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- Title
Comprehensive River Basin Management: The Limits of Collaborative, Stakeholder-Based, Water Governance.
- Authors
Huffman, James L.
- Abstract
The allocation of scarce, freshwater resources is complicated by the transboundary nature of most significant surface water sources. These jurisdictional challenges exist across national borders and within federal nations like the United States. An obvious and long advocated solution is the creation of river basin authorities to bridge jurisdictional boundaries. This article examines the rationale for river basin water management, describes several examples of river basin management regimes in the United States and other nations, and explains why many such schemes have failed or experienced limited success. Although there is much enthusiasm for collaborative integrated management of water and associated river basin resources, particularly in Europe and on the part of international organizations, established river basin management regimes usually have been long on process and short on the resolution of transboundary disagreements. The central problem is that water management regimes are seldom contemplated in the absence of scarcity; under circumstances of scarcity, consensus is difficult to achieve without some preexisting understanding of relative rights. On an international basis, the establishment of such rights is generally dependent on the circumstances of topography, diplomatic negotiation, or force. In the United States, the federal government has the authority to equitably resolve such disputes but has often lacked the political will.
- Subjects
UNITED States; WATERSHEDS; SCARCITY; WATER management; FRESH water; ECONOMIC development; ENVIRONMENTAL regulations
- Publication
Natural Resources Journal, 2009, Vol 49, Issue 1, p117
- ISSN
0028-0739
- Publication type
Article