Transboundary river basin management

[Departement_IRSTEA]Eaux [TR1_IRSTEA]GEUSI

International audience

English. Managing transboundary river basins is a complex endeavor that requires specific approaches and methods of management and governance. Part 1 of this chapter introduces transboundary river basins and their management: why they are now widely used as a unit of management, potential linkages with the management of other natural resources and with national and regional development planning efforts. It highlights the difference between operational management, strategic management and governance while introducing river basin organizations and their roles. Finally it paves the way to an open interpretation of the term "transboundary". Part 2 introduces the notion of social-ecological systems and lists a number of factors, explaining their complexity and the inherent difficulties in managing them. We advocate in this part that there is a need to shift from an infrastructure-oriented approach, which focuses on supply-side management and was prevalent in the 1970 s and 1980 s, to more integrated and adaptive approaches considering water demand management, and environmental and social benefits. Based on a comparative analysis of 8 projects in seven transboundary basins, Part 3 shows concrete examples highlighting obstacles and key success factors in implementing these new approaches in practice. Part 4 starts by advocating that an additional factor compounding the difficulty in implementing these new approaches is the apparent incompatibility between the notions of planning, integration and adaptation. Authors in the management science literature uphold that this argument is based on a very old-fashioned notion of planning and suggest using a more adaptive and integrated planning approach based on multi-scale, trans-disciplinary and participatory aspects. Finally, the conclusion questions the desirability of resilience and adaptation for planning purposes and concludes by highlighting the importance of thorough monitoring and evaluation as the unique means for responding to this question.