Hydrology.nl

Stockholm, 1 September 2016 • Today, during the World Water Week in Stockholm, Transboundary Water Management and the Climate Change Debate has been announced to be the International Water Resources Book of the Year 2015. After due consideration of more than 100 books about international hydrology and water resources, we are happy to announce that «Transboundary Water Management and the Climate Change Debate» has been awarded the title International Water Resources Book of the Year 2015. 

It is good to see that after its introduction to the World Water Week about 10 years ago, climate change has been acknowledged by the water sector as an important development that needs to be seriously considered in water resources decisions. Nowadays, however, ‘climate change’ is too often used as an argument or excuse to achieve water-related political goals, such as funding for dams or large-scale water transfers – without a proper analysis of the real causes of problems such as conflict, displacement, poverty.

Michael van der Valk, international water resources expert and director of Hydrology.nl: »‘Climate change’ is often invoked at the highest levels to motivate support for large-scale infrastructure projects, not always based on a sound foundation that is supported by science, monitoring and real-world data. «Transboundary Water Management and the Climate Change Debate» is one of the few publications that touches on these sensitive but very important topics—a must to read for everyone working on transboundary water management.«

Climate change has an impact on the ability of transboundary water management institutions to deliver on their respective mandates. The starting point for this book is that actors within transboundary water management institutions develop responses to the climate change debate, as distinct from the physical phenomenon of climate change. Actors respond to this debate broadly in three distinct ways – adapt, resist (as in avoiding the issue) and subvert (as in using the debate to fulfil their own agenda).

The book charts approaches which have been taken over the past two decades to promote more effective water management institutions, covering issues of conflict, cooperation, power and law. A new framework for a better understanding of the interaction between transboundary water management institutional resilience and global change is developed through analysis of the way these institutions respond to the climate change debate. This framework is applied to six river case studies from Africa, Asia and the Middle East (Ganges-Brahmaputra, Jordan, Mekong, Niger, Nile, Orange-Senqu) from which learning conclusions and policy recommendations are developed.

» SIWI

» World Water Week in Stockholm

» Book webpage at Routledge – ask your local bookstore to order it from Routledge

 Water, migration and how they are interlinked (SIWI Working Paper)