Back to Spring 2011 Newsletter
Water draws people together because water is life. However, when many people, animals, and industries are competing over limited water, things can get tense. Transboundary aquifers are sources of groundwater that defy our political boundaries and often lead to intense conversation about what should be done in order to give everyone a fair share.
In the past 10 years, researchers, policy makers, and citizens have been actively working together under international guidelines to make major improvements to helping solve transboundary water issues. We can now take a broad look around the world to see what is working and what is not.
The Internationally Shared Aquifer Resource Management (ISARM) Initiative has recently published a methodological guide outlining best practices. The worldwide ISARM Initiative is a UNESCO and International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) led multi-agency effort aimed at improving the understanding of scientific, socio-economic, legal, institutional and environmental issues related to the management of transboundary aquifers. The guidebook, Towards the concerted management of transboundary aquifer systems, uses both case studies and analysis in order to identify the features of successful water management programs around the world.
The guide comes in three parts:
- the need for a more comprehensive approach based on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) principles
- a range of technical, legal, organizational, economic, training, and cooperation tools that can help improve the knowledge and management of resources, and
- a progressive, multi-pronged approach for implementing the concerted, equitable, and sustainable management of transboundary aquifer systems, as well as potential mechanisms for creating and sustainably operating appropriate institutional structures to manage these shared groundwater resources.
While this guide is currently only published in French, an English version is under consideration. In the meantime, we need look no further than our own transboundary aquifer management along the US-Mexico border. The US-Mexico Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Act was enacted in 2006 in order to assess priority transboundary aquifers along the border, produce scientific products capable of being broadly distributed, and provide scientific information needed by water managers and natural resource agencies on both sides of the border. The Arizona Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program (AZ TAAP) is an ISARM case study project being led by WRRC Director Sharon Megdal and Chris Scott from the University of Arizona Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy and the School of Geography and Development.
Aquifer assessment is a prerequisite to aquifer management and the program has already illustrated the most important component of transboundary water best practices: partnerships.
Water management and policy are shaped by several factors including resource availability, location of water demands and supplies, economics, historic and current legal/institutional frameworks, politics, public values, and information. In order to understand all of the factors at play, organizations must work together on both sides of the border. TAAP involves three US states, two Mexican states, and includes four transboundary aquifers.
Partnerships are embedded in TAAP. The legislation establishing TAAP reinforced the relationship between the US Geological Survey and the universities involved, allocating 50% of the appropriations to USGS and 50% to federally recognized Water Resources Research Institutes/Centers located at US Land Grant universities. The Water Institutes may then subcontract with partners, as needed. USGS and the universities are directed to collaborate with state water agencies, any affected Indian tribes, and the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC) as appropriate, as well as Mexico and other stakeholders.
It is important to remember that partnerships must accommodate and reflect asymmetries of institutions and laws because not every agency can afford to put in an equal share and may be operating under different regulations. This work can be facilitated by the IBWC. The “Joint Report of Principal Engineers Regarding the Joint Cooperative Process United States–Mexico for the Transboundary Aquifer Assessment Program” was signed on August 19, 2009 after a year and a half of informal binational exchange meetings and three formal meetings over a period of five months.
Two meetings were held at the US Section IBWC (March 11 and April 16, 2009) and one was held at the Mexican Section CILA (June 18, 2009), while the actual signature by the two Principal Engineers took place on the border itself. The rationale for the agreement stemmed from the interest of both researchers and agency representatives in the United States and Mexico to ensure a binational process of prioritizing the aquifer assessment process, the flow of information, and the final official acceptance of assessment results. Stakeholders directly involved in drafting the agreement clearly saw the need for a truly binational process leading to a formal agreement that would be officially recognized by both countries.
Under the agreement, the IBWC is to facilitate binational work by assuring concurrence of the United States and Mexico for binational aquifer assessment activities, facilitating agreement on the aquifers that will be evaluated jointly, and establishing and coordinating binational technical advisory committees for each aquifer. The IBWC also serves as an official repository for the binational studies developed.
Another essential component of successful transboundary aquifer studies is to work from the ground up by building a shared vision with stakeholders. Stakeholder involvement results in improved quality of decisions, improved credibility and public support, potential challenges.
Cross-border meetings and field trips under TAAP have involved numerous governmental and non-governmental stakeholders who work to emphasize shared priorities including water availability, climate change, and water quality. TAAP factsheets, meeting minutes, and other materials are offered in both English and Spanish.
In other ISARM case studies, stakeholders have participated through community-based organizations (Senegal River, Africa), being active monitors of project implementation (Komati River, Africa), writing legislation to aid the water management process (Danube River Basin, Europe), and linking short-term community water projects to large-scale management visions (Great Lakes System, USA).
Partnerships, especially new ones, require time, perseverance, flexibility, creativity, respect for different perspectives, appreciation of the need for multiple types of expertise, and good and regular communication. Policy responses in these times of global change and great uncertainty depend on
- good information,
- good dissemination of that information, and
- good understanding of the information.
While collaborative funding and overarching organizational structure may be difficult to create and maintain, the ISARM examples indicate that appropriate policy responses involving multiple stakeholders are achievable in these times of global change. Arizona TAAP and other ISARM programs are excellent case studies of best practices for transboundary aquifer assessment and management, but there is always additional work to be done. The efforts of these programs aim at building capacity for water stakeholders to work together to create cooperative efforts that solve common problems instead of simply fighting over water rights and wrongs.