http://hdl.handle.net/1957/11272 Wed, 19 Jun 2013 00:48:05 GMT 2013-06-19T00:48:05Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/9047 International river basin management : global principles and basin practice Giordano, Meredith A. 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 scale, where the potential for conflict is of particular concern, the international community has devised generalized, global principles for the management of international rivers, most notably through the 1997 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses. While offering a general framework, these principles are rarely explicitly invoked in actual practice. Rather, co-riparian nations have tended to focus on local needs and conditions when developing treaties and similar basin-level agreements to manage shared water bodies, raising the question of whether global rules for basin management can be successful or if the unique characteristics of each basin require independently designed management regimes. The present work explores this question through an examination of transboundary freshwater management from three perspectives: global, regional, and functional. From the global perspective, the first section examines the dichotomous relationship between international principles and basin-level practices of transboundary water management and suggests that the divergent outcomes stem from the absence of theoretical underpinnings in support of a generalized management framework. From a ' regional perspective, the second section of the dissertation introduces and applies a unique framework for comparing the dynamics of water cooperation and conflict across basins, finding significant geographic variability in three case studies centered on the Middle East, South Asia and Southern Africa. Finally, the third section of the dissertation takes a functional perspective through a survey of international water quality institutions, the results of which indicate a lack of widespread water quality management frameworks despite the encouragement of the international community. Together, this three-dimensional study of international river basin management highlights the geographic variability of riparian interactions and suggests a need for more spatially focused support and assistance on the part of the international community if its objective of fostering and strengthening cooperation over international freshwaters is to be met. Graduation date: 2002 Thu, 07 Mar 2002 00:00:00 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/9047 2002-03-07T00:00:00Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/5700 An analysis of water resource conflict and cooperation in Oregon between 1990 and 2004 Fesler, Kristel J. This research provides details of water resource conflict and cooperation in Oregon between 1990 and 2004 by using an event database methodology. Events were concentrated in four of 18 basins. No basin accounted for more that 25% of the total water rights events, the most evenly distributed issue type. Overall more events were cooperative and very few were of high intensity. High intensity conflict covered one issue type- instream, while cooperative covered five supporting results seen at international scale. The occurrence of water quality events increases as the scale decreases. Spatial and temporal analysis indicate that surface water supply correlates to overall conflict and cooperation levels better than population density, consumptive use and water quality. However, major conflictive outbreaks or cooperative breakthroughs are 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 resolution of resource conflict. Water resource conflict was shown to intensify over time, and major conflictive events tend to lead to major cooperative events. Additionally, this process is unique to conflict; cooperative processes are not easily undermined by a conflictive action. Finally, policy recommendations are presented to increase water resource manager’s ability to foster dispute resolution and to engage key stakeholders. Implementation of these techniques should provide water resource managers with the necessary tools to manage conflict, not make it disappear entirely. Graduation date: 2008 Thu, 28 Jun 2007 20:32:13 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/5700 2007-06-28T20:32:13Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3932 Irrigated agriculture, energy, and endangered species in the Upper Klamath Basin : evaluating trade-offs and interconnections Boehlert, Brent B. 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 Oregon-California border, responded to ESA Section 7 obligations by severely curtailing water allocations to Reclamation Project irrigators for the 2001 growing season, costing irrigators an estimated $35 million in farm income. This event has directed attention to several important factors that may further undermine effective water management in the basin. These include higher ESA flow requirements due to a recent Ninth Circuit Court ruling and a ten-fold energy rate increase to irrigators resulting 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 ESA flow requirements and energy prices on the Upper Klamath Basin farm economy given variable levels of water trading flexibility and groundwater availability. A mathematical programming and Geographic Information System (GIS) framework is used in which farm decisions are assumed to maximize net revenue subject to hydrological, institutional, economic, and agronomic constraints. The results suggest that greater development of basin groundwater resources and the institution of a flexible water bank may be sufficient to mitigate the majority of costs related to increased ESA flow requirements in future years. Graduation date: 2007 Wed, 07 Feb 2007 21:55:56 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3932 2007-02-07T21:55:56Z http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3821 Transboundary river floods : vulnerability of continents, international river basins and countries Bakker, Marloes H.N. 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. Graduation date: 2007 Mon, 22 Jan 2007 17:19:51 GMT http://hdl.handle.net/1957/3821 2007-01-22T17:19:51Z