http://hdl.handle.net/1957/11272 Search the Channel search http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/jspui/simple-search http://hdl.handle.net/1957/5700 Title: An analysis of water resource conflict and cooperation in Oregon between 1990 and 2004<br/><br/>Authors: Fesler, Kristel J.<br/><br/>Abstract: This research provides details of water resource conflict and cooperation inOregon between 1990 and 2004 by using an event database methodology. Events wereconcentrated in four of 18 basins. No basin accounted for more that 25% of the totalwater rights events, the most evenly distributed issue type. Overall more events werecooperative and very few were of high intensity. High intensity conflict covered oneissue type- instream, while cooperative covered five supporting results seen atinternational scale. The occurrence of water quality events increases as the scaledecreases.Spatial and temporal analysis indicate that surface water supply correlates tooverall conflict and cooperation levels better than population density, consumptive useand water quality. However, major conflictive outbreaks or cooperative breakthroughsare correlated to institutional changes in the social system (cooperation in 1991, 1999,and 2004; conflict in 1991, 2001, and 2004), acting as either an instigator or resolutionof resource conflict. Water resource conflict was shown to intensify over time, andmajor conflictive events tend to lead to major cooperative events. Additionally, thisprocess is unique to conflict; cooperative processes are not easily undermined by aconflictive action.Finally, policy recommendations are presented to increase water resourcemanager’s ability to foster dispute resolution and to engage key stakeholders.Implementation of these techniques should provide water resource managers with thenecessary tools to manage conflict, not make it disappear entirely.<br/><br/>Description: Graduation date: 2008 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:32:13 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3932 Title: Irrigated agriculture, energy, and endangered species in the Upper Klamath Basin : evaluating trade-offs and interconnections<br/><br/>Authors: Boehlert, Brent B.<br/><br/>Abstract: In 2001, an extreme drought tightened water supply in the Upper KlamathBasin (basin) while earlier increases in Endangered Species Act (ESA) waterrequirements for basin fish species that same year elevated demands. The Bureau ofReclamation (Reclamation), which manages irrigation water in parts of the basinlocated near the Oregon-California border, responded to ESA Section 7 obligations byseverely curtailing water allocations to Reclamation Project irrigators for the 2001growing season, costing irrigators an estimated $35 million in farm income. This eventhas directed attention to several important factors that may further undermine effectivewater management in the basin. These include higher ESA flow requirements due to arecent Ninth Circuit Court ruling and a ten-fold energy rate increase to irrigatorsresulting from a mid-2006 contract expiration with the regional energy provider.The overall objective of this research is to assess the impact of changes in ESAflow requirements and energy prices on the Upper Klamath Basin farm economygiven variable levels of water trading flexibility and groundwater availability. Amathematical programming and Geographic Information System (GIS) framework isused in which farm decisions are assumed to maximize net revenue subject tohydrological, institutional, economic, and agronomic constraints. The results suggestthat greater development of basin groundwater resources and the institution of aflexible water bank may be sufficient to mitigate the majority of costs related toincreased ESA flow requirements in future years.<br/><br/>Description: Graduation date: 2007 Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:55:56 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3821 Title: Transboundary river floods : vulnerability of continents, international river basins and countries<br/><br/>Authors: Bakker, Marloes H.N.<br/><br/>Abstract: 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 river basins (IRBs) is rarely touched upon. Consequently, vulnerability to shared floods is poorly understood and not much is known about the present quantity and quality of institutional capacity to deal with such events. Hence the primary purpose of the present work is to fill this gap in knowledge. We explore transboundary river flood events and related institutional capacity in more detail, starting at a global scale, zooming in on international river basins (IRBs) and ending with a country-scale perspective.The first section assesses how many of all floods were riverine and how much of these were shared between two or more countries. The results show that transboundary floods are more severe in their magnitude, affect larger areas, result in higher death tolls, and cause more financial damage than non-shared river floods do. The second section reveals an alarmingly low institutional capacity related to transboundary river floods: more than 15% of the IRBs do not have any type of institutional capacity in the form of a river basin institution, nor any focused on floods. The third section examines flood events, international water treaties signed and institutions created in the Netherlands and Mozambique. The comparison indicates that lower levels of development or the absence of development capital do not necessarily have to result in future (shared) flood-related disasters. Collectively, these results significantly increase our current knowledge on vulnerability to –transboundary– river floods and indicate that there might be more need for official international institutions dealing with these events. However, selecting the one country, continent or IRB that is the most vulnerable to –transboundary– river floods is impossible since the answer greatly depends upon the specific definition of vulnerability. This indicates that vulnerability to floods is a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained by using the results of only this study.<br/><br/>Description: Graduation date: 2007 Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:19:51 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3122 Title: Transboundary groundwater : geopolitical consequences, commons sense, and the law of the hidden sea<br/><br/>Authors: Jarvis, William Todd<br/><br/>Abstract: With 97% of the world’s freshwater resources stored underground, the connectionbetween groundwater resources to the metrics of space, scale and time common to thegeographic study of natural resources has not been extensively investigated bygeographers. While nearly 240 transboundary aquifers are mapped across the world,a potential “tragedy” is brewing due to the poorly structured institutional capacitybuilt within river basin treaties and agreements and River Basin Organizations toaccommodate the management and governance of these transboundary aquifers.Regimes to manage or govern groundwater remain weak. On the basis of a survey of400 freshwater treaties and agreements completed as part of this study, about 15%include provisions for groundwater. Very few of the treaties and agreements addresstransboundary aquifers, the coastal aquifer systems which serve as the water suppliesto an increasing number of mega cities with populations exceeding 10 million people,the types of aquifers that store groundwater and respond differently to intensiveexploitation, or the three dimensional boundaries of the resource or user domains.Recognized as a common pool resource, groundwater resources serve as an exampleof a “pure” common pool resource. This is because of the difficulty in excludingusers and because of the subtractability of the resource as groundwater is pumped orartificially drained from the subsurface. Yet the management and governance ofgroundwater resources is challenging and increasingly conflictive not only due to itshidden nature, but also because of the difficulty in placing boundaries around thegroundwater resources and user domains. These domain boundaries are three dimensional and change with time. Drawing these domain boundaries is supremelypolitical and morph with changing social and cultural values. The present workincorporates an interdisciplinarity and broad systems approach to explore thegeography of groundwater to provide context to an inventory of global groundwaterresources and user domains. On the basis of surveys of international law and nationalpolicies focusing on groundwater, a previously unrecognized typology was derivedfor the boundaries for groundwater resources and user domains. This work found that(1) traditional approaches to defining groundwater domains focus on predevelopmentconditions, referred to herein as a bona-fide “commons” boundary; (2) groundwaterdevelopment creates human-caused or fiat “hydrocommons” boundary wherehydrology and hydraulics are meshed, and (3) the social and cultural values ofgroundwater users define a fiat “commons heritage” boundary acknowledging thatgroundwater resources are part of the “common heritage of humankind”. Thesignificance of this typology is that it is difficult to aggregate demographic, social,and economic data within specific boundaries for groundwater resources for detailedgeographic analyses, much less develop international regimes, without agreement onthe fundamental unit of analysis. Given the complexity of the geologic and politicalsetting of global groundwater resources, a new paradigm of “post-sovereigngovernance” was examined as part of this study to assess the applicability of globalgroundwater governance as opposed to international regimes, including therecognition of the geographic overlap between groundwater and ocean resourcesthrough an evaluation of the applicability of a law of the sea model for multilateralcollaboration regarding groundwater resources through the Law of the Hidden Sea.<br/><br/>Description: Graduation date: 2007 Wed, 04 Oct 2006 17:15:39 GMT