The Ganga Basin Management - The Ganga: Water Use in the Indian Subcontinent - page 242

Improved management of international rivers, lakes, aquifers is not easy. Some
countries may, out of economic incentive, ignore demands for basin-wide accords.
Mistrust and suspicion between States can reinforce one country's incentive to act
alone, or undermine mutually advantageous endeavours. Finally, some basin coun-
tries may not have the institutional and financial capability, or political interest,
to make co-operative endeavours. These are difficult to overcome, but progress is
possible if there is the political will.
A number of regions of the world have worked out fruitful arrangements for
managing, and using, international water resources. Some of these have been sum-
marized and assessed in 10 case studies, prepared for the UN Secretariat, which
provide a basis for arriving at some conclusions about how to foster constructive
actions to manage and utilize international water resources, fairly and efficiently.
This statement is based on those reports. First, it seeks to (sic) the nature of the prob-
lems that must be dealt with in the management of international water resources.
Secondly, by drawing on the experiences, reported in the papers listed in the annex-
ure, it seeks to illustrate, how co-operative action has been achieved and the kinds of
institutions that have facilitated co-operative action. The concluding section summa-
rizes the kinds of measures and institutional arrangements that experience suggests,
will foster the best use of international water resources.
The report mentioned the factors, governing the capability of the States for
cooperation as under:
(a) The differences and similarities in the evaluative frameworks of co-riparian
nations;
(b) The uncertainties that exist with regard to the possible future effects of any
joint arrangement;
(c) The physical and economic characteristics of the water resource management
system, as related to international boundaries;
(d) The international relations environment;
(e) Domestic factors within the co-riparian nations; and
(f) The number of nations, involved in the negotiation.
In many cases, in spite of differences of political, social and economic condi-
tions as well as diverse cultural heritage, present and future development activities
etc. some practical means of surmounting them have been found in a number of
situations. The treaties on share of the water of the Rhine, the Great Lakes, the
Columbia, and the Colorado etc. are cited.
Total net benefits from the water resources of a region can be increased beyond
these, which can be realized through independent action by a co-riparian country by
co-coordinating programmes of development of the basin. This kind of problem is
found in river basins, on which countries are either upstream, or downstream, i.e.,
they lie in the basins of successive international rivers. Two solutions are possible:
(a) The upstream country may abstract water, or impair its quality and thus reduce
the benefits for the downstream countries which cannot do the same to the