Real and Ideal Institutional Frameworks for Managing the Common Arab-Israeli Water Resources

The Oslo A and B agreements of September 1993 and September 1995 were the beginning of a process aimed at a peaceful resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Israeli-Jordanian Treaty of 1994 addresses issues of water sharing between the two parties. In 1995, Israel and the Palestinians signed an Agreement on Water and Sewage as part of their Interim Agreement. In February 1996, Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians agreed to a “Declaration of Principles for Joint Development of Water Resources.” The purpose of this paper is to compare the components of the two Agreements with an “ideal” institution for management of shared water resources. The “ideal” institution was formulated by 23 water experts who were interviewed on this issue. The main finding is that in most respects, expert opinions did not differ significantly from the Israeli-Jordanian Treaty of Peace and the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement.     

The deep waters of land reform: land,water and conservation area claims in Limpopo Province,Olifants Basin,South Africa

Through investigating the reactions of commercial farmers to land and water reforms in the Trichardtsdal-Ofcolaco area, Limpopo Province, Olifants Basin, South Africa, from 1997 to 2006, it is shown that water claims are key to land redistribution processes, and that commercial farmers make strategic use of arguments for nature conservation and ecological stewardship to defend their claims to water. Given these observations, caution is warranted with respect to the implementation of land and water reforms as separate policy packages; it may be more effective to design water and conservation policies as an integral part of land reform programmes.     

The Cycles and Spirals of Justice in water-allocation decision making

Managing for social and environmental justice in water allocation is a necessary yet challenging goal. Often, what can appear as a just or equitable outcome for a specific location or group of stakeholders can also result in injustices at other locations or for other stakeholders. This paper describes a conceptual framework, The Cycles and Spirals of Justice, that helps make sense of the relationship between justice and injustice in the context of water-allocation decision making by explicitly utilizing a landscape-ecology understanding of scale and levels. The framework is illustrated using a case study from the Murray-Darling Basin in Australia and describes how justice and injustice are part of a cycling continuum of “justice for whom” and how this plays out in a multi-level system where the problem of scale can surface.     

Transjurisdictional Water Pollution Management in China: The Legal and Institutional Framework

The current study shows that the recent diesel price hike had an insignificant impact on irrigation costs incurred by diesel well owners in eastern India. Further, analysis of the farming enterprises of diesel well owners and water buyers from both diesel and electric wells confronted with a differential cost of irrigation water showed that farmers would be able to cope with a very high rise in irrigation costs through irrigation efficiency improvements and allocating more area to crops that give higher returns per unit of land and water. By doing this, they are able to maintain the farm returns.     

The Afghan water law: “a legal solution foreign to reality”? 1

In this article the suggested permit and licence systems included in the draft Afghan Water Law of 2008 (superseding those laws of 1981 and 1991) are examined by comparing them with main canal data from two pilot studies within the Kunduz Basin. The comparison highlights the difficulty of making these proposed legal frameworks operative. Overall, it appears that the sections within the law on permits and licences are not implementable within or even useful for the traditional irrigation systems, but mainly play into the hands of the national hydrocracy and please international donors.     

Factors determining informal tanker water markets in Chennai,India

Many developing world cities have seen the emergence of informal markets where private tanker truck operators transport water extracted from peri-urban wells to urban consumers. This study adopted a systems-modelling approach to analyzing the informal tanker market in India. The results indicate that the demand for tanker supply was caused by lack of groundwater availability in private wells as well as unreliable piped supply. The study shows that two groundwater factors are relevant: depth to water and aquifer productivity. Together, these could explain the difference in spatial, temporal and consumer-specific variations in tanker dependence.     

Regional variability of disinfection by-products in Canadian drinking water

The chlorination of drinking water forms various disinfection by-products (DBPs), some of which present potential risks to humans. This study investigates occurrences, trends, and regional and seasonal variability of DPBs in two Canadian provinces: Ontario and Quebec. The findings demonstrate that trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) can be represented better by region-based analysis than by province-based analysis. THMs in summer months are much higher than in cold months, while HAAs show variable results. The seasonal and regional variability of DBPs can have implications for the selection of DBP sampling locations, sampling frequency, regulatory limitations of DBPs, exposure analysis and risk characterization.     

Editorial

Abstract

Defining and measuring sustainability is a major challenge. This article argues these limitations need not stop us from trying to identify and value the possible impacts of what we are doing, or are thinking about doing, over time periods much longer than the lives of our investments, or even of the lives of those of us living today. Sustainability is a relative concept that must be applied in an environment undergoing multiple changes, changes that are occurring over different temporal and spatial scales. We depend on our water resource systems for our survival and welfare. Yet no one expects them to be restored to, or survive in, their most productive pristine states in the face of increasing development pressures for land in their watersheds and for water in their streams, rivers, lakes, and aquifers. A continuing task of water resource planners and managers is to identify the multiple impacts and tradeoffs resulting from what we who are living today may wish to do for ourselves and our immediate children and what we can only guess our yet-to-be-born descendants may wish us to do, or not do, for them in some distant future. This task must involve professionals from other disciplines in a context much broader than just water management. Once these impacts and tradeoffs are identified, it is then up to the political process to make choices when they are in conflict. All of us need to be a part of this decision-making process.     

Drivers of change in agricultural water productivity and its improvement at basin scale in developing economies

We approach the issue of water productivity in agriculture by identifying five sets of drivers of change. We find that irrigation efficiencies at the field level can result in real water savings under certain conditions, but that small farmers in most of South Asia and Africa have little incentive to adopt the appropriate measures. Although water productivity improvement and water savings at the regional level are possible through a shift to economically efficient crops, such changes may be constrained by concerns with respect to domestic and regional food security, rural employment, and farming system resilience.     

Integrated Water Resources Management in the Republic of Uzbekistan

Abstract

The Uzbek socio-economic structure is characterized by the transition from a centrally-planned to a market-orientated economy, with a shifting from agricultural production to industrial development. However, the agricultural sector continues to play a significant role in a general economy of the country. The major water sector strategy is to decrease the dependence of agricultural production on climate by introducing advanced irrigation techniques and water saving methods to achieve future sustainable socio-economic development and environmental protection. Water management policy should be flexible enough to adapt to new demands. The regulation of consumption through demand management tools, such as appropriate pricing policies, has recently received greater attention in Uzbekistan. The main thesis of this paper is that allocation of water resources cannot be separated from ecological and economic considerations. The establishment of development objectives and the identification of constraints are also discussed. In the coming years, special attention will need to be paid to the control of water pollution and land salinization, water resources conservation, and acknowledging that actions to increase water productivity are as important as finding additional sources of water.