Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources

Public Participation in the Governance of International Freshwater Resources

Author: Carl E. Bruch

Publisher: United Nations University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 521

ISBN-13: 9280811061

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Bruch, a senior attorney of the Environmental Law Institute, presents work from an April 2003 symposium co-sponsored by the Environmental Law Institute, the United Nations University, and other institutions. Papers from the symposium identify innovative approaches in watershed management and look at political, linguistic, legal, cultural, and geogr


Rules, Norms and NGO Advocacy Strategies

Rules, Norms and NGO Advocacy Strategies

Author: Yumiko Yasuda

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-09-16

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1317417348

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There is much controversy over the development of new dams for hydropower, where concerns for environmental protection and the livelihoods of local people may conflict with the goals of economic development. This book analyses the opportunities and barriers that NGOs and civil society actors face when conducting advocacy campaigns against such developments. Through a comparison of two NGO coalitions in Cambodia and Vietnam advocating against the Xayaburi hydropower dam on the Mekong River, the book explores the intricate interactions of formal and informal rules and norms and how they influence advocacy strategies. A framework for analysis is proposed which serves as a tool for analysis by civil society actors. The author generates fresh insights into the way in which opportunities and barriers are created for NGOs to influence state-centric decision-making processes. The book also discusses Mekong riparian states’ negotiation process over the Xayaburi hydropower dam in detail, providing an analysis of the Mekong River’s governance under the 1995 Mekong Agreement. The book concludes by suggesting ways to improve the engagement of civil society actors in the governance of transboundary rivers and development projects.


Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region

Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region

Author: François Molle

Publisher: Earthscan

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 449

ISBN-13: 1849770867

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The water resources of the Mekong river catchment area, from China, through Thailand, Cambodia and Laos to Vietnam, are increasingly contested. Governments, companies and banks are driving new investment in roads, dams, diversions, irrigation schemes, navigation facilities, power plants and other emblems of conventional "development." Their plans and interventions pose multiple burdens and risks to the livelihoods of millions of people dependent on wetlands, floodplains, fisheries and aquatic resources.


Enhancing Participation and Governance in Water Resources Management

Enhancing Participation and Governance in Water Resources Management

Author: Libor Jansky

Publisher: United Nations University Press

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9280811207

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The United Nations estimates that more than 2 billion people in over 40 countries are negatively affected by water shortages. Increasing demand for water has been identified as one of four major factors that will threaten human and ecological health over the next generation. As public health, development, economy and nature suffer, ensuring access to clean water is rising towards the top of government agendas. Water resources management is the aggregate of policies and activities used to provide clean water to meet human needs across sectors and jurisdictions and to sustain the water-related ecological systems upon which we depend. Knowledge that is crucial for water management is distributed across governments, non-governmental organizations and the water users themselves. In most circumstances, water management aims to address the interests of and integrate usage across hydrologically meaningful units, such as watersheds. Some management aspects, however, such as transboundary flows across multiple basins and inter-basin water transfers via channels or virtual water, may necessitate a broader geographical scope. Public participation aims actively to increase attention to and inclusion of the interests of those who are usually marginalized, e.g. politically disenfranchised minorities or poor people indirectly affected by water management. In this book, the authors identify successful mechanisms, approaches and practices for promoting public involvement in water resources management, including both conventional approaches and those based on information technology.


A Procedural Framework for Transboundary Water Management in the Mekong River Basin

A Procedural Framework for Transboundary Water Management in the Mekong River Basin

Author: Qi Gao

Publisher: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

Published: 2014-03-13

Total Pages: 359

ISBN-13: 9004266798

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In A Procedural Framework for Transboundary Water Management in the Mekong River Basin: Shared Mekong for a Common Future, Qi Gao explores procedural implications of integrated water resources management and its application in the Mekong River Basin. As a problem-based study, enlightening conclusions are made based on the increasingly polycentric nature of transboundary cooperation in the Mekong region. The procedural requirements in the Mekong context, both the ideal and practical scenarios are considered, combined with selected case studies. Qi Gao convincingly asserts the necessity to enhance decision-making processes and suggests procedural legal mechanisms to institutionalize sustainability concepts in transboundary cooperation.


Politics and Development in a Transboundary Watershed

Politics and Development in a Transboundary Watershed

Author: Joakim Öjendal

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2011-11-25

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 9400704763

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Water - and its governance - is becoming a global concern partly because it is turning into a goods in short supply, with devastating effects on literally billions of people, but also because it is the "carrier" of global warming; whether through irregular weather patterns or through flooding, water is how global warming will be 'felt'. The lion's share of the globally available fresh water resources is to be found in transboundary systems. In spite of its significance, the generated knowledge on how to deal with transboundary waters is weak and leaves policy makers with seemingly unavoidable, trade-off dilemmas and prioritizations, often with detrimental effects. In order to disentangle this predicament this volume works with one case: the Lower Mekong Basin and covers state-of-the-art academic and practitioners' knowledge and hence appeals to a wide audience. The topic this volume addresses is situated in the nexus of an IR- (International Relations) approach focussing on transboundary politics and its inclination to remain within the sphere of state sovereignty and national interest on the one hand, and Development studies, with its imperatives on participation, planning, and intervention, on the other. The dilemma, we argue, of better understanding transboundary water management lies in how to understand how these two rationalities can be simultaneously nurtured. Audience: This book will be relevant to scholars, as it provides cutting-edge research, and students, since it covers the primary debates in the field, interested in resource management, regional politics, and development issues in the area. It also addresses the global debate on transboundary water management and presents an in-depth case of one of the globally most sophisticated attempts at pursuing sustainable river basin management. Finally, practitioners and policymakers would benefit greatly because all contributions have explicit policy relevance, launching suggestion on improvements in water management.


Water Resources and Food Security in the Vietnam Mekong Delta

Water Resources and Food Security in the Vietnam Mekong Delta

Author: Tuyet L. Cosslett

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-22

Total Pages: 189

ISBN-13: 3319021982

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The Mekong River has been a main source of conquest, conflict, and cooperation in the Southeast Asian region. Much has been written on the vital and critical importance of the Mekong River fresh water to the sustainable economic development of the Mekong Delta. This book selects the Mekong Delta as a case study of regional cooperation for water and food security for not only for Vietnam but also for the world in a new century of global economy. It focuses not only on the Mekong Delta as an integral part of the River but also on Can Tho City and its 12 provinces that produce over 50 percent of the country’s rice output and 60 percent of total fishery output. The book takes a micro approach to examine how each province is adapting to the twin threats of mainstream dams construction and climate change, reducing fresh water flows and increasing saline infusions on its present and future economy. Finally, it reviews the roles of international institutional arrangements, namely the Mekong Committee and the Mekong River Commission, in promoting regional cooperation among the riparian states for political and economic development of the Mekong Delta.


Planning the Lower Mekong Basin

Planning the Lower Mekong Basin

Author: Thim Ly

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 3643108346

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The Center for Development Research (ZEF) is an international and interdisciplinary research institute of the University of Bonn, Germany. This book focuses on how various social actors influence the planning process for Se San River Basin's management in response to the effect of Vietnamese Yali-Falls dam on Cambodian local communities' livelihoods. The author examined why responses employed by dam development agencies produce a particular outcome. He attempted to demonstrate their strategies and cultural means in taking control over negotiation process to win the battle for expanding hydropower exploitation in the Se San River for maximum economic gain. The organizing responses by local communities and their distant supporters are constrained and resisted by politics, resources and strategies of dam promoting agencies.


Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region

Contested Waterscapes in the Mekong Region

Author: Francois Molle

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2012-05-04

Total Pages: 450

ISBN-13: 1136569030

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The catchment area of the Mekong River and its tributaries extends from China, through Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and to Vietnam. The water resources of the Mekong region - from the Irrawaddy and Nu-Salween in the west, across the Chao Phraya to the Lancang-Mekong and Red River in the east- are increasingly contested. Governments, companies, and banks are driving new investments in roads, dams, diversions, irrigation schemes, navigation facilities, power plants and other emblems of conventional 'development'. Their plans and interventions should provide some benefits, but also pose multiple burdens and risks to millions of people dependent on wetlands, floodplains and aquatic resources, in particular, the wild capture fisheries of rivers and lakes. This book examines how large-scale projects are being proposed, justified, and built. How are such projects contested and how do specific governance regimes influence decision making? The book also highlights the emergence of new actors, rights and trade-off debates, and the social and environmental consequences of 'water resources development'. This book shows how diverse, and often antagonistic, ideologies and interests are contesting for legitimacy. It argues that the distribution of decision-making, political, and discursive power influences how the waterscapes of the region will ultimately look and how benefits, costs and risks will be distributed. These issues are crucial for the transformation of waterscapes and the prospects for democratizing water governance in the Mekong region. The book is part of the action-research of the M-POWER (Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience) knowledge network. Published with IFAD, CG|AR Challenge Program on Water & Food, M-POWER, Project ECHEL-EAU and HEINRICH BOLL STIFTUNG