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CHAPTER 4

Quantity and Quality: Strengthening of the Knowledge-Based

and Data-Driven Decision Making and Cooperation for Security
and Peace

Water quantity and quality questions are fundamental both in supply less than the minimum amount to the US during an
national policy making and at all levels of international water extraordinary drought in a five-year period. Mexico incurs a
cooperation. Due to the scope of the present report, we limit our “water debt” during the dry period that has to be repaid by
consideration of these questions to those relevant to maintaining increasing water flows in the next five-year cycle.
peace and security. However, it is important to understand that
transboundary water cooperation frameworks offer important As the above examples illustrate, drought problems can be
insights into a wider set of problems. resolved in various ways. Flood problems, on the other hand, are
often not addressed, representing an increasing problem in the
Research shows that most transboundary water agreements era of climate change, in which hydrological processes are volatile.
assume that future water supply and quality will not change Floods are expected to increase in frequency and intensity in most
significantly over time. Therefore, agreements do not include regions, and failure to manage these risks can have catastrophic
specific mechanisms to address climatic, economic and social consequences. Moreover, with the increased probability of
changes that have an effect on the quantity and quality of water flooding, the probability of droughts is also increasing and is
resources and supply. keeping the global water balance in an uncertain equilibrium.

An important problem arises when transboundary water systems Effective management requires effective institutions. Studies
fail to provide for flexible allocation strategies which can react have confirmed that flood losses are larger in those shared water
to changing social and environmental conditions. Drought and basins that lack institutional capacity. An overwhelming forty-
flood provisions in watercourse treaties, review procedures and three international river basins where transboundary floods were
joint management institutions provide a partial answer to this frequent in the period from 1985 to 2005 lacked the institutional
problem. However, they are not always effective and remain capacity to manage those events. Conversely, flood risk
largely unrelated to the water quality questions that are often management exercised by appropriate institutions can greatly
separated from water quantity questions. reduce the risks and effects of transboundary floods. Basin wide
coordination of flood management activities is critical. Integrating
Changing Water Conditions warning and alarm systems, and flood risk management protocols,
including regular data exchange, into transboundary agreements
A basic safeguard, applied in some treaty regimes, is the provides an effective risk reduction tool.
obligation of the upper riparian state to deliver a minimum
flow to the lower riparian state in order to maintain basic Moreover, flood risk management protocols can also become
environmental conditions. Such arrangements can also be made important adaptation tools, a necessity in our era. Climate
at a practical level, without a prior treaty obligation. An example change is causing not only floods but also a host of additional
of this type of technical cooperation exists in the Mekong River problems related to water quantity and quality. For example,
Basin where China, the upper riparian country, cooperates with the sea level rise resulting from climate change will exacerbate
other riparian countries on a project basis. saltwater intrusion in deltas and coastal aquifers. In some cases,
downstream water-diversion facilities may become unviable
Another way to enhance the flexibility of the system is to allocate unless freshwater flows are increased. These problems also
water as a percentage of the flow. This, however, requires a require improved international cooperation and joint institutional
flexible infrastructure, agile management, data sharing and management of transboundary watercourses and aquifers.
regular communications among the parties. Ultimately, a joint
river basin authority is the answer, but these conditions do not Deteriorating Water Quality
exist in many shared water basins and aquifers, even where the
basic legal instruments are in place. Questions of water quantity are linked to other issues,
especially water quality, but also to the dynamics of demand,
An important feature of transboundary agreements is the the complexity of climate change effects and others. Droughts,
emphasis on droughts in water allocation schemes. Less attention floods and other changes in watercourses have an impact on
is paid to floods and the risks they pose to lower riparian states. water quality, an issue that deserves more attention than has
been hitherto the case. Another set of concerns that needs to be
The provisions put in place for droughts vary in specificity. One taken into account is the water loss and declining water quality
example is the 1944 agreement between Mexico and the United resulting from deteriorating water infrastructure, a problem that
States on the Rio Grande River. Under that treaty, Mexico can affects many developed and developing countries.

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