Few places illustrate the importance of the water-energy nexus better than northern China’s Yellow River basin. Acute water scarcity, driven mainly by dramatic economic growth, is increasingly confronting policymakers with hard choices about how to provide water for existing uses as well as rapidly expanding energy production. Under these conditions, the institutions that decide who gets how much water…
In 2010, the United Nations proclaimed that the world met the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water, five years ahead of schedule. They estimated that, as of 2011, 768 million people did not have improved sources for drinking water. With this metric, we had a […]
This post is a follow up to The Case for Water Diplomacy for South Asia (Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna Basin). The initial post describes the unique hydrology and water security challenges for the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) Basin shared by Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar and Nepal. The problem of water security in South Asia is rooted more in spatial and temporal […]
With a large and growing population, high poverty rates, and a need to ensure food security, water is highly politicized. The diverse opinions and resulting disputes between South Asian countries regarding shared waters has resulted in few strategies for basin level cooperation in the face of changing requirements and variable water quantities. In addition to […]
(From the Cairo Airport Lounge) Returning to Boston from Nazareth, Ethiopia after leading an intensive two-day workshop organized by ENTRO/ENSAP. The theme was Water Diplomacy Framework : from theory to practice with a focus on transboundary water issues. Over sixty water professionals, decision makers, diplomats, and non-governmental actors from the four Eastern Nile countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, and South […]
Water is embedded in landscapes that are altered by both natural and human processes. The way we use and manage a water resource impacts its characteristics and these impacts can cascade to related systems — there is an ongoing conversation within the water community that continues to express that water researchers cannot afford to ignore the […]
Dr. Robin Stonecash (Director, Executive Projects, UTS Business School) , a 2012 WDW alum, will be presenting Water – our need for a new brand of diplomacy on August 6 2013 at a Holistic Management Conference in Orange, NSW, Australia. She was recently featured in The Land, where she discussed working with water conflicts in […]
Integrated Water Resources Management has become the must-do in the water management world. But it is not always the best approach to solving our water problems and can even cause harm and divert energy from more promising alternatives. The basic ideas of integrated water resources management are nearing 100 years of age. They are a […]
The June 2013 issue of Water Alternatives focuses on “many of the problems, ethical dilemmas, and frustrations that those of us involved with international development recurrently encounter, but rarely discuss and hardly ever write about.” The articles in this issue, “Voices of Water Professionals: Shedding Light on Hidden Dynamics in the Water Sector,” written by […]
A CNBC report on the extent and costs to address United States’ aging water infrastructure quotes Shafiqul Islam, Director, Water Diplomacy. The article mainly focuses on aging water infrastructure and various plans to address the costs of fixing infrastructure, but also addresses groundwater depletion in the U.S.
