JOURNAL ARTICLE: Hydrosocial rupture: causes and consequences for transboundary governance

Publication date: September 2021

Publication: Ecology and Society

Authors: Michelle A. Miller, Alfajri, Rini Astuti, Carl Grundy-Warr, Carl Middleton, Zu Dienle Tan and David M. Taylor

Abstract:

Unsustainable models of growth-based development are pushing aquatic ecologies outside known historical ranges and destabilizing human activities that have long depended on them. We develop the concept of hydrosocial rupture to explore how human-water resource connections change when they are exposed to cumulative development pressures. The research analyzes stakeholder perceptions of hydrosocial ruptures in two sites in Southeast Asia: (1) peatlands in Riau Province, Indonesia, and (2) Tonle Sap Lake, Cambodia. In both contexts, capital-driven processes have reconfigured human-water resource connections to generate transgressive social and environmental consequence that cannot be contained within administrative units or property boundaries. Our findings show how these ruptured hydrosocial relations are perceived and acted upon by the most proximate users of water resources. In Cambodia, a policy of resettlement has sought to thin hydrosocial relations in response to biodiversity loss, chronic pollution, and changing hydrology in Tonle Sap Lake. By contrast, in Indonesia’s Riau Province, efforts are underway to thicken human-water relations by hydrologically rehabilitating peatlands drained for agricultural development. We argue that in both of these contexts hydrosocial ruptures should be understood as phenomena of transboundary governance that cannot be addressed by individual groups of users, sectors, or jurisdictions.

Keywords: hydrosocial relations; rupture; Southeast Asia; transboundary water governance

See the article here.

Citation: Miller, M. A., Alfajri, R. Astuti, C. Grundy-Warr, C. Middleton, Z. D. Tan, and D. M. Taylor. 2021. Hydrosocial rupture: causes and consequences for transboundary governance. Ecology and Society 26(3):21. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12545-260321

JOURNAL ARTICLE: The Salween River as a transboundary commons: Fragmented collective action, hybrid governance and power

Publication date: 28 July 2020

Publication: Asia Pacific Viewpoint

Authors: Diana Suhardiman, Carl Middleton

Abstract:

Viewing the Salween River as a transboundary commons, this paper illustrates how diverse state and non‐state actors and institutions in hybrid and multi‐scaled networks have influenced water governance in general, and large dam decision‐making processes in particular. Putting power relations at the centre of this analysis and drawing on the conceptual lenses of hybrid governance and critical institutionalism, we show the complexity of the fragmented processes through which decisions have been arrived at, and their implications. In the context of highly asymmetrical power relations throughout the basin, and the absence of an intergovernmental agreement to date, we argue that hybrid networks of state and non‐state actors could be strategically engaged to connect parallel and fragmented decision‐making landscapes with a goal of inclusively institutionalising the transboundary commons and maintaining connected local commons throughout the basin, foregrounding a concern for ecological and social justice.

Keywords: China, large hydropower dams, limited statehood, Myanmar, Thailand, water governance

See the article here.

POLICY BRIEF: Shaping the Future of Mekong Regional Architecture: Reinforcing Transboundary Water Governance Through Reciprocity

Publication date:
June 2019

Publication: 
Shaping the Future of Mekong Regional Architecture: Reinforcing Transboundary Water Governance Through Reciprocity

Download the policy brief here.

This policy brief is produced for track 1.5 Mekong Policy Dialogue on evolving sub-regional architecture and the role of Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), co-organized by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - Australia (DFAT), The Asia Foundation (TAF), and Center for Social Development Studies (CSDS) . For more information more resources from the dialogue, please visit this link here.

Authors: 
Carl Middleton, David J. Devlaeminck, and Anisa Widyasari

Key Findings

• There is deepening cooperation between the Mekong River Commission (MRC) and Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC). The joint activities to date can be understood as examples of specific reciprocity, namely specific exchanges of more-or-less equal value with clearly defined obligations, and have helped build trust.

• To further collaboration, regional governments will need to gradually move from specific reciprocity to diffuse reciprocity. Here, cooperation is not between specific actors alone (i.e. the MRC and LMC), but reflects a broader cooperation between wider groups of actors and beyond river-based considerations.

• To date, the MRC has directed more attention to the benefits to the river, including wild capture fisheries and other ecosystem services, whilst the LMC has emphasized more regional economic planning and projects. By working together, the river might be better protected, whilst simultaneously yielding sustainable generation of economic benefits.

• Some potential directions for furthering collaboration include: a joint, systematic baseline assessment of the current ecological and socio-economic status of the Lancang-Mekong River and key drivers of change; a joint study on the existing legal rules, customary principles, and pledges maintained by each organization to identify points of commonality and difference; and a collaborative analysis to define reciprocity as a concept, and how it can be operationalized through relevant rules and regulations working towards a rulesbased approach.

• The concept of reciprocity encompasses not just inter-state cooperation but also the interests and activities of non-state stakeholders, such as riverside communities. The MRC and LMC could consider co-organizing multi-stakeholder dialogues to generate a more complete picture of the Lancang-Mekong River and its diverse economic, social and cultural values.

OPINION: Mekong Drought Reveals Need for Regional Rules-based Water Cooperation

by Carl Middleton

Photo Credit: The Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces

The severe drought currently faced by farmers and fishers in the Mekong basin is a disaster that reveals many things. It reveals the extent to which large dams now increasingly control river water levels. It reveals too the limits to cooperation between the countries sharing precious water in times of scarcity. And, it reveals the likelihood of an increasingly uncertain future under the conditions of climate change. What must be done in the short and long term?

It is – in theory – now almost the middle of the rainy season. Usually at this time the Mekong River is beginning to swell with the rain waters of the Southwest monsoon. Yet, this year water levels are as if it were a drought in the dry season. This has seriously affected farmers, with their planted rice and other crops withering in parched soil. It has also impacted fishers dependent on the river’s ecology.

In mid-July, the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC) stated that the river’s water levels are among the lowest on record for June and July. They explain that there has been a shortage of rainfall across the basin since January. The MRC also highlight that dam operation on the upper Mekong River in China, where it is known as the Lancang River, could have an impact. China sent a notification to the MRC indicating that between 5 to 19 July the water released from the lower of its eleven large dams, called Jinghong, would “fluctuate” due to “grid maintenance.”

Photo Credit: The Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces

This has had a two-fold impact. First, it withheld water at a time when downstream countries would have most benefited from more water being released. Second, sending unnatural pulses of water down the river harms river ecology and livelihoods dependent upon it, including riverbank gardens, river weed collection, and fishing, although this has in fact occurred since the late 1990s.

Alongside China’s dams, civil society groups have questioned the role of the Xayaburi dam in Northern Laos, which is scheduled to be commissioned in October this year. Since mid-July, the project had been testing its turbines, causing river fluctuations downstream. The company has denied that they have played a role in the drought, and ironically have even lamented that they were also affected by the withholding of water by China. However, Thailand’s Office of National Water Resources sent a letter to the Government of Laos requesting the testing be temporarily halted.

Less attention has been paid to the possible role of tributary hydropower dams, in particular in Laos that is progressively fulfilling its government’s vision to become the ‘battery of Southeast Asia.’ Over sixty medium and large-scale dams have been built to date. The question here is whether these tributary projects have also been withholding water to replenish their reservoirs to sell electricity. As with all of the hydropower dams in the Lancang-Mekong basin, little real-time data is in the public domain about reservoir water levels.

What are the lessons learned and what is to be done? Most immediately, support needs to be provided to rural communities both to distribute water to the extent that it is available and provide other means of support including, where necessary, financial support. Once the rains do arrive, as is anticipated any day now, hydropower project operators should resist the temptation to immediately begin replenishing their reservoirs for power generation. Rather, the priority should be with distributing water to farmers and recovering the river’s ecology for fishers and wildlife.

In the longer term, if it is true that there is little water in hydropower dam reservoirs, this also reveals the fallacy of depending too much on such infrastructure-led solutions towards managing drought. Rather, it indicates that other forms of preparedness will be necessary including better predictive capacity for droughts before they occur, and well-resourced plans once they do occur at the local, national and transboundary level. It should also include rethinking water storage to consider more groundwater and small-scale solutions, rather than focusing only on large dams.

Photo Credit: The Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces

Given that the Mekong River is shared between six countries, it is clear that even deeper inter-governmental cooperation is needed. Since the last severe drought in 2016, much has been said about the new regional cooperation under the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) between China and downstream countries, including how it should cooperate with the MRC. In March 2016, shortly before the region’s leaders committed to the LMC, China released water from the Lancang dams as a show of goodwill in an effort to alleviate the severe drought at that time, although unfortunately the water releases caught some downstream communities unaware.

Building on the collaboration between the MRC and LMC, rather than depend upon informal arrangements for sharing water between China and downstream countries, it would be better to move towards a clearer rules-based approach. The scope of cooperation, some of which has already started, should include: more comprehensive data sharing between governments and with the public; collaborative research; clear rules and procedures on emergency water release; hydropower cascade operation that mimics, to the extent possible, the natural river flow; and improved procedures for genuine public participation, especially for riverside communities.

In the face of worsening climate change, and recognizing that it is often the most vulnerable who face the greatest risk during times of drought, these short and long-term solutions are needed now more than ever.

For the article published in Thai, please visit this link.

Carl Middleton is Director of the Center of Excellence in Resource Politics for Social Development at the Center for Social Development Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. He can be contacted at Carl.Chulalongkorn@gmail.com.

OPINION: What does Chinese ‘reciprocity’ mean for Mekong’s dams?

by Carl Middleton

The Lancang Mekong supports 70 million people living in the basin（Photo: He Daming)

It is now two and a half years since the first Lancang Mekong Cooperation (LMC) leaders’ summit was held in Sanya city on Hainan Island, China. The aim of the LMC – a China led multilateral body involving all six Mekong countries – is to deepen economic, cultural and political ties between China and mainland Southeast Asia. Leaders have repeatedly declared the importance of the Lancang-Mekong River to this cooperation. Reflecting this, on 1-2 November, the LMC will host the “1st Lancang-Mekong Water Resources Cooperation Forum” in Kunming, China.

The LMC’s second leaders’ summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in January 2018 revealed the swift pace of the initiative. This is reflected in the numerous senior-level meetings between governments, the initiation of almost 200 China-funded projects, and the LMC’s deepening institutionalisation through various LMC secretariats and working groups. Yet, while China has hosted people-to-people exchange programs and university scholarships, the LMC’s state-centric approach has afforded little opportunity for public deliberation about its overall policy principles and direction.

Through the LMC, some government officials and scholars from China have proposed that downstream and upstream countries have both rights and responsibilities towards each other. This concept of ‘reciprocity’ is not yet official LMC policy, but suggests a shift in government position compared to China’s earlier unilateral construction of dams on the Lancang River. Overall, the LMC and its proposition of ‘reciprocity’ appears to be an invitation to negotiate basin-wide water cooperation on the Lancang-Mekong River.

Much, however, remains uncertain. For example, how will the LMC build upon the existing inter-governmental Mekong River Commission, established in 1995 by the four lower basin countries? How will the LMC address concerns of riverside communities and civil society and ensure their meaningful inclusion? And how will countries ensure the river’s ecological health given the strong push for economic growth and associated water infrastructure projects? This article asks whether the LMC and the concept of ‘reciprocity’ is a promising approach to meet these challenges.

For the full article, please click here.