Beyond the Transboundary River: Issues of Riparian Responsibilities

Abstract

The issues of riparian countries sharing transboundary waters spans decades, and has been greatly strengthened by its collaboration with partner agencies. International cooperation on shared water resources is critical, especially in water scarce regions experiencing the impacts of over-consumption and pollution. Where, river basins are transboundary, this requires regular and structured consultation, coordination and cooperation among all states sharing the catchment. Rapid and unsustainable development of river basins and their wetlands has led to the disruption of natural hydrological cycles. In many cases this has resulted in greater frequency and severity of flooding, drought and pollution. Appropriate transnational planning, protection and allocation of water to wetlands are essential to avoid disaster and enable these ecosystems to continue to provide important goods and services to local communities. Integrated river basin management takes into account policies and measures for the multifunctional use of rivers on a catchment scale and associated institutional changes. The implementation of these involves a number of steps such as definition of aim, construction of conceptual model, selection of variables, comparison with selection criteria, database assessment, and indicator selection division of tasks and responsibilities for river basin management with regard to the development of indicators, data collection, and their application in decision-making. This work presents issues pertaining to the pressure to the river, the state of the river ecosystem, the impact to goods and services provided by the river, and the societal response.