In the past fifty years, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have become alarming global pollutants. In 2019, the United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ultimately classified them as emerging contaminants and established an action plan to address PFAS and protect public health through developing, identifying, monitoring, and remediating current...
Extensive research has been published on a large-scale Cascadia subduction zone (CSZ) rupture off the Oregon coast, including the requirements of evacuation, shelter, and mass care of a diverse coastal population due to earthquake and tsunami related hazards. Adequate preparedness centers around the understanding of a hazards characteristics, and the...
There is a significant gap in academia in the field of transboundary water management of the non-sovereign entities. The objective of this master’s thesis is to work towards filling this gap.
The first part of this master’s thesis research identifies potential hydro political tension risks of the transboundary basins in...
The Columbia River Treaty (CRT) is often used as an example of how treaties can work to normalize, regulate, and improve the cooperative management of shared water resources between basin countries. Few would argue that, in its limited mandate to regulate hydropower generation and flood risk management for downstream communities,...
Academics and practitioners agree that in water governance, the quality of a decision making process should influence the quality of the outcome and the degree to which it is accepted by interested parties. However, finding a feasible way to evaluate and then improve the quality of a decision making process...
The conflict over water resources exploitation and sharing in the Aral Sea Basin is one of the most pressing environmental issues yet to be resolved in Central Asia. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and establishment of the New Independent States (NIS) within the Aral Sea Bain led...
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Aaron T. Wolf
The conflict over water resources exploitation and sharing in the Aral Sea
How does transboundary water cooperation begin at the initial stages? Countries in many transboundary basins either do not cooperate at all or have ceased cooperation altogether. Yet cooperation does often prevail, resulting in 688 water-related treaties signed between 1820 and 2007. The question we address here is, by which practices...
As part of a study to determine the history and potential for conflict in international freshwater
basins, an estimate was made of the location of arable and irrigable land in the world.
Knowledge about the world's arable and irrigable land was desired since this information could
be an indicator of...
A healthy river ecosystem is the definitive mark of success in international water quality
planning and management, but until the world's international river basins achieve this kind of success,
there must be other means to assess progress. In this paper, a theoretical background establishes the
complexities inherent in water quality...
Over 470 dams have been removed in the United States, and a significant increase in dam removals has
occurred since the early 1990s. The aging of dams is often cited as the primary factor influencing removals;
as dams surpass their functional life span, safety hazards, economic costs, and environmental concerns...
The Wadi el Far'a catchment is a tributary of the Jordan River located entirely the West Bank in the Middle East. Increasing population in the catchment, with economic development, is likely to increase water needs in this water region. In the water management of the region, agriculture is an essential...
Dams are often promoted as a tool to reduce poverty and spur economic development. Dam construction worldwide, and particularly in China, which has built nearly half the world's large dams since 1949, remains contentious due to the potential for negative environmental and socioeconomic impacts. Despite numerous case studies, there is...
Increased variability of rainfall and flow from climate change has the potential to stress existing transboundary water sharing agreements and make meeting the needs of all riparians difficult. Water treaties have been theorized as valuable tools for mitigating conflict in times of climate stress, but the relationship between the design...
Water governance has been identified as a crucial component to improving conditions and balancing supply and demand of water resources in the water-scarce Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. Finding a method for, and commencing the process of, evaluating water governance is thus imperative. This study analyzes the potential to...
A critical link is missing between food production and food consumption. This gap can be overcome by encouraging the production of staple food crops and emphasizing regional and community consumption of locally produced food. In order to re-establish local food security in the Willamette Valley, it is imperative that essential...
Collaboration between scientists and decision makers is a critical element in mobilizing science into action. Likewise, the United Nations defines collaboration between scientists and policymakers as a requisite component in the process of sustainable development. Despite the UN sustainability movement beginning in 1983, scientists may still be frustrated by their...
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Aaron T. Wolf
Collaboration between scientists and decision makers is a critical element
Globally, access to safe, reliable drinking water sources is a major challenge of this generation. Protected sources of drinking water provide communities with a sustainable, vital resource, yet many public water suppliers lack legal authority over their source water protection (SWP) area, especially in surface water systems. Absence of legal...
With 97% of the world’s freshwater resources stored underground, the connection between groundwater resources to the metrics of space, scale and time common to the geographic study of natural resources has not been extensively investigated by geographers. While nearly 240 transboundary aquifers are mapped across the world, a potential “tragedy”...
The success or failure of river basin organization (RBO), when they deal with disputes, might rely on the source of conflict along with other factors such as institutional design, legal attributes and conflict resolution mechanism of the organization. However, little attention has been paid to the research which studies a...
Water is an essential natural resource for human survival and plays an important role in food, manufacturing, and energy systems, as well as in ecosystem maintenance. The rapid increase in global water demand is due to economic and social development competition. At the same time, water availability and access to...
In the face of the global climate crisis, paired with current and future risks over water resources, the importance of effective water resources management cannot be overstated. However, there is a significant lack of specific metrics used to track water stewardship on a broad scale. Thus, in order to track...
In the process of building international water policies and management institutions, like international treaties and River Basin Organizations, States simultaneously signal the values that they view as most important in these different institutions. Examining expressed and acted-upon values for transboundary freshwater management are currently under-explored areas where overlapping lenses of...
Considering the negative impacts of climate change along with the rapid increase in population in Islamic dominated states, e.g., the Middle East, water tension among upstream and downstream states is increasing. Despite the importance of water in Islamic culture and studies, the role of religion has been under-valued and under-emphasized...
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Aaron T. Wolf
Considering the negative impacts of climate change along with the rapid increase
Despite increased understanding of the benefits of wetlands, global wetland area continues to decrease. Wetlands are being lost at an alarming rate, and with them, biodiversity, floodwater storage, water purification, and countless other functions. There is little information available about mechanisms to manage transboundary wetlands. While the Ramsar Convention is...
We are witness to an ever tighter coupling between natural hazard-related disasters ("disasters") and violent social conflict ("conflict"). Previous research has established that disaster has the propensity to lead to conflict, and conflict, in turn, has been found to contribute to disaster vulnerabilities. The field of disaster diplomacy, by contrast,...
Although there is a substantial body of work on the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated processes of water management and water governance (Earle & Bazilli, 2013), these efforts have mostly been concentrated in the Global South and women are still lacking in positions with decision-making power, making water governance...
With the increasing international focus on transboundary cooperation as a part of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Framework, there is global recognition of transboundary water cooperation as a tool for improved governance and management of transboundary surface and groundwaters. Yet, there is not an agreed upon definition of transboundary water...
Groundwater tables are dropping quickly in many regions of the world. Central Asia is an arid region where groundwater abstraction rates often exceed recharge rates. The Pretashkent Aquifer is a crucial transboundary groundwater resource for the Republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Both countries rely on the aquifer as a primary...
Floods are beneficial to nature but can be destructive to humans. For centuries humanity has attempted to control nature and specifically rivers and their flooding. After looking at a history of river management in the United States, an examination of both the burdens and benefits of flood control policy in...
This research is conducted to contribute to the enhancement of the transboundary water cooperation in the Euphrates and Tigris Basin. The main research questions answered are: “Is operationality of the transboundary water cooperation adequate to address the problems of the ET Basin and to reach sustainable development goals that are...
In transboundary river basins, political borders oftentimes trace shared rivers across a basin. A border between territories can be seen as a space that is separated; however, it is actually one with the potential to unite populations and environments. A river basin is generally defined by its topography and hydrology....
Globally, as surface water quality and quantity diminishes there is increasing reliance on groundwater to buffer water demands of growing populations. Today in many arid regions around the world aquifer pumping rates far exceed recharge rates. Often the groundwater is nonrenewable, or thousands of years old. Despite the known hydrologic...
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Aaron T. Wolf
Globally, as surface water quality and quantity diminishes there is
This research paper investigates the water conflict management approaches of the Anuak indigenous people in Gambella, Ethiopia. The paper poses the question do indigenous approaches to water conflict management provide some effective mechanisms that help to resolve conflict? If so, how? In order to provide answers to the research question,...
Since the Wolf, Yoffe, and Giordano 2003 Basins at Risk study, examining human interactions with transboundary water resources through a lens of conflict and cooperation has been a dominant paradigm. The Basins at Risk (BAR) method involves categorizing events on a scale from most conflictive (e.g. war or extensive casualties)...
Human security is a framework related to the stability and sustainability of political, environmental, economical, and socio-cultural areas of concern. Water resources around the world are under increased pressure from increased development, growing populations, pollution, and global climate change. Large-scale dam development while still popular for political and economic development...
American Indians presently face health risks posed by exposure to environmental pollutants through different exposure routes including: inhalation (e.g., air particles), ingestion (e.g., fish, water), and dermal contact (e.g., contact with water, soil). Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are increasingly being used in the Environmental Health arena as a tool for...
River basins provide essential services for both humans and ecosystems. Understanding the connections between ecosystems and society and their function has been at the heart of resilience studies and has become an increasing important endeavor in research and practice. In this dissertation, I define basin resilience as a river basin...
Despite their significance, physical interactions between surface and
groundwater have largely been ignored in international water law. While surface water
has been given considerable attention as a transboundary natural resource, groundwater
has not received the same recognition. International legal doctrines regarding water, such
as the 1997 United Nations Convention on...
This study addresses the question: "What are the incentives and disincentives for conflict prevention and mitigation in the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), and how do they factor into Reclamation's management of water in the western United States?" Incentives and disincentives for conflict prevention (i.e., actions taken to avoid conflict) and...
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Aaron T. Wolf
This study addresses the question: “What are the incentives and disincentives
In transboundary water resources policy and management situations, such as the governance of the Columbia River Basin, complex social, ecological, and economic factors seem to be in irreconcilable competition with one another. However, cooperative negotiation provides an outlet for entities and stakeholders to "expand the pie" and develop creative alternatives...
Tribal water rights and instream flows for species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have been a source of tensions in the western United States, particularly when tribes have undetermined water rights to support tribal fisheries listed under the ESA. Understanding the mechanics of past tribal settlements and their...
This research presents the Colorado River basin as a social-ecological
system. Utilizing event data on cooperative and conflictive interactions over fresh water, the system is decomposed to look for evidence of outcomes of resilience enhancement. The Animas-La Plata Project in the upper San Juan basin is presented as a case...
The First Gulf War that took place in Kuwait in 1991 resulted in one of the worst environmental disasters in the history of mankind. Extreme pollution affected the soil, waters, and the air in Kuwait. In this research I try to look into how the Kuwaiti government reacted to those...
In the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico, challenges such as droughts, growing urban demand for water, and newly listed endangered species have forced people to change the way that they manage water. New challenges in water governance have created cooperation among agencies that often have conflicting interests, goals,...
Biophysical, socioeconomic and geopolitical pressures from population growth and economic development are leading to an increase in tensions regarding the sharing of water within transboundary basins. Transboundary basins are surface rivers and groundwater resources that are shared among sovereign nations and autonomous regions. This dissertation focuses on surface water in...
Given the growing human security implications resulting from the high rates of change in social-ecological systems, the general question motivating this research is: how can the traditional security establishment respond to rising non-traditional threats? This question comes from the ongoing debate of whether military resources should be used in some...
In the policy literature and the popular press, the issues of water and conflict are being raised together with increasing frequency. Geographic, international relations, and environmental security theories speculate on the linkages between geographic features, natural resources, spatial relationships, and war or acute conflict. Little quantitative or global-scale research exists,...
Transcending human-defined political and administrative boundaries, the world's transboundary freshwater resources pose particularly challenging management problems. Water resource users at all scales frequently find themselves in direct competition for this economic and life-sustaining resource, in turn creating tensions, and indeed conflict, over water supply, allocation and quality. At the international...
In 2001, an extreme drought tightened water supply in the Upper Klamath Basin (basin) while earlier increases in Endangered Species Act (ESA) water requirements for basin fish species that same year elevated demands. The Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), which manages irrigation water in parts of the basin located near the...
Floods are the most frequent and damaging of all types of natural disasters and annually affect the lives of millions all over the globe. However, researchers seem to have overlooked the fact that floods do not recognize national boundaries. Therefore, the phenomena of shared, or transboundary floods occurring in international...
The U.S. Forest Service on the Willamette National Forest currently employs the “Disturbed Water Erosion Prediction Project” (WEPP) model to determine potential suspended sediment delivery from timber harvests or other treatment scenarios given user-defined hillslope parameters. At the time of this study there was no known calibration or testing of...
Ambiguity is a typical element of treaty documents. Its success in accommodating divergent interests, creating boundary conditions leading to dispute prevention and facilitating the conclusion of agreements has been widely recognized, yet less is known whether or not intentional ambiguity or unintentional ambiguity, or perhaps both, lead to challenges or...