Free Flow

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ransboundary

ater

anagement

is not harnessed. While touted by some as an important ‘passport out

of poverty’ in the face of rising energy demands and fossil fuel prices,

green hydropower development remains controversial and contested in

the region, partly because of lack of knowledge of risks due to envi-

ronmental change such as glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs) or

meltwater change; concerns about impacts on the water regime (such

as downstream water availability) and on fisheries, livelihoods, aquatic

ecosystems and environmental services as a whole; and unresolved

mechanisms of benefit sharing. At the regional level, hydropower

projects raise new questions about sharing transboundary water

resources between countries, which has long been a source of dispute.

Yet the ferocity of the debate around hydropower development should

not defeat efforts to understand how development trajectories might

reallocate regional land and water resources, incomes and risks, and the

various consequences for different social groups in time and space. The

challenge is largely to address the question of how different countries

can initiate and sustain coordinated and collaborative actions to harness

hydropower. This will require attention to the structure and interre-

lationships of organizations, sharing of strategies, and a sophisticated

monitoring, communication and coordination mechanism.

Thus it is clear that regional cooperation requires both an

adequate understanding of the potential hydro-economic benefits

and a governance framework for extensive regional engagement for

water resources management to overcome national or bilateral inter-

ests and address shared concerns in a concerted manner.

The notion of regional cooperation to ensure sustainable and equi-

table use of natural resources is not new. Regional strategic political

and economic processes offer opportunities to link water manage-

ment to emerging regional economic, energy and food security

issues. Indeed the heads of state of the South Asian Association for

Regional Cooperation at successive summits have reiterated the need

to strengthen and intensify regional cooperation to preserve, protect

and manage the diverse and fragile ecosystems of South Asia, and to

address the challenges posed by climate change and natural disasters.

The countries of the HKH region have had some success in sharing

real-time hydrological data, primarily through bilateral agreements,

and this has proved useful in flood forecasting. However, achieve-

ments have been limited with regard to the sharing of real-time data

and information on a regional scale, so critical for flood management.

Water cooperation has often been hindered by the lack of a sound

knowledge base on the availability of resources and their distribution

over space and time, and a lack of understanding on the impacts of

various drivers of change on the supply of and demand for resources

– for example, the impacts of climate change on stream flow vari-

ability, sedimentation and potential GLOF events. Regional hubs such

as the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development

(ICIMOD) – whose members are the eight countries of the Hindu

Kush Himalayan region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China,

India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan) – can promote collaboration

among knowledge institutions in the region and contribute to the

development of the requisite knowledge and understanding. Such

regional centres can also facilitate representation and participation

and provide technical support for regional discussions. Over the past

three decades, ICIMOD has provided a common platform for regional

cooperation where policy makers, experts, planners and practitioners

exchange scientific data, information, ideas and perspectives towards

achieving common solutions at regional levels. Water issues, along with

concerns of livelihoods and ecosystems, are integrated across ICIMOD’s

regional programmes addressing adaptation to change, transboundary

landscapes, river basins, cryosphere and atmosphere, and

regional information collection and sharing. ICIMOD also

supports transboundary collaborative research among its

regional member countries through its projects. Such

regional initiatives could be further strengthened through

establishment of an adequately mandated regional group

or body, hosted by a relevant organization, to indepen-

dently facilitate and coordinate regional dialogue and

strategic processes of regional water governance.

At the river basin level, where externalities are unidi-

rectional from upstream to downstream, early success

in regional cooperation can be achieved by identifying

priority actions expected to provide common benefits

across borders, for example hazard risk reduction. The

non-structural flood management approach of providing

end-to-end flood forecasting and warning services has

the greatest potential for regional cooperation. Greater

sharing of knowledge on the cryosphere is another area

of potential cooperation that could improve understand-

ing of cryosphere dynamics and possible downstream

impacts. This is especially important for river basins

highly dependent on meltwater.

Regional cooperation may also provide important

opportunities for overcoming the economic, environ-

mental, technological, financial and institutional barriers

to hydropower development. Power trade and exchange

between the Himalayan region and the core industrial belts

of China and India could improve the capacity utilization

factor of the power plants in the region, thus enabling the

countries to supply power to their households at afford-

able prices. To enable the less industrialized countries in

the region to trade power with the more industrialized

ones, cross-border grid interconnections are vital.

In this regard there have been positive experiences

in the region. Bhutan and India have engaged in some

bilateral cooperation in developing hydropower.

Construction companies in China and India have rich

experience in hydropower development. Power grid

interconnections in India were expanded from the local

and provincial levels to the regional and national levels

in the 1990s, facilitating cross-border interconnections

to the grid networks. Furthermore, India has promoted

the establishment of power trading companies, both

public and private. More recently, electricity exchange

markets have also been started in India.

Another entry point for cooperation may lie in trans-

forming natural systems of water storage. The region is

blessed with a host of such systems including snow cover

and permafrost, glacial lakes, wetlands and groundwater

aquifers. Transforming natural systems into planned active

systems may have important externalities for downstream

users including control of uncertain river flows, recharg-

ing of groundwater aquifers, sediment trapping, nutrient

recycling and maintenance of the quality and quantity

of the water cycle. However, the cost is high relative to

returns, and the externalities are typically undervalued

and not compensated. The introduction of policies for

compensation for ecosystem services could help mountain

people maintain healthy lives in a healthy environment