Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN)

Environmental Diplomacy for Resolving Persistent Transboundary Water Conflicts in the Indus, Jordan,

Kabul, Kali and Missisquoi River Basins

Asim ZiaProfessor of Public Policy & Computer Science

Director, Institute for Environmental Diplomacy and Security (IEDS)

Co-Director, Social Ecological Gaming & Simulation (SEGS) Lab

University of Vermont

Take Home Message #1

Transboundary water conflicts, if not resolved, may lead to many more “water wars” in the 21st century

due to accelerating climate change, population explosion, unsustainable economic development,

increasing inequity and poor governance.

History of transboundary water conflicts runs deep!

Comparison of Aaron Wolf’s and Peter Gleick’s databases

International Water Events Database

(Aaron Wolf)

Water Conflict Chronology

(Peter Gleick)

Incidents of water conflict and cooperation Incidents of water conflict

International International and domestic

1948 – 2008 3,000 B.C. - 2014

Searchable by basin Searchable by basin and country

7,129 entries 343 entries

BAR Intensity Scale (-7 to 7), measures intensity of event, from least to most

cooperative

No intensity scale

Event categories: border issues, flood control/relief, hydro power/electricity,

infrastructure/development, irrigation, joint

management, navigation, technical

cooperation, water quality, water quantity

Events categories: control of water resources, military tool, political tool, terrorism, military

target and development dispute

(Source: Roic et al. 2016)

Recent “water war” example 1: Nile River

• Climate change induced precipitation variability led to more intense drought episodes in the Nile basin

– Darfur crisis of 1980s in Sudan

– Civil war in Sudan led to the emergence of GOSS

– Ethiopia vs. Eritrea

• Poor governance, colonial history, ethnic tensions provided a fertile context for intensifying drought to trigger and sustain civil wars in Sudan and Ethiopia since 1980s

Recent “water war” example 2: Tigris and Euphrates

• Extensive history of Tigris and Euphrates civilizations shows how “water management” was used as a weapon during the last 4500 years!

• More recently, in 2000s, pre-existing conditions of poor governance, colonial history, and sectarian tensions simmered into a full-blown civil war after recent episodes of drought in Syria

Recent “water war” example 2: Tigris and Euphrates

Gleick 2014

Kelley et al. 2015 PNAS

Take Home Message #2

Transboundary water conflicts, and consequent “water wars” are not “inevitable”. Shared governance, cooperation, diplomacy/treaties and multi-level

institutional mechanisms can be designed to “foresee” the risk of water wars & conflicts, institutionalize water

rights of all riparian partners, and enable access to clean water for human and ecological populations.

Track One Diplomacy/Treaty Example 1: Indus Basin Treaty System (IBTS)

• During British raj in India, the Indus basin became one of the largest “unified” irrigation systems in the world; however, at the time of partition, India as an upper riparian threatened to shut down water in the canals flowing downstream.

• Protracted negotiations between 1947 and 1960, under growing cold war and WB mediation, led to the emergence of the Indus Basin treaty: three western river water rights given to Pakistan and eastern rivers to India.

Indus Basin Treaty System: Diplomatic compromise or ecological death of eastern vs western rivers

Indus Basin Treaty System: the glass is half full or is it half empty?

• Standard narrative: After partition, political negotiations achieved little until David E Lilienthal, an American water management expert, suggested that the World Bank lead trilateral negotiations to secure a technical resolution of the dispute. After years of hard bargaining, in which politics frequently interrupted the efforts of engineers to reach an agreement, the two governments signed a water treaty in 1960!

• Broadly attributed to Michel’s Indus Rivers and Alam’sWater Rationality; and more recently to water peaceargument promoted by Aaron Wolf

Indus Basin Treaty System: the glass is half full or is it half empty?

• Critical narrative– Critique 1: Technical fixes don’t work until the

underlying political disputes are resolved. ( a la Bulloch and Darwish 1993 Water Wars; also “hydropolitics” school of thought)

– Critique 2: IBTS partitions the rivers between India and Pakistan, and therefore represents a mechanism for avoiding either conflict or cooperation (Wescoat 1991 GEC)

– Critique 3: IBTS offers very thin support to the integrated or joint development of the Indus river basin (Wirsing and Jasparro 2006)

Indus Basin Treaty System: Stay the course, or revise and reform?

• China and Afghanistan are riparian partners but their rights and responsibilities are not represented in IBTS

• Non-stationarity and variability in water flows induced by climate change is not addressed in IBTS

Upper Indus Basin Streamflow Reconstruction shows high variability (Cook et al. 2013, p. 7)

Indus has highest dependency on glacial melt among the Asian water towers

Coarser model predicts water scarcity in the Indus basin even under mid-range climate change scenario

High resolution and improved coupled climate-human system models are needed to improve the projections of climate change impact in the Indus

• Indus Basin Treaty encouraged water data sharing, but political distrust between India and Pakistan, India and China, and recently Pakistan and Afghanistan has led to data hogging

• IEDS promoting science diplomacy initiative for all four Indus riparian partners (e.g. see Ali and Zia 2016)

Ali, Saleem; Asim Zia (2016) Transboundary Data Sharing and Resilience Scenarios: Harnessing the Role of Regional Organizations for Environmental Security. In Zafar Adeel, Robert Wirsing (Ed.) Imagining Industan: Overcoming Water Insecurity in the Indus Basin. Heidelberg, Springer.

Ongoing efforts to improve science-policy interface for advancing data and modeling in Indus, Nile & Amazon

Institute for Environmental Diplomacy & Security at the University of Vermont

SIDE EVENT DRAFT PROGRAM

IMPLEMENTING FOOD-ENERGY-WATER SECURITY EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS FOR ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE

Room Bieszczady, UNFCCC COP 24, Katowice

8 December 2018, 13:15-14:45 Theme: This side event will highlight recent developments and outstanding challenges in the design & implementation of food, energy and water security early warning systems in developing countries across Asia, Africa and Latin America that are vulnerable to climate change induced variability & extremes. 13:15-13:20 Opening and introduction to the panel 13:20-13:30 Malik Amin Aslam, Advisor to Prime Minister of Pakistan on Climate Change and Global

Vice President-IUCN: Food, Energy and Water Security Challenges and Adaptation to Climate Change in Pakistan

13:30-13:40 Dr. Edward Hinga Sandy, Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Government of Sierra Leone: Food, Energy and Water Security Challenges and Adaptation to Climate Change in Africa

13:35-13:50 Asim Zia, Professor of Public Policy and Director, Institute for Environmental Diplomacy & Security, University of Vermont: Mainstreaming Food, Energy and Water Security Early Warning Systems for Adaptation to Climate Change

13:50-14:05 Dr. Maria del Pilar Cornejo, former National Secretary of Risk Management, Dean of the Faculty of Marine Engineering and Sciences at ESPOL (www.espol.edu.ec) and Director of the Pacific International Center for Disaster Risk Reduction, Ecuador: Food, Energy and Water Security Challenges and Adaptation to Climate Change in Ecuador

14:05-14:15 Dr. Ilan Kelman, Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, University College London, UK: Warning Systems as Social Processes

14:15-14:25 Dr. Michael H. Glantz, Director, Consortium for Capacity Building, University of Colorado, Boulder CO: El Nino and La Nina Ready Nations

14:25-14:40 Q&A Discussion 14:40-14:45 Wrap-up & Closing

A prototypical design of an advanced high-resolution coupled climate-human model for Indus

Indus basin treaty has led to resolution of difficult transboundary conflicts in the last 69 years. Will it

suffice under global to local change?

Frequency of international water conflict and cooperation between India and Pakistan from 1950 to 2009 by decade (Source: Roic et al. 2016)

IBTS ensured a pragmatic détente, but by its design of allocating water from eastern vs western rivers to

India and Pakistan respectively, it also limits integrative, ecological and cooperative approaches that are needed for tackling food, energy and water

security challenges posed by climate change.

Take Home Message #3

Environmental diplomacy and water security initiative in Kabul river basin

• In post 9/11 era, Kabul basin has been engulfed in one of the longest running wars of the 21st century

• Unique feature: Afghanistan and Pakistan are both upstream and downstream riparian partners

• In the face of unsuccessful track-1 diplomacy, a track-2 (expert to expert) and track-3 (citizen to citizen) diplomacy initiative launched by IEDS and Center for Advancement of Public Action (CAPA), Bennington College

Environmental diplomacy and water security initiative in Kabul river basin

• A workshop was convened by CAPA and IEDS with the hope of developing a framework on sharing the transboundary water resources in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Kabul River Basin.

• Track 2 and Track 3 participants explored the political, environmental, social, technical, scientific, and regulatory challenges; and identified solutions to address these challenges.

• Participants were also exposed to similar IEDS and CAPA transboundary initiatives in Jordan river, Amazon (Peru-Ecuador), Arctic, Cyprus (Greece-Turkey) and Koreas.

Environmental diplomacy and water security initiative in Kabul river basin

The following organizations participated: Community Motivation and Development and Organization, Coordination of Afghan Relief (COAR), House of Afghans, Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), German Development Bank (KFW), Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (AIES), i.GREENs, IEDS, CAPA, Dawson center for Peace

Recommendations from Environmental diplomacy and water security initiative in Kabul river basin

• Design a citizen science-based water quality monitoring system for the Kabul River Basin

• Develop behavioral change communication strategies for increasing community awareness and engagement for water quality mitigation actions

• Organize additional track-2 and track-3 diplomacy events to address more contentious issues such as allocation of water rights, institutionalization of a joint Kabul river commission, integration with IBTS, and joint hazard mitigation and early warning systems

A hydro-diplomacy initiative on Kabul river launched by Lead-Pakistan led to similar recommendations

IEDS and CAPA invited Lead-Pakistan to join our citizen science based water quality monitoring network proposal

An interesting example of convergence in findings from environmental diplomacy interventions

A white paper for a citizen science-based water quality monitoring system for the Kabul River Basin

Objective 1: To design and implement a citizen science-based water quality monitoring and management system for the Kabul River Basin;

Objective 2: To design and field test novel strategies for community awareness and engagement on maintaining and improving water quality in Kabul River Basin; and

Objective 3: To organize science and civil society water diplomacy events to promote peace and cooperation and enable long term food security and sustainable development in the face of climate change.

A white paper for a citizen science-based water quality monitoring system for the Kabul River Basin

Proposed sensing sites for water quality sensor network. Final locations will be chosen based upon local community acceptability, safety and technical criteria.

While Kabul river is riparian part of Indus basin, it is not included in the Indus basin treaty system. Global

climate change is very likely to increase water availability in Kabul river, but increased water may

also lead to increased flooding and increased development may deteriorate water quality. There is

convergence from multiple env. diplomacy interventions about taking action to protect water

quality and designing a transboundary collaborative mechanism.

Take Home Message #4

Israeli-Palestinian Waste Water Conflicts

• Israeli pollution pays principle– Unilateralism– Palestinian taxes

• Palestinian capacity– Limited sewage infrastructure– Inefficient septic tanks– Little treatment and reuse– Little regulation and enforcement

• Israeli Waste Water standards (tertiary treatment) applied to Palestinians

• International water law governing reuse of Waste Water

Transboundary initiatives in Jordan river

• USAID CMM project managed by AIES

• Palestinian partner: House of Water and Environment

• 8 greywater treatment and reuse systems– 2 in Israel

– 6 in the West bank

• Modified septic tank

• Onsite greywater treatment with solar energy

• People to people approach: Capacity building, technical training, and on-going water quality monitoring

Mitigating Transboundary Wastewater Conflict in Jordan Basin with Track-2 & 3 Interventions

Track-2 and Track-3 diplomacy initiatives in one of the World’s most protracted conflict zones can make a

difference on the ground through community engagement, community empowerment, environmental

monitoring systems and ecological design.

Take Home Message #5

Initiatives in Transboundary Lake Champlain Basin

• The Basin: 21,326 square kilometers

• The Drainage Basin is 18.9 times as large as the Lake

• The Lake: 1,127 square kilometers• Over 122 meters deep• 193 kilometers long

• Lake Champlain waters enter the Richelieu River and flow north to the St Lawrence River

Missisquoi Bay

•Greatly exceed P target

•Seasonal BGA blooms

•Extensive agriculture

South Lake

•Exceeds P targets

•Excess weed growth

•Water chestnut and Eurasian

watermilfoil

•Much of the watershed is

intensively farmed

Northeast Arm

•Exceeds P targets

•Seasonal BGA blooms

•Eurasian watermilfoil

•Extensive agriculture and urban

areas

Transboundary Lake

Champlain Basin Program

Page | 14

Multi-scale policy landscape

EPA (2015) uses SWAT and Bathtub models, along with a spreadsheet analysis, to determine nutrient load reductions. Land use change is assumed constant; Limnotech model used in Missisquoi!

Land use varies across watersheds

EPA (2015)

Multi-scale policy landscape

Page | 44

Table 8. Percent reductions needed to meet TMDL allocations

Lake Segment Total

Overall Waste water1 CSO

Developed Land2

Ag Prod Areas Forest Streams Agriculture

01. South Lake B 43.4% 0.0%

23.7% 80% 60.0% 30.5% 59.5%

02. South Lake A 52.7% 0.0%

21.0% 80% 5.0%

59.5%

03. Port Henry 15.8%

10.6% 80% 5.0%

20.0%

04. Otter Creek 24.7% 0.0%

22.2% 80% 5.0% 40.1% 46.9%

05. Main Lake 21.3% 61.1%

23.8% 80% 5.0% 28.9% 46.9%

06. Shelburne Bay 12.5% 64.1%

21.3% 80% 5.0% 55.0% 20.0%

07. Burlington Bay 30.5% 66.7% 10.0% 38.1% 0% 0.0%

0.0%

09. Malletts Bay 17.6% 0.0%

26.3% 80% 5.0% 44.9% 23.9%

10. Northeast Arm 13.0%

9.8% 80% 5.0%

20.0%

11. St. Albans Bay 24.3% 59.4%

21.8% 80% 5.0% 55.0% 34.3%

12. Missisquoi Bay 64.3% 51.9%

30.1% 80% 60.0% 65.3% 82.8%

13. Isle La Motte 12.4% 0.0% 12.0% 80% 5.0% 20.0%

TOTAL 33.8% 42.1% 10.0% 24.1% 80% 23.4% 43.4% 51.5%

1 % change from current permitted loads

2 Includes reductions needed to offset future growth

EPA (2015)

High Resolution Forecasting of Global Climate Change Impacts on Watershed and Lake Regimes: Integrating Climate, Land-Use,

Hydrological and Limnology Models

How do lags, inertia and thresholds (phase transitions) affect the evolution of state variables in Mississquoi Basin Social Ecological System (SES) that interact across multiple scales of space and time ?

Uncertainty in Global Climate Trajectories: Paris Treaty expectations and global scale collective action problems!

Source: Climate Interactive IPCC 2014

CLIMATE SCENARIO PROJECTIONS FOR LCB SES• THREE “extreme” Climate Scenarios: RCP 4.5; RCP 6.0 and RCP 8.5

• Four extreme GCMs (Warm: miroc-esm-chem; Cool: mri-cgcm3.1; Wet: noresm1-m.1; Dry: ipsl-cm5a-mr.1) are used for three RCP scenarios.

Cascading IAM can generate high resolution temperature projections for alternate climate scenarios and GCMs for LCB

Cascading IAM can generate high resolution precipitation projections for alternate climate scenarios and GCMs for LCB

Land Use Land Cover Change (LULCC) Agent Based Model: Stakeholder Informed Scenarios

LULCC ABM details in Tsai et al. (2015) Land Use Policy 49: 161-176

Developed “Crowdsourced Delphis” for engaging stakeholders , see Coleman et al. (2017) Global Environmental Change 45:111-123

Agriculturally dominant landscape scenario

Forest dominated landscape scenario

Urbanized landscape scenario

Testing Policy Feedbacks: What if 64.3% TP reductions (EPA TMDL 2015) are implemented in

2016 and Paris Treaty goals are met (RCP4.5)?Lags and inertia in switching back to mesotrophic state

GCM = Ensemble of 5 GCMs & ALL ABM = BAU Baseline scenario

Zia et al. (In Review)

Testing the Impacts of Alternate Policies

Zia et al. (In Review)

Zia et al. (In Review)

IAM V2.0: A modular, multi-scalar approach to test SES behavior in a computational IAM

Feedforward IAM can explore “baseline” SES behavior under various extreme event scenarios. Feedbacks and couplings will enable comparisons

Computational models of Social Ecological Systems can be deployed to inform transboundary watershed management.

Such models can simulate cross-scale drivers of global climate change as well as social, policy and governance

drivers of land-use land cover change at watershed/basin scales, responses of the ecological systems to these drivers

of change and differential impacts on the regime shifts in the Social Ecological Systems . Further, the institution of “International Joint Commissions” (IJC) can provide

important learning insights for resolving transboundary water conflicts.

Take Home Message #6

Emergence of Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN)

https://www.transboundarywater.org

• TWIN Charter

– Clean water is essential for all functions in life including food production, energy, sanitation, health, and livelihood. Increased demand for water from development and climate change pose severe challenges to water security. This tension is especially pronounced among trans-boundary rivers. The water conflicts of the day cannot be solved without trans-boundary cooperation.

Emergence of Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN)

https://www.transboundarywater.org

• TWIN Charter

– The Trans-boundary Water In-Cooperation Network (“TWIN” or the “Network”) is an unincorporated network of networks developed by the Center for the Advancement of Public Action (CAPA) at Bennington College and the Institute for Environmental Diplomacy (IEDS) at the University of Vermont to advance the Mission, Vision and Objectives described below. This Charter is created to summarize TWIN’s purposes and how organizations and individuals can engage with and support TWIN in these purposes.

Emergence of Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN)

https://www.transboundarywater.org

• TWIN Mission

– TWIN’s mission is to strengthen and mobilize existing organizational networks that work locally, nationally and globally towards ‘equitable and reasonable’ sharing water resources across borders. TWIN is committed to addressing not only water scarcity but also the degradation of water quality from anthropogenic sources, and the growing impacts of climate change. TWIN promotes co-operation and collaboration among all network stakeholders who have trans-boundary water challenges.

Emergence of Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN)

https://www.transboundarywater.org

• TWIN Vision– TWIN’s vision is to promote water cooperation among countries,

regions, municipalities and villages that share trans-boundary water resources in ways that are equitable and reasonable for all stakeholders. TWIN works to improve border relations, water use practices, water quality, ecosystem services, and public health on both sides of the border and to build resilience to climate change. TWIN’s activities are committed to conforming to the values of all international conventions and treaties on equitable sharing of resources and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal #6 that addresses the access to clean water.

Latest Project of Transboundary Water In-Cooperation Network (TWIN)

Objectives and Proposed Interventions1) Pilot test and evaluate Track-2 and Track-3 environmental diplomacy interventions; 2) Implement transboundary community engagement and citizen science initiatives;3) Assess the equity and access to clean water within and across transboundary river basins;4) Institutionalize science-policy interface for integrated ecosystem based transboundary watershed management; and 5) Promote implementation of global water quality standards with the UN.

Harnessing Science and Environmental Diplomacy for Resolving Persistent Transboundary Water

Conflicts in the Indus, Jordan, Kabul, and Kali River Basins: Towards Global Water Quality Standards

Take Home Message #1

Transboundary water conflicts, if not resolved, may lead to many more “water wars” in the 21st century

due to accelerating climate change, population explosion, unsustainable economic development,

increasing inequity and poor governance.

Take Home Message #2

Transboundary water conflicts, and consequent “water wars” are not “inevitable”. Shared governance, cooperation, diplomacy/treaties and multi-level

institutional mechanisms can be designed to “foresee” the risk of water wars & conflicts, institutionalize water

rights of all riparian partners, and enable access to clean water for human and ecological populations.

IBTS ensured a pragmatic détente, but by its design of allocating water from eastern vs western rivers to

India and Pakistan respectively, it also limits integrative, ecological and cooperative approaches that are needed for tackling food, energy and water

security challenges posed by climate change.

Take Home Message #3

While Kabul river is riparian part of Indus basin, it is not included in the Indus basin treaty system. Global

climate change is very likely to increase water availability in Kabul river, but increased water may

also lead to increased flooding and increased development may deteriorate water quality. There is

convergence from multiple env. diplomacy interventions about taking action to protect water

quality and designing a transboundary collaborative mechanism.

Take Home Message #4

Track-2 and Track-3 diplomacy initiatives in one of the World’s most protracted conflict zones can make a

difference on the ground through community engagement, community empowerment, environmental

monitoring systems and ecological design.

Take Home Message #5

Computational models of Social Ecological Systems can be deployed to inform transboundary watershed management.

Such models can simulate cross-scale drivers of global climate change as well as social, policy and governance

drivers of land-use land cover change at watershed/basin scales, responses of the ecological systems to these drivers

of change and differential impacts on the regime shifts in the Social Ecological Systems . Further, the institution of “International Joint Commissions” (IJC) can provide

important learning insights for resolving transboundary water conflicts.

Take Home Message #6

Thank you!Acknowledgements: NSF EPS-1101317, NSF

OIA-1556770, and TWIN collaborators