Water Governance in the Asian Highlands

Over the past decade in the Asian Highlands, the pace and magnitude of environmental and social change have been accelerating due to global warming and increasing rates of socio-economic transformation. The effects of change in the Asian Highlands are deepened by the vulnerability of many inhabitants. These factors impact on water governance in the Asian Highlands which is also constrained by gaps between scientific information and policy making. We sought answers to water governance questions at three scales-international, regional, and local. From exploring the published literature, we found clear international consensus on best practices for better water governance, but discovered that few such policies have been adopted in the Asian Highlands. The three countries in our study (China, Nepal and Pakistan) all have strong water laws and strategies on paper, but a mix of political, institutional, and capacity barriers often prevents effective implementation.At the regional level, from published documents and field work, we found striking similarities in both barriers against-and bridges toward-effective water governance. Locally, at our village study sites using household surveys, focus groups, key informant interviews, a water use master planning process with stakeholder dialogues, and a variety of risk and vulnerability analyses, we discovered that while climate and socioeconomic changes are often rapid, governance responses to change have so far been slow. Our research shows that piloting solutions for more effective water governance in the Asian Highlands is more likely to yield success through acknowledging upstream-downstream linkages that create local win-win relationships while building adaptations from the bottom up making use of local hybrid knowledge and science. Given that all Asian Highlands’ rivers flow across international borders, the ultimate scaling up issue involves moving water governance from local, district, and regional levels to transboundary water governance for environmental security.

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5716/WP15013.PDF

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