Messages and meaning - Water Scarcity, Livelihoods and Food Security - page 208

Sometimes there is little information on the scale consequences of change.
For example, in the water-poverty-energy nexus in the Mekong, economic
feasibility studies fail to account for the true costs of hydropower dams.
Moreover, the cumulative impact of hydropower dams remains unknown.
Costs of hydropower dams are unevenly distributed but the distribution of costs
is difficult to measure. Transparency is a critical ingredient in hydropower
planning but there are few incentives for transparency and a lack of enabling
information. Finally, there are opportunities to improve the ecological produc-
tivity of hydropower reservoirs with modest investments. The broader con-
sequences of these investments, when scaled out, however, are uncertain.
Research can help anticipate and monitor the broader consequences of change
There can be many subtle and unexpected consequences of innovation and
change. The challenge for research is to choose which of them are important
to anticipate ex ante and which to monitor ex post. These can include changes
in land, water and labor productivity; livelihood strategies, including market
interactions and labor migration; incomes, poverty and food security; farm
household profits and their distribution within the household; climate and
market-related risk; human health; gender and equity, including access to
resources; cross-scale consequences and externalities; system sustainability and
resilience; build-up or loss of social capital; build-up or loss of natural capital;
and ecosystem services, biodiversity and environmental quality (Chapter 5).
Equitable access to water-related benefits can be
achieved through improved water governance,
water-related rights and benefit-sharing
BSMs create a virtuous circle between ecosystems and people's welfare
BSMs are institutional innovations created as a mechanism for sharing water-
related costs and benefits among different social groups. They need new cross-
sectoral and transboundary institutional arrangements to address high-level
issues of water management. These arrangements can enable equitable and
sustainable development through improved resource governance and more
productive and resilient water management.
The Andes program focused on BSMs. It found that one size does not fit all
and that BSMs must be designed within the local social and hydrological
context. Indeed, BSMs are a tool for integrated water resource management
and adaptation to climate change. They should preferably target watersheds
where there is seasonal water supply upstream and a high demand downstream.
BSMs are fair and equitable when all stakeholders are provided with all
necessary information before they are designed and implemented. The most
vulnerable people must develop “hydro-literacy” to avoid power imbalances
related to access to information.