Our Work:

Transboundary Ground Water Aquifers and Crisis Prevention

Introduction

The term of ground water designates a water reservoir in the subsurface. There are three types of usable ground water reservoirs: unconfined aquifers, confined aquifers, and perched aquifers.

While unconfined aquifers that form the phreatic surface allow for the exchange of water with surface water bodies, confined aquifers only communicate with rivers or lakes to a very limited extend. Perched aquifers represent the special case where water accumulates above an impermeable layer that is situated on top of the actual water table.

Understanding ground water systems is a highly complicated task. Most of the time, the exact location of the aquifer, the links between surface and subsurface water bodies and even more so, the recharge rates as well as the contribution that the ground water makes to aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems are subject to great uncertainty at the least.

In arid and semi-arid regions, ground water reservoirs may represent the most important, if not the only, source of freshwater. Their sustainable management thus becomes crucial to human life and a sustained economic development. If, on the contrary, aquifers are exploited without this in mind, they are threatened (and with them the human population depending on them) by a substantial decline either of their water level or of the water quality. While in the first case, water tables can fall so deep that extraction becomes ever more difficult and costly, in the second case intrusion of saltier aquifers (or seawater), or a rising concentration of pollutants may lead to a situation where water becomes unsuitable for human consumption.

Ground water recharge times may vary between a few months or thousands of years. Fossil water, on the extreme end of the time scale, for instance, is considered a non-renewable resource. Aquifers thus need an even more careful assessment and management than any other freshwater resource.

In the light of inadequate data this task becomes ever more difficult. Water policies need to focus on immediate action to prevent further deterioration in ground water quantity and quality while waiting for progresses in hydro-geological research.

Transboundary Issues

For a long time, problems related to ground water have not been identified as transboundary issues. Even nowadays, in many cases conflicts on ground water manifest themselves on a local or regional scale. Falling water levels put small farmers in dependency from or in opposition to those who can afford deeper bore holes or electric pumping. Large-scale extraction for the supply of cities or for industrial use takes place at the detriment of small-scale users such as individual households or subsistence agriculture. As exact knowledge about the extension of aquifers is lacking, arising problems are perceived as local or regional.

Considering the fact, that political actors have recently become more aware of the urgent need for ground water data, this situation may change in the future. The perception of the difficulties encountered will be altered once sufficient data is available. The linkages between neighbouring countries' water uses will become apparent and transboundary disputes can develop.

To avoid such conflicts, states have shown little commitment to sharing data until now. Available information is considered politically sensitive and, if shared, may still be interpreted in different ways. Trondalen (2004) calls them "data conflicts" which are legion.

When considering the ecological and geological realities depicted above, the benefits of a joint management of transboundary ground water aquifers are more than obvious. No riparian is able to manage "its" part of an aquifer alone without compromising the aims of sustainability. Without the full set of data concerning the recharge of an aquifer, no party may know how much it may extract without putting in peril its use for human needs. The same holds true for pollution issues. To be able to successfully monitor ground water protection, states cannot rely on their national data only.

As ground water is such a complex system of communicating waters, fed by numberless sources, and discharging at a multitude of places, understanding its behavior can be attempted only if the data set is as complete as possible.

What does this mean for states that share ground water aquifers?

In most cases of the arid and semi-arid regions, ground water resources are declining in quantity and quality. Only a deeper understanding of the complex interrelations of ground water can lead to an optimal use of this precious resource. It is thus imperative for states to cooperate closely when it comes to gathering and processing data so that future risk of water deficiency can be avoided.

At the same time practical approaches to addressing the most severe problems of ground water management are needed. These include schemes of water pollution control, water re-use, water recycling and water demand management which in turn include demand reduction, capacity development and environmental education, control of distribution losses as well as the usage of new sources like rain gathering and desalination.

Sharing information over water and attempting to manage ground water resources jointly depends on mutual trust and can pave the way for further cooperation and integration processes.

The Legal Framework

Unlike for transboundary rivers or lakes, the development of a legal framework for transboundary ground water aquifers has not yet reached a very advanced stage.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses mentions ground water only as part of the term "international water": "a system of surface waters and ground-waters constituting by virtue of their physical relationship a unitary whole and normally flowing to a common terminus." Especially confined aquifers thus do not fall under the Convention. As a consequence, the Convention has not prompted any international agreement on transboundary aquifers yet.

Non-binding instruments include the Seoul Rules (1986), the Bellagio Draft Treaty (1989), and, most recently, the Berlin Rules of the International Law Association. The Berlin Rules of 2004 potentially reach far beyond the UN Convention, stating in Article 36, 1: "The Rules of this Chapter apply to all aquifers, including those that do not contribute water to, or receive water from, surface waters or receive no significant contemporary recharge from any source." This Chapter VIII dedicated to groundwater includes confined as well as fossil water into its scope. The Rules plead for a precautionary approach and declare the acquisition of information a duty for all concerned states. Focussing on the principles of sustainability and the protection of aquifers (Art. 40 & 41), the Rules do not preclude the extraction of fossil water (Art. 40, 2). Article 42, applying to transboundary aquifers, mentions explicitly the prevention of significant harm to neighboring states (Art. 42, 6) and calls on the states to cooperate to reach an equitable utilization of the water (Art. 42, 4).

Research focus

We at BICC center our research on transboundary groundwater aquifers on institutional arrangements and mechanisms for conflict prevention, conflict management and resolution. The functioning of institutions depends largely on the trust they can generate among the population of the territorial entity they represent. Therefore, the participation of all relevant actors including civil society and local communities in the process of water management and the sense of ownership are decisive factors for crisis prevention at transboundary aquifers.

Thereby, our interest at BICC mainly lies on possibilities to integrate customary law and local mechanisms of dispute settlement into modern approaches to water management. The development of international agreements will need new and creative approaches to local custom, if they are to avoid implementation failure at different stakeholder levels.

Please check our selected bibliography for further information on the subject and references for this brief paper.

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