ARTICLES

Transboundary Water Governance , Adaptation to Climate Change

Introduction

Joshua Roberts and Juan Carlos Sanchez1

Management of transboundary waters is increasingly becoming more challenging, particularly within a context of complex social and environmental changes. Population growth, often concentrated in the developing world, will increase pressure on already scarce resources. With more people there will be more mouths to feed and greater energy needs. Population growth will also lead to reduced water quality from increases in sewage runoff, and industrial and agricultural pollution. These factors will place additional stress on how institutions manage this life-sustaining resource. Climate change is likely to exacerbate these pressures, making it more difficult to manage water across boundaries. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), climate change will result in a number of impacts on water, including, inter alia:

• Increase in precipitation for some regions, while decreased precipitation is experienced in others;

• Increase in average river runoff and water availability for some regions, with decreased runoff in others;

• Increased risks of flooding and drought from the corresponding increased precipitation and variability;

• Increase in glacier melt; • Decreased food security and increased vulnerability for farmers;

• Negative impacts on the function and operation of existing water infrastructure; and

• Significant impacts on water quality, particularly related to sediment loading, chemical composition, total organic carbon content, and microbial quality.2

Climate variability has always played a factor in societies’ relations with freshwater, and environmental systems have always been changing. However, the onset of climate change will increase uncertainty and variability around the availability and quality of freshwater, and in some instances it may irreversibly change some systems. Institutions, which have always been at the heart of how human societies interact with water,3 will find that what has worked in the past may no longer be the case in the future. In order to maintain sustainable ways of life, these institutions will need to rethink how water is used, managed, and governed at all levels.

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