Detailed Overview
Why a handbook? How will it be different from other publications?
We have created an accessible reference for those seeking negotiated resolutions to water conflicts and dialogue opportunities at the transnational, subnational, and community scale. Many publications address these issues only at a theoretical level, and we see a compelling need for a handbook that is practice-oriented in content, structure, and its approach to theory-practice synthesis. Specifically, this handbook proceeds from the standpoint that there are no generalizable solutions to complex water problems. Instead, it emphasizes practical guidance on how and why the problem context shapes the space of actionable strategies.
To this end, the handbook is structured so that readers can quickly find relevant material on the problem-specific challenges they are facing. It combines a broad introductory survey with concise topical chapters contextualized by a series of case studies. This careful synthesis of theory and practice provides a principled and pragmatic framework for addressing complex water problems through Water Diplomacy.
Who is this book for?
The handbook is a practical companion for anyone working to achieve a negotiated resolution to a water conflict or to strengthen emerging cooperation over a shared water resource. It uses accessible language and does not presuppose any specific background knowledge. The handbook serves as a primer for those who want to start negotiating over shared waters and a source of practical insights for those who are already engaged in a negotiation process — whether they serve as principal negotiators, dialogue facilitators, external observers, or as a member of a preparation team.
Researchers of water negotiation processes will find value in the handbook’s case studies and their contextualisation within the Water Diplomacy Framework. It will help geopolitics experts better understand political dynamics in water-scarce regions across the globe, and economic analysts better understand the role of water and societal resilience when assessing market stability.
Broadly speaking, this handbook will be valuable to anyone seeking a better understanding of conflicts over shared water resources and tools for conflict prevention, mitigation, and resolution of water and related disputes. In other words, this handbook will be an accessible resource for water scholars, professionals, policy, community and opinion leaders, and everyone in between.
About this handbook
The most challenging contemporary water problems cross scales and boundaries. These boundaries are not just natural (e.g., between ecosystems); they are also societal (e.g., between cultures and sectors) and political (e.g., between states and communities). Water flows downhill by gravity in one moment, only to be drawn uphill towards money and power in the next. Steam is released from a power plant in one region, only to condense and acidify a sacred river in another. Floodwaters are seen as an agricultural boon by one community, only to be deemed a residential hazard a few kilometres downstream.
The “water cycle” presented in many textbooks shows the journey of water as it is transformed by natural forces, but this story is incomplete. As water moves between natural and human systems, it undergoes societal and political transformations that are just as plentiful and important. A more comprehensive picture of the water cycle would show the complex couplings that water creates as it crosses natural, societal, and political boundaries. Such couplings are at the heart of many of our most pressing water challenges, but they cannot simply be undone, nor can they be ignored without peril. If we are to make progress on the challenges we face, we must acknowledge their complexity and develop a principled and pragmatic framework for moving forward. Such is the aim of the growing interdisciplinary field of Water Diplomacy.
This handbook presents the latest insights from Water Diplomacy thinking and practice. Water Diplomacy is an evolving framework for addressing complex water problems at multiple scales — from transboundary water conflicts to distributional inequities within a state, to disputes between endangered fish and indigenous farmers. Here, Water Diplomacy refers not only to the official state-sanctioned diplomacy that happens in official meetings but also to being diplomatic in the ordinary, local, and often informal circumstances in which water is contested. In this broader view, diplomacy refers to a negotiated problem-solving approach that is both principled (i.e., rejects options that compromise or ignore values) and pragmatic (i.e., acknowledges that contextual constraints may necessitate negotiation of interests).
This broader notion of diplomacy is aligned with both its traditional and contemporary conceptualisations (e.g., multi-track diplomacy) but extends its reach to problems on smaller scales and in local contexts. In the same vein, we regard Water Diplomacy as an inclusive interdisciplinary field including technical, legal, and governance tracks contributing to a wide range of other related notions spanning from peace and security, resource and employment security, to technical issues related to the management of shared resources. This handbook thus aims to be a reference point for actors and institutions that contribute to Water Diplomacy processes but have divergent perceptions of shared risks and opportunities, especially in situations where water can become a source of conflict or cooperation.
In assembling this handbook, we have sought to collect, refine, and synthesise actionable insights from the latest thinking on achieving equitable and sustainable water governance and management in complex contexts. In it, you will find a synthesis of several paradigms, methods, and tools that embrace divergent societal views in concert with convergent ideas from science, engineering, law, policy, and negotiation. In our choice of contributing authors, we have striven for a diversity of views, backgrounds, gender, and geography. We believe that this offers a more nuanced view of our selected case studies and a more balanced perspective on how Water Diplomacy is conceptualised and practiced throughout the world.
We are calling this volume a handbook, not because it is authoritative and comprehensive, but because we hope it will serve as a valuable reference for those engaged in addressing complex water challenges. It shouldn’t be considered a cookbook full of reproducible recipes but rather a chef’s companion cataloguing common kitchen terminology, suggesting spice combinations, and detailing culinary techniques in the context of a selection of case studies documenting both successes and failures.
The handbook aims to offer actionable insights to those engaged in Water Diplomacy in a variety of roles (e.g., engineers, policymakers, dialogue facilitators and mediators, observers, stakeholders), contexts (e.g., competing and conflicting needs for water; transboundary water disputes; water policy development and implementation; environmental protection), and at various stages in the process (e.g., coming to terms with the notion of complexity; identifying and convening stakeholders in fact–value deliberation; developing creative options; embracing adaptive management and an emergent future).