Sharing Water in Times of Scarcity: Guidelines and Procedures in the Development of Effective Agreements to Share Water Across Political Boundaries

Abstract

• Sponsored by the Laws and Institutions Committee of the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of ASCE.

  This report bridges the theory and practice of effective shared water management by describing a process that local, state, and national governments can use to create or modify transboundary water-sharing agreements. This book provides narrative guidelines and procedures for the initial formulation stage of the water-sharing process. Topics Include: foundation of effective water sharing; water sharing across political boundaries; resource assessments; administration of agreements; and water allocation strategies.

  When two or more independent governments share a common water resource, the timing and magnitude of the respective individual uses can be continual sources of conflict, especially when water scarcity is evident, as it is throughout much of the western United States. In 1995, ASCE initiated the Shared Use of Transboundary Water Resources (SUTWR) Project, one purpose of which was to review existing transboundary water-sharing agreements. Another purpose was to develop guidelines for the development of agreements that would limit potential conflict while providing an appropriate balance between efficient use of the water resource for economic purposes, public health, and ecological protection. One product of the SUTWR Project, Model Water Sharing Agreements for the Twenty-First Century (2002), provides three separate model agreements focusing on the allocation and use of shared waters and on resolving conflicts in such waters.