Political boundaries are drawn without consideration of river basin boundaries, as illustrated by the fact that 263 surface water resources cross international boundaries. Over the next decade, several contributing factors could trigger rapid change and social and economic instability in these international watersheds, placing greater demands on competing water interests and a greater need to cooperate across jurisdictional boundaries. These contributing factors include: climate change; continued population growth; a threatened and deteriorating ecosystem; demand for non-fossil fuel energy; and aging infrastructure. Uncertainty in these factors challenges traditional approaches to governance of transboundary water resources. These approaches also rely on the certainty that historic data concerning water supply, demand, values, and ecosystem health can be used to predict the future. In addition, these traditional approaches protect sovereignty through clear rules for dividing resources rather than flexibility to adapt to change and foster system resilience. Resilience as applied to ecological systems addresses the ability of the system to continue to provide, or return to a state in which it will provide, a full range of ecosystem services in the face of change. When applied to the coupled human-ecological system (i.e. a social-ecological system), it provides an umbrella theory for integration of concepts of natural resource management with ecological response to achieve sustainability. Achieving the goal of sustainability in a river basin is complicated by uncertainty in the drivers of change and the fragmentation of jurisdictions. Research to translate resilience theory into specific administrative actions may provide a road map to improving our ability to foster sustainability in our response to change in transboundary river basins. This research is an outgrowth of the first University of Idaho College of Law Natural Resources and Environment Symposium (“the Symposium”) focused on the issue of transboundary water governance in the face of uncertainty. The Symposium used the natural laboratory of the Columbia Basin, shared by the United States and Canada, as a focal point for discussion. Joint operation of the river for the purposes of hydropower production and flood control is governed by a 1964 treaty (“the Treaty”). Certain flood control provisions of the Treaty expire in 2024, and either country must provide ten years' notice should it seek to terminate the Treaty. Thus efforts are underway in the basin to predict changes and to understand whether those changes warrant Treaty modification. The degree of uncertainty surrounding the drivers of change complicates efforts to predict and address changes. With the University of Idaho College of Law and Waters of the West Program as the lead organizer, the Symposium was developed in collaboration with researchers from Oregon State University, University of Montana, University of British Columbia, and Washington State University. Representatives of the first four of these universities and the University of Washington have joined to form the Universities Consortium on Columbia River Governance (“the Consortium”). This paper proceeds as follows: Part I introduces and reviews some of the relevant work on the concept of resilience in governance; Part II uses information from the symposium to describe the Columbia River and the 1964 Columbia River Treaty; Part III discusses changes since 1964 and the anticipated drivers of change; and Part IV concludes by applying the concept of resilience to the Columbia River Basin and laying the foundation for the next step in the research being pursued at the University of Idaho. This work includes developing models of administrative law that are integrated with the Consortium's research around the concept of resilience. These models could be applied in the Columbia Basin and other transboundary and multi-jurisdictional efforts at river governance.

The Columbia River Treaty Revisited, with contributions from historians, geographers, environmental scientists, and other experts, facilitates conversation about the impending expiration, aiding efforts to understand changes in the basin since the treaty was passed, to predict future changes, and to determine whether alteration of the treaty is ultimately advisable.

This book examines the issues at stake in transboundary water governance, it spotlights the Rhône River, a biophysical entity of enormous historical, political and economic importance. The Rhône has long been viewed essentially as a tool for energy production, heavily canalized and exploited by a series of dams and nuclear power plants – with the result that those who live along this great river have simply turned away. Basing their work on a detailed analysis of the history and the current management of the Rhône, the authors explore the challenges linked with transboundary river basin governance including relevant international water law, appropriation of river and river resources by Nation States. Finally, they discuss a diverse range of institutional architectures and outlines several solutions that might cope with the growing complexity of transboundary management of a major river. The book will be of interest to scholars in fields such as environment studies, water policy and Natural Resource Management, it also has relevance to water managers and entrepreneurs concerned with staying abreast of developments in water policy and governance.

This book presents the results of an interdisciplinary project that examined how law, policy and ecological dynamics influence the governance of regional scale water based social-ecological systems in the United States and Australia. The volume explores the obstacles and opportunities for governance that is capable of management, adaptation, and transformation in these regional social-ecological systems as they respond to accelerating environmental change. With the onset of the Anthropocene, global and regional changes in biophysical inputs to these systems will challenge their capacity to respond while maintaining functions of water supply, flood control, hydropower production, water quality, and biodiversity. Governance lies at the heart of the capacity of these systems to meet these challenges. Assessment of water basins in the United States and Australia indicates that state-centric governance of these complex and dynamic social-environmental systems is evolving to a more complex, diverse, and complex array public and private arrangements. In this process, three challenges emerge for water governance to become adaptive to environmental change. First, is the need for legal reform to remove barriers to adaptive governance by authorizing government agencies to prepare for windows of opportunity through adaptive planning, and to institutionalize the results of innovative solutions that arise once a window opens. Second, is the need for legal reform to give government agencies the authority to facilitate and participate in adaptive management and governance. This must be accompanied by parallel legal reform to assure that engagement of private and economic actors and the increase in governmental flexibility does not destabilize basin economies or come at the expense of legitimacy, accountability, equity, and justice. Third, development of means to continually assess thresholds and resilience of social-ecological systems and the adaptive capacity of their current governance to structure actions at multiple scales. The massive investment in water infrastructure on the river basins studied has improved the agricultural, urban and economic sectors, largely at the cost of other social and environmental values. Today the infrastructure is aging and in need of substantial investment for those benefits to continue and adapt to ongoing environmental changes. The renewal of institutions and heavily engineered water systems also presents the opportunity to modernize these systems to address inequity and align with the values and objectives of the 21st century. Creative approaches are needed to transform and modernize water governance that increases the capacity of these water-based social-ecological systems to innovate, adapt, and learn, will provide the tools needed to navigate an uncertain future.

Water Crises and Governance critically examines the relationship between water crises and governance in the face of challenges to provide water for growing human demand and environmental needs. Water crises threaten the assumptions and accepted management practices of water users, managers and policymakers. In developed and developing world contexts from North America and Australasia, to Latin America, Africa and China, existing institutions and governance arrangements have unintentionally provoked water crises while shaping diverse, often innovative responses to management dilemmas. This volume brings together original field-based studies by social scientists investigating water crises and their implications for governance. Contributors to this collection find that water crises degrade environments, place untenable burdens on stakeholders, and produce or exacerbate social conflict, undermining ecological and social conditions that sustain effective collaboration. At the same time, water crises can promote institutional change that "resets" governance, promoting unusual and creative responses appropriate for local contexts. The studies in this volume provide evidence that, while water crises pose serious threats to environments and societies, they also provide opportunities to learn from experience and recraft water governance with coherent visions of more ecologically and socially sustainable futures. This volume was originally published as a special issue of Society & Natural Resources.

Will tensions and disputes among states sharing international water courses and lakes turn into active conflicts? Addressing this question, the book shows that these concerns are more prominent due to the locations and underlying political dynamics of some of these large rivers and the strategic interests of major powers. Written by a combination of leading practitioners and academics, this book shows that states are more prone to cooperate and manage their transboundary issues over the use of their common water resources through peaceful means, and the key institutions they employ are international river basin organizations (RBOs). Far from being mere technical institutions, RBOs are key mechanisms of water diplomacy with capacity and effectiveness varying on four key interrelated factors: their legal and institutional development, and the influence of their technical and strategic resources. The basins analyzed span all continents, from both developed and developing basins, including the Columbia, Great Lakes, Colorado, Senegal, Niger, Nile, Congo, Jordan, Helmand, Aral Sea, Mekong, Danube and Rhine. Contributing to the academic discourse on transboundary water management and water conflict and cooperation, the book provides insights to policy-makers on which water diplomacy engagements can be successful, the strengths to build on and the pitfalls to avoid so that shared water resources are managed in a cooperative, sustainable and stable way.