6.3 Political Implications of the Global Water Crisis
61
In view of the above it is not surprising that the 2015 Global Risks Report of
the World Economic Forum ranked water crisis as the number one global risk in
terms of impact and number eight in terms of likelihood (WEF 2015), highlighting
its potential to trigger major interstate challenges such as large scale involuntary
migrations. Similarly, in the 2016, 2016 and 2018 reports water crisis featured top
ten in terms of likelihood together with the failure to mitigate and adapt to climate
change (WEF 2016, 2017, 2018).
6.4 The Global Water Crisis in a Transboundary Context:
Hydropolitical Resilience or Vulnerability?
6.4.1 Concepts of Hydropolitical Resilience and Vulnerability
Transboundary water governance is one of the most complicated and delicate challenges of interstate relations even at best of times. However, the scientific findings cited above suggest that altered precipitation patterns and other human interventions will render future river flow variability outside the bounds of previously
observed events. This may seriously test the balance of co-riparian relations all over
the planet as most of the world’s technical and political instruments to govern/manage
shared basins have been based on the historic experience that river runoffs fluctuate
within predictable ranges of variability. With hydro-climatic stationarity declared
dead, the question arises whether (and if so, how) countries will be able to cope
with the new dynamics that the various impacts of the Anthropocene inject into
transboundary water relations (Milly et al. 2008).
The ability of a basin or a region to cope with emerging water-related political
challenges has been expressed through the notion of hydropolitical resilience and
vulnerability, a concept developed by scholars of hydropolitics (see Sect. 3.2.3). The
point of departure of the hydopolitical resilience theory—formulated most clearly
by the Oregon School under the leadership of Aaron Wolf—is the contention that a
basin’s capacity to absorb stress can be best expressed in terms of its institutional
capacity (Turton 2008). Where the rate of change within the basin exceeds the institutional capacity to absorb that change the likelihood of conflict rises. Importantly,
such changes can be linked to a wide range of physical or political stress indicators:
environmental change, asymmetric economic growth, unilateral implementation of
major projects or decline of political relations. In other words, while certain phenomena are more likely to trigger conflict than others (almost 90% of all conflicts on
record relate to water quantity and infrastructure), there is no single precursor (e.g.
scarcity) that mechanically creates disputes among riparian states. Instead, it is “very
rapid changes, either on the institutional side or in the physical system, that outpace
the institutional capacity to absorb those changes [that] are at the root of most water
conflict” (Wolf 2009).
61
In view of the above it is not surprising that the 2015 Global Risks Report of
the World Economic Forum ranked water crisis as the number one global risk in
terms of impact and number eight in terms of likelihood (WEF 2015), highlighting
its potential to trigger major interstate challenges such as large scale involuntary
migrations. Similarly, in the 2016, 2016 and 2018 reports water crisis featured top
ten in terms of likelihood together with the failure to mitigate and adapt to climate
change (WEF 2016, 2017, 2018).
6.4 The Global Water Crisis in a Transboundary Context:
Hydropolitical Resilience or Vulnerability?
6.4.1 Concepts of Hydropolitical Resilience and Vulnerability
Transboundary water governance is one of the most complicated and delicate challenges of interstate relations even at best of times. However, the scientific findings cited above suggest that altered precipitation patterns and other human interventions will render future river flow variability outside the bounds of previously
observed events. This may seriously test the balance of co-riparian relations all over
the planet as most of the world’s technical and political instruments to govern/manage
shared basins have been based on the historic experience that river runoffs fluctuate
within predictable ranges of variability. With hydro-climatic stationarity declared
dead, the question arises whether (and if so, how) countries will be able to cope
with the new dynamics that the various impacts of the Anthropocene inject into
transboundary water relations (Milly et al. 2008).
The ability of a basin or a region to cope with emerging water-related political
challenges has been expressed through the notion of hydropolitical resilience and
vulnerability, a concept developed by scholars of hydropolitics (see Sect. 3.2.3). The
point of departure of the hydopolitical resilience theory—formulated most clearly
by the Oregon School under the leadership of Aaron Wolf—is the contention that a
basin’s capacity to absorb stress can be best expressed in terms of its institutional
capacity (Turton 2008). Where the rate of change within the basin exceeds the institutional capacity to absorb that change the likelihood of conflict rises. Importantly,
such changes can be linked to a wide range of physical or political stress indicators:
environmental change, asymmetric economic growth, unilateral implementation of
major projects or decline of political relations. In other words, while certain phenomena are more likely to trigger conflict than others (almost 90% of all conflicts on
record relate to water quantity and infrastructure), there is no single precursor (e.g.
scarcity) that mechanically creates disputes among riparian states. Instead, it is “very
rapid changes, either on the institutional side or in the physical system, that outpace
the institutional capacity to absorb those changes [that] are at the root of most water
conflict” (Wolf 2009).