Transboundary Water Resource Management

Abstract

There are 276 international river basins worldwide that stretch over two or more countries, and about 40% of the world population lives in these international river basins. This chapter addresses a broad range of issues of transboundary water resource management. The first section sets the scene and describes existing transboundary water agreements and principles of international water rights. A basic model is set up to analyze benefit sharing along a river basin with two riparians first, and is then extended to more than two riperians, in the context of cooperative and noncooperative game theory. A separate section introduces bankruptcy rules for water allocation, i.e., the physical allocation of water to consumers. In addition, rules for flexible water sharing are derived. The chapter includes two case studies on transboundary water issues along the Nile and the Euphrates. The chapter includes exercises and suggestions for further reading.