Abstract
This research uses past treaty successes and failures in managing hydrologic stress as a means of determining the importance of treaty design parameters. These parameters can then be used more broadly across other treaties to estimate capabilities for managing stresses, such as those from climate change. It assumes that treaties in general improve resiliency and hopes to provide direction for basins without a treaty or those that wish to develop institutions to better account for climate change.
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Notes
- 1.
Scale differences in the typical unit of analysis political and physical scientists use to delineate and describe a basin-or in other words, the way to define the scope of the problem- complicates the integration of data and discussions from both disciplines. Political scientists typically follow the accepted country, region, and local boundaries when defining their areas of consideration. Physical scientists tend to use the basin itself to define the area. The two different definitions would not be an issue if the river basins area coincided with the political boundaries. Unfortunately, rivers often do not follow political boundaries.
- 2.
Gleditsch et al. (2004) define a river basin as “a topographically delineated area drained by a stream system—that is, the total land area above some point on a stream or river that drains past that point. This means that it encompasses all of the fresh and ground water in a large geographical area. Often encompassing a unique ecosystem, it is frequently used as a spatial unit for socio-economic management.”
- 3.
Treaty, convention, and institution are used synonymously in this study.
- 4.
An in depth study was conducted to determine the best way to reconstruct past hydrologic conditions and river flows, especially in poorly gauged or ungauged rivers. A detailed summary of the merits and limitations of three different methods is available from the author by request.
- 5.
Burke and Brown (2006) provide the following drought definitions: “meteorological drought relates actual precipitation departure to average amounts on monthly, seasonal, water year, or annual time scales; agricultural drought focus on precipitation shortages, differences between actual and potential evapotranspiration, and soil water deficits (for specific crop activities); hydrological drought focus on the effects of periods of precipitation shortfall on surface or subsurface water supply (i.e. streamflow, reservoir and lake levels, groundwater) rather than with precipitation shortfalls; and socioeconomic drought associates the supply and demand of some economic good or service (e.g. water, hydroelectric power) affected by precipitation shortages.”
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Zentner, M. (2011). Hypotheses, Definitions and Explanatory Mechanisms. In: Design and impact of water treaties. Springer Theses. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-23743-0_3
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