exceeds the physical availability. Complicating matters, in 2001, the Texas Legislature established an Instream Flow Program, which conducts studies to identify appropriate flow regimes to maintain an ecologically sound environment. The findings of these instream flow studies could create challenging streamflow requirements that might cause problems for water allocation planning and management. This case study analyzes the full execution of water rights in eleven of twenty-three total river basins in Texas and the corresponding relationship to water availability. Under the full execution scenario, each water rights holder diverts the full volume allocated by a water permit with zero return flow. While this full execution scenario is not necessarily practical since most water rights holders return a portion of the diverted water after use, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality uses the full execution water availability model to evaluate new water rights applications. Using the full execution as a baseline, we created a model to estimate the potential decrease in total water diversions in Texas river basins through the implementation of three alternative cooling scenarios at thermoelectric power plants: 1) converting current open-loop cooling technologies to closed-loop cooling towers, 2) converting all current cooling technologies to hybrid wet-dry cooling, and 3) converting all current cooling technologies to dry cooling using air-cooled condensers. Total annual diversion savings for the three alternative cooling scenarios were determined and translated into human equivalence to show the significance of implementing these cooling technology changes. By implementing these alternative cooling technologies at the plants in all eleven of the river basins considered in this analysis, water diversion could be reduced by as much as 247 to 703 million m3 annually. These diversions can supply enough water for 1.3 to 3.7 million people for one year (each using 0.53 m3 per day). Improvement in volume reliability, the percentage of total demand that is actually supplied over a time period of interest, was also examined to determine the effectiveness of converting existing thermoelectric cooling technologies to alternative cooling technologies that reduce total water diversions. Our results suggest that implementation of alternative cooling technologies at Texas thermoelectric power plants do not translate into significant improvements in volume reliability but can dramatically reduce total water diversion volumes.

随着水资源短缺程度的加剧,可交易水权制度逐渐成为当今世界水资源管理制度发展的新方向.水资源初始产权是水资源管理的基础和前提.在干旱区内陆河流域,产权初始配置要在生态环境可持续的前提下,坚持公平、效益相结合的分配目标和配置原则.通过建立初始水权配置指标体系,对黑河流域进行实地问卷调查,在此基础上对用户调查结果进行专家判断修正,应用层次分析法研究了各分配指标的权重分布.以黑河流域张掖地区为例的界定结果表明,除上游的肃南县和山丹县外,其余各县市的实际用水量都超过了各自界定的初始水权,这种差别为水资源产权交易管理提供了现实依据,为开展流域上游的生态保护补偿提供了理论基础.;As the water scarcity increasing, tradable water rights mechanism has been a new direction for water management in the world, and water markets have been founded in some countries abroad. The initial water rights allocation was critical for water market to function actively according to Corse, which has also proved in recent research on water markets. That ecological and environmental water demand should be prior to be satisfied or guaranteed has been realized and accepted widely, especially for the inland river basin in arid regions. At the same time, equity and efficiency are another two basic goals and principles for initial water rights allocation. As initial water rights allocation is a reallocation of utilization situation in existence, various attitudes should be considered as much as possible. We carried out some questionnaire surveys to users in the basin. Based on the users5 survey results, 12 experts from 5 study fields made further judgments to combine the attitudes of both the users and the experts;we obtain the indexes values by AHP analysis. The pilot study of Zhangye prefecture in Heihe river basin showed that the actual utilization in most counties have exceeded their initial allocation except the Sunan county and Shandan county, which has provided some convictive evidences for tradable water rights among different counties and the potential ecological compensation for the upstream in the valley.

Water, a renewable natural resource that is indispensable both to human life and to economic processes, has had its hydrological cycle threatened by pollution and contamination of hydrological resources. In Brazil, in 1997, Law 9.433 established the river basin as the unit for territorial planning and management of water resources. The proposal presented in this paper has an integrating focus, aiming at pointing out indicators for the sustainable development of river basins. The indicators are analyzed through social, environmental, economic and political–institutional frameworks, supported by internationally accepted methodologies. The implementation of this kind of project requires a large and reliable data set. Thus, we propose gradual implementation of sustainable development diagnosis in the river basins. To begin this process, we selected three indicators—public water supply, public sewerage and municipal trash collection. The values obtained for these indicators were compared with those of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which establish 50% reduction in them by 2015. The indicators were applied to the Guanabara Bay Watershed (GBW) in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a case study.

The concept of “river basin management” calls for managing water resources at the river basin level in order to promote the sustainable use of water resources. Often the concept of river basin management is associated with the introduction of “river basin organisations” (RBOs) as special purpose organisations. However, in many developing countries, RBOs remain underfunded. Fiscal decentralisation involves shifting certain responsibilities for expenditures or revenues to lower levels of government. It usually involves a reallocation of functions and revenues so that functions are adequately funded. Fiscal decentralisation is supported by the principles of subsidiarity, disentanglement, cooperation, accountability and fiscal equivalence, with the latter asking for a congruence of those who pay for, who decide upon and who benefit from public goods. On the one hand, fiscal decentralisation can support RBOs if sufficient financial resources are allocated to them to fulfil their tasks. However, if RBOs are excluded from resources at the sub-national level, it can also be counterproductive and lead to increased competition with general-purpose jurisdictions at the sub-national level. <br> This discussion paper, therefore, asks the question of whether fiscal decentralisation supports or counteracts the funding of river basin management in the case of Mongolia, which has undergone parallel processes of institutionalising RBOs and of fiscal decentralisation in the last decade. In order to answer the overriding question, the paper analyses i) how competencies for various water governance functions between RBOs and other bodies at the sub-national level are formally allocated; ii) the funding arrangements in place for water-related functions of RBOs and other sub-national bodies; and iii) how RBOs and other sub-national authorities coordinate or compete for water governance funding, and what this implies for sustainable water resource use. The paper compares the responsibilities of national and various sub-national entities and assesses the extent to which the principles of disentanglement, cooperation, subsidiarity and accountability are applied in Mongolian water governance. It also analyses the formal and de facto funding sources and budgeting systems of the sub-national entities responsible for water management, in order to assess to what extent the principle of fiscal equivalence is realised. <br> The discussion paper finds that there is still considerable room for improving the realisation of the principles of disentanglement, cooperation, subsidiarity and accountability in the allocation of competencies in Mongolian water governance. At the sub-national level, a high number of actors are involved in water governance, and the allocation of various water governance functions between river basin authorities (RBAs), river basin councils (RBCs), Aimag environmental agencies (AEAs), and governors and assemblies at the levels of provinces (Aimags), districts (Soums) and communities (Bahgs) remains complex and convoluted. Despite a broad division of labour, a high level of overlap exists in terms of data management; monitoring water resources, water uses and law implementation; law enforcement; and to a certain degree the implementation of measures among these actors. <br> The principle of fiscal equivalence is also not fully realised in Mongolian water resources management. In terms of financing water governance, RBAs are primarily financed through the national budget and AEAs through sub-national province budgets. However, uncertainties exist regarding the allocation of water-use fees due to inconsistent legal provisions. In practice, available funds to RBAs only cover fixed costs. Thus, RBAs are largely assigned unfunded mandates for planning, monitoring and implementing water protection. This considerably limits the effectiveness of the river basin management approach. Overall, AEAs have somewhat higher budgets for environmental protection than RBAs. However, the case study shows, for example, that AEAs sometimes do not allocate any funds for water-related projects at all and do not necessarily earmark 35 per cent of water-use fees for environmental protection. <br> Furthermore, problems of underfinancing exacerbate problems of overlapping responsibilities. The inconsistent legal provisions on water-use fees have led to competition between AEAs and RBAs, which undermines trust between the different agencies and makes it more difficult to perform the tasks that they share as well as to coordinate on those tasks where their responsibilities overlap. Still, in the case analysed, recent first attempts have been undertaken to clarify responsibilities in Memorandums of Understanding. While the effectiveness of these Memorandums of Understanding should be subject to future research, they alone will hardly solve the problem of underfinancing. Therefore, the paper concludes that in Mongolia, fiscal decentralisation and the institutionalisation of river basin management are, so far, hardly mutually supportive, but rather competitive processes. It recommends a number of legal adjustments as well as the financial empowerment of RBAs and RBCs in order to support the sustainable use of water resources.

A generalized network flow model has been developed to simulate the allocation of additional water supplies in a river basin with observance of the prior appropriation doctrine of water rights and other legal requirements such as interstate compact agreements. The computer model, called MODSIMR, is capable of simulating complex river basin morphology while incorporating a relational data base management system for efficiently accessing prioritized water rights. Program MODSIMR is a generalized model designed to be applicable to a wide variety of river basins operating under an appropriative water rights system. As a demonstration of its usage, MODSIMR was applied to the Rio Grande Basin of Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas for predicting allocation and use of increased runoff from simulated silvicultural activities on the Rio Grande National Forest. Results indicate that under the current institutional framework, increased runoff would primarily be allocated to agricultural users in Colorado. Computer results also showed the potential value to Colorado of the Closed Basin Project in the San Luis Valley and the possibility of determining optimal pumping schemes for the Project using MODSIMR. Program MODSIMR will be useful in future economic studies to determine the benefits of the augmented water supply under various water use scenarios.

The 2017 Global Risk Report ranked water crisis third among the top six global risks that greatly impact society. While the water crisis is disproportionately distributed worldwide, sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has more people (most of whom are women) who face water problems compared to other regions worldwide. Through the application of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) protocol version 2020, a systematic review examining the connection between gender and water security, rights, and water conflicts in SSA was done. A total of 24 out of 229 articles made it into the final analysis. Previous research studies on gender politics in the water sector have done so in a fragmented way, focusing on specific water security parameters. The emerging findings show that 14 years after the adoption of an enforceable human right to water and about 6 years prior to the cut-off date for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, matters of gender and water in SSA are far from being addressed. Rural people, especially women, still face multiple water-related challenges and conflicts, including discriminatory practices upholding male hegemony in water governance. It is recommended that actors in the water sector precede the implementation of water projects by understanding contextual settings that influence gendered water security. Furthermore, the implementation of the water Sustainable Development Goal (SGD 6) should be done in the context of SDG 5 (Gender Equity) and the prioritization of procedural water justice and governance, access to technical skills, and water conveyance technologies.Systematic review registrationhttps://www.prisma-statement.org/.

Since the issuance of Decree 1729 of 2002, the need for the management of watersheds and the concepts, objectives and scope of the corresponding management plans in the country was established. The final purpose of this exercise is to define and logically and coherently link the key concepts and variables necessary to address research focused on the organization and management of watersheds. In addition, verify the state of the art and determine future research needs. For its elaboration a recognition of the literature concerning the topic was carried out, an evaluation and follow-up of the progress reports delivered by each of the components, the conclusions that came out as a result of the weekly work tables of the technical and administrative teams, the design and reading of a format applied during the systematization of the experience, and the technical analysis of the guide for the river basin development and management plans. A conceptual framework was constructed with the terms of greatest importance to be managed by a team that participates in management processes during the various phases of a study. A clear conceptual framework allows to guide the research, provides a review to decipher and understand the results of the study and facilitates the production of new knowledge and the articulation between the technical teams for the fulfillment of the objectives during the development of river basin management plans (POMCA). Taking as a reference, the experiences lived during the execution of this study, it can be said that it is fundamental that in the preparation and during the beginning of the diagnosis, professionals hold conceptualization meetings so that the different products to be obtained show a joint participation from the different knowledge groups.