Coinciding with World Water Day, Dr. Naho Mirumachi‘s latest book ‘Transboundary Water Politics in the Developing World’ is now available from Routledge.
The book brings together some of Naho’s insights on conflict and cooperation over shared river basins, the role of water in development and the politics and power at play in allocating and utilising water resources. You can see more details of the book on the Routledge webpage.
A summary of the book, from the cover reads:
‘of international transboundary river basins in the developing world.
These shared rivers are the setting for irrigation, hydropower and flood
management projects as well as water transfer schemes. Often, these
projects attempt to engineer the river basin with deep political, socioeconomic
and environmental implications. The politics of transboundary
river basin management sheds light on the challenges concerning
sustainable development, water allocation and utilization between
sovereign states.
Advancing conceptual thinking beyond simplistic analyses of river
basins in conflict or cooperation, the author proposes a new analytical
framework. The Transboundary Waters Interaction NexuS (TWINS) examines
the coexistence of conflict and cooperation in riparian interaction. This
framework highlights the importance of power relations between basin
states that determine negotiation processes and institutions of water
resources management. The analysis illustrates the way river basin
management is framed by powerful elite decision-makers, combined
with geopolitical factors and geographical imaginations. In addition, the
book explains how national development strategies and water resources
demands have a significant role in shaping the intensities of conflict and
cooperation at the international level.
The book draws on detailed case studies from the Ganges River basin
in South Asia, the Orange–Senqu River basin in Southern Africa and the
Mekong River basin in Southeast Asia, providing key insights on equity and
power asymmetry applicable to other basins in the developing world.’