Transboundary Water Challenges: Case Studies Daene C. McKinney University of Texas at Austin Center for Research in Water Resources Prepared for: U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute Tradecraft Class: PE-305 Environment, Science, Technology, and Health and University of Texas at Austin Environmental and Water Resources Engineering Graduate Class: CE-397 Transboundary Water Resources June 1, 2011i Table of Contents Section page 1.! Water Availability ..................................................................................................... 1!2.! Water Conventions .................................................................................................. 8!3.! Western Hemisphere ............................................................................................. 17!3.1.! Colorado River ............................................................................................... 17!3.2.! Columbia River ............................................................................................... 23!3.3.! Rio Grande ..................................................................................................... 33!3.4.! Lake Titicaca .................................................................................................. 40!4. Europe ...................................................................................................................... 45!4.1.! Rhine River .................................................................................................... 45!4.2.! Danube River ................................................................................................. 51!4.3.! Lake Skadar-Shkoder .................................................................................... 57!5. Africa ........................................................................................................................ 58!5.1.! Nile River ........................................................................................................ 58!5.2.! Niger River ..................................................................................................... 67!5.3.! Senegal River ................................................................................................. 71!5.4.! Volta River ...................................................................................................... 78!6. Near East/Asia ......................................................................................................... 79!6.1.! Jordan River ................................................................................................... 79!6.2.! Tigris and Euphrates Rivers ........................................................................... 87!7. South/Central Asia .................................................................................................. 95!7.1.! Indus River ..................................................................................................... 95!7.2.! Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers ................................................................. 101!7.3.! Syr Darya ..................................................................................................... 107!8. East Asia/Pacific ................................................................................................... 111!8.1.! Mekong River ............................................................................................... 111!1 1. Water Availability (with Eric S. Hersh) This section focuses on the availability of global water resources and their projected use over the next two decades, the distribution of transboundary water resources on the earth, and general problems of the management of transboundary water resources. Water is a unique resource for human development since it is essential to life, has no substitutes, is a renewable resource, and it is unevenly distributed in time and space (Postel, 2003). The availability and use of water resources at the global and regional scale poses special problems that water planners and managers must understand, especially when they appear in the transboundary or multinational setting. This section provides a brief introduction to the availability and use of global water resources, the distribution of transboundary watercourses, and comments about transboundary water management problems. Several assessments of the water available for human activities and the effects of these activities on the global resource have been published over the past few years. The main documents describing the global availability of water have been prepared by the Russian hydrologists at the State Hydrological Institute in St. Petersberg (Korzun, et al., 1978; and Shiklomanov, 1998). In addition, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development has prepared an assessment of world water availability and its use (Lundqvist and Gleick, 1997). These reports, and the Shiklomanov assessment in particular, provide overall information about the availability and dynamics of water supply and use on the various continents and countries of the world. Several projections are made for the future availability of water over the coming decades (note that these assessments do not take explicit account of global climate change). Globally, the average annual renewable water resources amount to 42,780 km3, resulting in a global water availability of 7,600 m3/person (Shiklomanov, 2000). Areas with the largest water resources are Asia and South America, and the smallest volumes are in Europe and Australia/Oceania. However, when looking at the availability of water per person, South America and Australia/Oceania are the highest regions and Asia and Europe are the lowest. Water Resources and Water Availability for Regions of the World (Source: Shiklomanov, 2000) Region Resource Availability km3/yr m3/person/yr Asia 13,510 3,920 Europe 2,900 4,240 Africa 4,050 5,720 North America 7,890 17,400 South America 12,030 38,300 Australia and Oceania 2,404 83,800 !2 !! In terms of global water withdrawal and consumption, agriculture receives 66 percent of total water withdrawal and in the future this is expected to decrease slightly relative to other uses, due to the expected growth of other water uses (Shiklomanov, 2000). Global irrigated area in 1995 was 253 million ha, and by 2025 it is expected to grow to 330 million