Executive Summary

While seemingly abundant, only 0.3% of the world’s water is readily available as a freshwater resource and 60% of this is found in nine of the world’s 196 countries. As the global population continues to grow, demand from agriculture, industry, and household use is placing unsustainable stress on freshwater systems. Climate change only exacerbates this further, making water availability more unpredictable and causing more frequent, widespread droughts and floods.

 

Is it inevitable that the future will be marred by global, regional / transboundary, national, and/or sub-national/-basin and local conflicts over increasingly scarcer water resources? Not necessarily. While there have been instances of conflict arising at the various geographical scales over a shared water source, history reveals that cooperation is the predominant response. Securing water resources that can meet growing human needs, safeguard fragile ecosystems, and maintain economic prosperity is a key issue confronting the global community. To ensure that water resources are equitably distributed and conflict is avoided, some examples of approaches that can be employed at the different levels are:

 

GLOBAL – International Law / Treaty / Convention. International treaties are the most important and prevalent source of international legal rights and obligations; they are the primary instruments of cooperation. The UN Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses represents the key agreement on the management of transboundary rivers; however, the Ramsar Convention, UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) all include freshwater issues within their mandate, thereby providing additional tools at the global scale to avoid conflict. Additionally, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) include a target on access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation, and the UN Human Rights Council affirmed the right to water and sanitation as legally binding.

 

REGIONAL / TRANSBOUNDARY – Multi-/ Bi-lateral (transboundary) Agreements & Transboundary Committees. Freshwater resources do not adhere to geo-political boundaries, thus transboundary agreements, committees like the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC), bi-lateral agreements or River Commissions like on the Mekong (MRC), and regional instruments, like the EU Water Framework Directive, are key.

 

NATIONAL – Water Allocation Plans. When demand exceeds supply, economic development is limited by water availability, and ecosystem integrity is declining due to over allocation or abstraction, water allocation plans offer an integrated solution by incorporating economic, social, and environmental demands. Though each water allocation plan is dependent on the local context, history, natural conditions, economy, and institutions, a set of “10 Golden rules” for water allocation has emerged [WWF, 2012]. In many countries, there are also water use or management plans.

 

SUB-NATIONAL / -BASIN & LOCAL – Water Resource Users Association. Ultimately, conflicts are most likely to occur at the sub-national/-basin and local level – thus by empowering communities and water users in managing freshwater resources, water security trickles from the bottom-up and conflicts are avoided.

 

These various approaches are highlighted through WWF case studies focusing on avoided conflict through water resource management at different geographical scales. Both WWF Spain and the WWF Mediterranean Programme are engaged in supporting transboundary management that demonstrates while regional dialogs are time- and resource-consuming, they are essential if consensus is to be built and water management solutions identified. At the national level, WWF Mexico developed a water reserve program in collaboration with the national water authority. By including the maintenance and restoration of environmental flows, the prioritization and conservation of critical water resources was catalyzed, which ultimately reduced the risk of conflicts. WWF Kenya engaged with local Water Resource Users Associations in the Lake Naivasha basin once stakeholders realized the shared responsibility in conserving resources following a catastrophic drought. A favorable political and legal environment for local governance further facilitated this process.

 

In the future, a challenge in avoiding conflict will be ensuring that whatever global conventions, transboundary agreements, and functioning river commissions are in force, are respected in regards to procedures of notification and negotiation. Thus far, only few developing countries and emerging economies have established regulations on the maintenance of environmental flows or modern water allocation approaches in their constitution and water laws (like Australia, Mexico, Spain, and South Africa). However, in practical water management terms, unless different sectors change their procedures and planning frameworks accordingly to reflect the needs and requirements from other sectors, nothing will change. Sub-national / -basin and local level actors are both impacted by national or provincial level planning as well as triggering water conflict situations themselves through illegal abstraction, pollution, and regulating water courses or lakes. In countries where both laws and institutional structures are robust, they can provide the ingredients to come up with solutions like local water allocation plans or environmental flows arrangements. It is important to note that groundwater, which is a resource widely and extensively used and very often over-abstracted, will probably continue to lack proper management planning and resource use allocation.

 

Key to conflict prevention and resolution at all levels is a sound, comprehensive, and participatory river or lake basin planning at the basin, sub-basin, and local level that involves all relevant stakeholders. Pre-condition to any planning exercise is a comprehensive assessment of the water resources available over time, their status and trends, and data gathering / analysis / interpretation that includes an understanding of current water use and development in the future. Another precondition is an appropriate and modern legislative water framework at all relevant levels. Institutional capacity at the local, river basin, and national level is then essential for both carrying out the necessary assessment, steering the planning process, and guiding and controlling implementation. Though this might all sound quite obvious, together these different elements form the basis to manage water resources and services wisely and equitably and to develop and agree upon water allocation plans for the various users in the respective basins.

 

While some suggest that water conflicts are our guaranteed destiny as freshwater resources become more stressed and scarcer, history repeatedly demonstrates that cooperation is reality. Water conflicts cannot be avoided if the demand is not addressed while supply continues to diminish; however, through proactive and targeted global, regional / transboundary, national, and subnational/-basin and local approaches towards managing freshwater resources, water conflicts should remain a myth.