The Global Dimension of Water Governance: Why the River Basin Approach Is No Longer Sufficient and Why Cooperative Action at Global Level Is Needed

By Arjen Y. Hoekstra. 2010

133 citations recorded by the source corpus.

When water problems extend beyond the borders of local communities, the river basin is generally seen as the most appropriate unit for analysis, planning, and institutional arrangements. In this paper it is argued that addressing water problems at the river basin level is not always sufficient. Many of today’s seemingly local water issues carry a (sub)continental or even global dimension, which urges for a governance approach that comprises institutional arrangements at a level beyond that of the river basin. This paper examines a number of arguments for the thesis that good water governance requires a global approach complementary to the river basin approach. Subsequently, it identifies four major issues to be addressed at global scale: Efficiency, equity, sustainability and security of water supply in a globalised world. Finally, the paper raises the question of what kind of institutional arrangements could be developed to cope with the global dimension of water issues. A few possible directions are explored, ranging from an international protocol on full-cost water pricing and a water label for water-intensive products to the implementation of water footprint quotas and the water-neutral concept.

Subfields: Ocean Engineering, Sociology and Political Science, Water Science and Technology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d10860b78ed3e2e4c58c2a1be5d33f15ce4b8a55

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Citations in the corpus

National water footprint accounts: the green, blue and grey water footprint of production and consumption (2011, background): “The estimated water footprints of agricultural products are necessarily ten-year averages, because they have been based on climate data, which are by definition multi-year averages (Mekonnen and Hoekstra, 2010b, 2011).”
Evolving water science in the Anthropocene (2013, background): “However, in many instances we have exceeded sustainability limits, leading to heavily modified rivers, declining groundwater tables, and eutrophied and disappearing lakes.”
The water footprint of humanity (2011, background): “The relatively large volume of international virtual water flows and the associated external water dependencies strengthen the argument to put the issue of water scarcity in a global context (8, 10).”
Imported water risk: the case of the UK (2016, methodology): “Various global assessments of the WFs of nations and international VW flows have been published: Hoekstra and Hung (2002), Hoekstra and Chapagain (2007b, 2008), Fader et al (2011), Mekonnen and Hoekstra (2011b), Hoekstra and Mekonnen (2012) and Chen and Chen (2013).”