Abstract

South -Asia and South–East Asia comprise the largest chunk of humanity and also share common concerns arising from climate change. Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have concluded that this region is already experiencing the effects of Climate Change and faces imminent aggravated future threats in the form of ecological degradation, food and water scarcity, agricultural shifts, health hazards, ecological disasters etc. Moreover the developmental needs and aspirations of these countries are enormous and certainly bound to be further complicated by the effects of climate change. The author desires to study of problem of ecological degradation of Tibetan plateau (source of 10 major river systems in Asia supporting a population of over a billion) and the further aggravation of water scarcity related conflicts in the region.

Global Water stress and approaching crisis "There is a water crisis today. But the crisis is not about having too little water to satisfy our needs. It is a crisis of managing water so badly that billions of people - and the environment - suffer badly"- World Water Vision Report.

The latest United Nations World Water Development Report warns that, by 2030, only 60 percent of the world’s demand for water will be met by existing resources at the current rate of use. That will leave 40 percent of the population without access to the water it needs. Over 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries. In the absence of strong institutions and agreements, changes within a basin can lead to transboundary tensions. When major projects proceed without regional collaboration, they can become a point of conflicts, heightening regional instability. The Parana La Plata, the Aral Sea, the Jordan and the Danube may serve as examples. Water stress results from an imbalance between water use and water resources. The water stress indicator measures the proportion of water withdrawal with respect to total renewable resources. It is a criticality ratio, which implies that water stress depends on the variability of resources. Water stress causes deterioration of fresh water resources in terms of quantity (aquifer over-exploitation, dry rivers, etc.) and quality (eutrophication, organic matter pollution, saline intrusion, etc.) The value of this criticality ratio indicates high water stress is based on expert judgment and experience. It ranges between 20 % for basins with highly variable runoff and 60 % for temperate zone basins

Global Economic Report 2017 clearly indicate Water crisis, Climate Change induced extreme weather events and forced migrations as emerging top global risks. Although Asia is home to more than half of the world’s population, it has less freshwater (3,920 cubic meters per person per year). Almost two-thirds of global population growth is occurring in Asia, where the population is expected to increase by nearly 500 million people within the next 10 years. Asia’s rural population will remain almost the same between now and 2025, but the urban population is likely to increase by a staggering 60%. In South Asia, home to nearly 1.6 billion people, cities are increasingly feeling the pressure of population growth and urbanization

Tibet Plateau: Significance for South and South–East Asi

The Tibetan Plateau is the land bridge connecting South Asia with East Asia. It is home to the Himalayas, the world’s tallest mountain range and at times referred to as the “third pole” because they hold the largest concentration of ice and glaciers outside the northern and southern poles. Scientists say the Himalayas also influence weather patterns, which help to predict rainfall and flood cycles. The most critical trans-boundary river basins formed by Himalayan Rivers are the GangesBrahmaputra-Meghna, Indus, and Mekong basins, the largest in area and population served. [2]

The Tibetan Plateau, also referred as ‘The WaterTower of Asia,’ is the headwater of major rivers that flow into the countries that depend most on water from the Tibetan Plateau are Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand and the countries of the Mekong sub-region, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and supply water to almost 1.5 billion people in Asia; almost a quarter of the world’s population. The total river basin area is estimated above 5,477,700 sq. km. [3]

As long ago as 1884, an English meteorologist working in India had the inspired idea that the snows of Tibet and the Indian monsoon are causally connected. Henry Francis Blanford also suggested that the less it snows in winter in Tibet, the earlier the snowmelt, and the earlier the monsoon. In other words, the Tibetan Plateau acts as a heat pump in the summer drawing in the moisture rich water vapors from the Bay of Bengal. The seasonal monsoon wind shift and weather associated with the heating and cooling of the Tibetan Plateau is believed to be the strongest such monsoon on earth. The major rivers that flow from the Tibetan Plateau are further recharged by the monsoon as they reach the lower riparian countries. [4] The impact on Tibet’s landscape and its natural resources due to climate warming and human intervention will threaten not only the future food security of many nations but also their development.

With the regional population expected to exceed 2.2 billion by 2050, expanding access to safe water sources will prove challenging. The predicted decrease in water availability induced by climate change, therefore, will only exacerbate the situation.

Climate change and Ecological Degradation of Tibet Plateau: Concerns for South and SouthEast Asia

Levels of carbon dioxide and other ‘greenhouse gases’ in the atmosphere have risen steeply during the industrial era owing to human activities like fossil fuel use and deforestation, spurred on by economic and population growth. If the level rises too high, the resulting overall rise in global average temperatures is liable to disrupt natural patterns of climate. In its Fourth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that evidence of climate change already occurring is unequivocal and is due in large part to human activity. Other studies have found that in the last three to four decades, warming in the Himalayas has been more than the average of 0.75 % over the last century. Some have confirmed that it is warming 5-6 times faster than the global average.[5] Critical components to Tibet’s ecosystem are undergoing major transformations due to climate change. For instance, it has led to the receding of Tibet’s glaciers, shrinking and disappearance of thousands of lakes, drying of wetlands, thawing of permafrost, and reduced flow regimes in many rivers. These days, on the Plateau, the spring thawing is earlier and the permafrost is melting away before the growing plants can access the water. This rise in temperature has also increased the rate of evapotranspiration from the rivers and watershed areas intensifying the desertification process

The simulations from the World Climate Research Programme’s Third Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project predict that climate change will result in increased monsoonal precipitation over South Asia, East Asia and the western Pacific Ocean. Changes to monsoonal rainfall patterns could affect agricultural productivity and thus reduce food security. In the short and medium term, the warming affects will likely exacerbate climatic extremes, lengthen monsoons, and lead to an increasing number of floods, according the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD)’s Himalayan Climate and Water Atlas. Climate change induced water scarcity will negatively impact the region’s agricultural productivity, energy production and the health of its population. Coupled with increased precipitation, more run-off water will lead to increased flooding events. These, in turn, will increase the risks of waterborne diseases like diarrheal, malaria or cholera due to deterioration in the quality of drinking water. A proliferation of mosquito infestations is also expected. The increase in intense rain events will also have a negative impact on fisheries. Countries in the region are increasingly turning to hydropower to meet their energy demand. Seasonal melt water is the main source of power for hydroelectric dams on the glacier-fed rivers. Estimates indicate that a 1 % reduction in stream flow could reduce electricity output by roughly 3%. Southern Asia’s economic growth, demographic boom, and appetite for energy are producing conditions for a water crisis.

Environmental Security: An Emerging Nontraditional Security (NTS) concern for South & South-East Asia

'Environmental Security' depends on various factors such as the dynamics in the natural environment, population change, and degree of access to environmental resources. Shifting global realities have given rise to what is currently defined as ‘Non-Traditional Security’, such as food security, ecological degradation, environmental refugees, climate change, water, energy security, disaster management and public health etc. that aims to encompass various threats that obstruct the security and livelihoods of citizens. [6] It is estimated, that all the wars of the twentieth century resulted in the deaths of about 111 million combatants and civilians, an average of 1.1 million per year. By comparison, infectious diseases are now responsible for taking the lives of between 14 and 15 million people per year. [7] Over the past 25 years, natural disasters and environmental degradation have killed nearly half a million people in South Asia and inflicted colossal damages estimated at $59 billion. South & South-East Asian governments have not yet fully realized that military measures and domestic policies alone cannot overcome NTS challenges; rather, many of these challenges must be faced collectively and through regional cooperation. [8]

Tibet, has hosted a wide array of Chinese development projects since the launch of Beijing’s “go west” campaign in 2000. These include transport infrastructure, large-scale mining, and dams for hydropower, manufacturing, irrigation, and domestic use. Other riparian states have followed Beijing’s example, pursuing water projects to meet economic targets. In the absence of international institutions and norms to regulate shared water sources and as demand for water grows, control and management of this precious resource is expected to stoke local, sub-regional, and national tensions. As Brahma Chellaney succinctly puts it “Beijing’s latent capability to control cross-border river flows arms it with significant leverage over neighbors.” [9] More recently in October 2015, China operationalized what is believed to be the world’s highest altitude power station, the $1.5 billion Zangmu hydropower facility in Tibet on the Brahmaputra. The Zangmu dam does not store water, but riparian states are concerned that the dam may disturb downstream soil. Planned hydro infrastructure projects throughout Southern Asia have stirred fears from communities downstream of the dams in India, Bangladesh, and Nepal about the environmental impact.

Joint Management of Transboundary Water resources

Transboundary or trans-border water resources are defined as surface or groundwater resources shaped by two countries or more. Because water is continuously in motion, issues of control, jurisdiction and sovereignty are much more complicated than when dealing with static land resources. This task is even more difficult when water resources are shared by a number of political entities. The United National Register of International River Basins listed 261 international trans-boundary river basins in the world covering 45.3% of the land surface of the earth [10]. The management of water resources confronts many obstacles due to critical importance of water for human existence. In contrast to water conflicts, more than 3600 water-related treaties have stood firm since 805AD, while in the same period, there have been only seven minor water-related skirmishes. Rogers (1992) identified 286 treaties which settle the management of international rivers. Not surprisingly, two thirds of these treaties were ratified in Europe and North America, where problems became acute sooner.[11] In the absence of a balanced cross-boundary and cross-sectoral integration, riparian countries may easily get into conflicts over shared waters. A river may be international geographically if it flows through or between the territories of sovereign states; from the legal standpoint, a river is international if a riparian state does not have all the powers over the waters of that river. In 1997, the UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Water-Courses provides a common framework for cooperation within international river-basins. [

River management institutions suffer mostly because they constitute a meeting-point between hydrology and politics - two incompatible areas. The former necessitates unity whereas the latter almost certainly means division and small particularized political sovereign cells. Perhaps the development of the institutions for management of shared water resources will follow the successful evolution of another institution the Law of the Sea, which now serves as an inseparable part of the foreign policy and international behavior of states. It is evident that basin-wide cooperation is the optimal solution to the problem of managing international river basins. It is doubtful if narrowing the authority of these institutions to one function only(navigation, pollution, and water allocation) is efficient and beneficial. However, as joint management of water resources is always accompanied by restriction on sovereignty of state, many states are reluctant to enter into such obligations. Institutions in which only a few of the riparians are involved (Nile, Mekong, Indus, Ganges, for example) may become useless in the future when non-member riparians demand their share in the common pool.[13]

Global examples of Transboundary river Basin management

Some of the examples of the practice of water resource management could be is divided into three categories:

(a) Treaties and agreements stopping short of allocating water between riparian states such as free navigation treaties or institutions which were established for a sole purpose such as combating pollution (Elbe, Danube, Rhine)

(b) Treaties and agreements allocating water between states (the Indus, Nile, Ganges, Jordan).

(c) Agreements for joint management of internationally shared waters (Colorado and Rio Grande, Mekong, Senegal and Niger). [14

Trans-boundary Conservation Governance Framewor

The idea of trans-boundary conservation means that the territory of interest transcends the legal and geographic reach of established jurisdictions and institutions.[15] The people affected by this have inter-dependent interests, which means that none of them has sufficient power or authority to address the problems adequately on their own. This creates a gap in governance as no single entity has the power, authority and responsibility to address trans-boundary issues, so there is a need to create innovative ways to work across boundaries. [16]

International examples of Transboundary Protected Areas

 Kailash Sacred Landscape: The Kailash Sacred Landscape Conservation and Development Initiative is a regional Transboundary conservation programme of ICIMOD (2012-2017) in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. The initiative emphasizes the importance of sacred sites and the preservation and management of bio-cultural diversity. The area covers over 31,000 km2 of diverse terrain across a remote south-western part of the Tibetan Plateau within the Tibetan Autonomous Region, China, north-western Nepal, and a part of northern India that borders Nepal

 The European Green Belt Initiative The European Green Belt is a 12,500 km long strip of land and coastal sea area. It stretches from the Barents Sea to the Adriatic and Black Seas and comprises more than 3,200 protected areas. As the Green Belt snakes from north to south, it passes through a variety of European landscapes ranging from arctic tundra, boreal forests, mires, lush flood plains and alpine peaks, to coastal habitats and grasslands. It connects 24 countries and its potential as the backbone of a panEuropean ecological network is widely recognized. Almost 150 governmental and non-governmental organizations, municipalities, protected areas, enterprises and scientific institutions have come together in the European Green Belt Initiative

China’s water crisis and its domestic compulsions

The UN considers China one of the 13 countries most affected by water scarcity which supports 20percent of the world population with only 7 percent of is water. North China Plain is home to about 42 percent of China's population but only has 8 percent of the country's water resources. China has about the same amount of water as Canada put around 40 more times people. The shortages are particularly acute in northern China where half the population lives with only 15 percent of China's water. Rivers and lakes are disappearing. China has lost more than 1,000 lakes, or 13 percent of its lakes, in the past 50 years. Emily Ford wrote in The Times, “About 28,000 rivers have disappeared from China's state maps, an absence seized upon by environmentalists as evidence of the irreversible natural cost of developmental excesses. More than half of the rivers previously thought to exist in China appear to be missing, according to the 800,000 surveyors who compiled the first national water census, leaving Beijing fumbling to explain the cause. Only 22,909 rivers covering an area of 100sq kilometers were located by surveyors, compared with the more than 50,000 in the 1990s, a three-year study by the Ministry of Water Resources and the National Bureau of Statistics found.

Due to Zangua on Mekong – Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Kampuchea, Vietnam are concerned , they have treaties among themselves but not with China. China has internal concerns due to uneven distribution of water

 Desertification of Gobi is expanding rapidly- Currently, 27.4 percent of China is desertified land, affecting about 400 million people.

 Northern China has 500 million people but only 1/5th of its freshwater water resources, hence, South – North water diversion project.

The Poly-heuristics Theory (PH) of decision making and Foreign Policy Analysis

Within the vast field of foreign policy analysis (FPA), research invariably focuses either on (1) the process or (2) outcome of decision making. The first type of study mainly employs a cognitive or psychological approach to find out how decisions are made inside the ‘‘black box’’ of the state, while the second, with an emphasis on rational calculation, centers on why the final choice is made. Few studies take both aspects into consideration FFPA thus appears incomplete and seriously divided between the psychological and rational choice schools of decision making. It becomes increasingly clear that neither approach alone can provide a complete explanation for how and why foreign policy decisions are made, which creates the need for a unified model of decision processes and outcomes. [18] As a dynamic theory, PH gives a fuller explanation of variations in foreign policy decision making. PH sees domestic politics as ‘‘the essence of decision’’. Poly-heuristics Model suggests Chinese decision making has

 Concerns for internal control

 Suggest worship of individual leaders

 Political influences

 Prevention of new instances of undesirable history

Thus indicating China domestic compulsion to divert water

Game theory Analysis Value of Water

1. Here we consider the systems value of water as agricultural and industrial purposes. Economic value of water for individual is not equivalent to economic value to society as a whole (social welfare functions).

2. Upper and lower riparian both could have blocking opportunities for example Egypt in Nile river basis (Game theory Nile Basin), hence we should consider the systems value i.e the aggregate value that a unit of water can generate as it moves through a system before it is consumed or lost like irrigation, navigation, fisheries, river morphology, hydrology ultimately agriculture or human consumption

3. Irrigation-real consumption, Domestic or industrial- partial & Hydropower-non consumption. Hence system value is more than user value as non-consumptive values add on

4. It has been estimated that for the Chinese systems value of water per unit is 2.25 times that of India’s (indicating severity of water scarcity in China) need for a unified model of decision processes and outcomes. [18] As a dynamic theory, PH gives a fuller explanation of variations in foreign policy decision making. PH sees domestic politics as ‘‘the essence of decision’’. Poly-heuristics Model suggests Chinese decision making has

 Concerns for internal control

 Suggest worship of individual leaders

 Political influences

 Prevention of new instances of undesirable history

Thus indicating China domestic compulsion to divert water

Game theory Analysis Value of Water

5. Here we consider the systems value of water as agricultural and industrial purposes. Economic value of water for individual is not equivalent to economic value to society as a whole (social welfare functions).

6. Upper and lower riparian both could have blocking opportunities for example Egypt in Nile river basis (Game theory Nile Basin), hence we should consider the systems value i.e the aggregate value that a unit of water can generate as it moves through a system before it is consumed or lost like irrigation, navigation, fisheries, river morphology, hydrology ultimately agriculture or human consumption.

7.Irrigation-real consumption, Domestic or industrial- partial & Hydropower-non

8. consumption. Hence system value is more than user value as non-consumptive values add on

9. It has been estimated that for the Chinese systems value of water per unit is 2.25 times that of India’s (indicating severity of water scarcity in China)

Conflict Analysis is a method which is systematized based on mathematical theory to classify outcomes by their character, comparing with preference vector of each player, and to analyze stability. An equilibrium solution represents an outcome where any player cannot change its options due to the possibility that less favorable outcome might be attained by succeeding change of options by other players. In this sense, equilibrium solution represents an outcome that is a deadlock situation from which any player cannot move to a better outcome by changing its own options. Conflict Analysis leads towards two games as follows:

Game 1: Unilateral Improvement (by China)

a. Rational Stability: If there is no outcome called unilateral improvements for a player it is called Rational Stability

b. Sequential Stability: If any outcomes that result from consistent improvements on the part of the other players are preferable for a particular player to the outcome under consideration, the outcome is sequential stable for that player.

Simultaneous Stability: If the outcome that results from the changes made by both players improving simultaneously is less preferred for a player, then it is a credible sanction against the possible improvement and the original outcome may be considered stable.

c. Unstable Equilibrium: The player has atleast one Unilateral Improvement (UI) from which the other players can take no credible action that results in a less preferred outcome for that player

None of these Games have Bays/Nash Equilibrium. Thus there is no unilateral improvement by China.

Game 2: Considering Complementarity (Multilateral approach involving other upstream-downstream nations in the river basin region) This gives weak Bays/Nash equilibrium but can be converted to our advantage if the regional players are willing to play a more active role

Conclusion

Currently there exists no regional forum or framework for South and South – East Asian nations to discuss or negotiate over water resources other than Mekong River Commission (MRC) which does not include the most crucial upstream nation China. Even though it has been a long standing and consistent policy of China to resolve diplomatic issues in the region only via bilateral synergies and strictly keeps out of any multilateral approaches for conflict resolutions. Backed with the credibility of being a time– tested, treaty honoring (Indus Water Treaty) upstream nation and non-threatening perception of its foreign policy in the region, India could play a leading role in creating a pan South and South East Asian region diplomatic forum comprising all the affected riparian nations (India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Kampuchea, Vietnam) for a Tibetan River Basin Governance Framework on the lines of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in 2002. Considering the gravity of the water crisis in the region the complementarity strategy emerging from the Conflict Analysis can be applied to exert necessary diplomatic pressure to bring China on the negotiation table and agree to participate in the proposed governance framework

References

[1] Mandakini Devasher Surie , ‘South Asia’s Water Crisis: A Problem of Scarcity Amid Abundance’, March 25, 2015.Web.http://asiafoundation.org/2015/03/25/southasias-water-crisis-a-problem-of-scarcity-amidabundance

[3] Environment and Development Desk, ‘TIBET, A Human Development and Environment Report’ (2008), EDD, DIIR, Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala, HP, India, ISBN 81-86627-68-5. Print.

[4] Henry F. Blanford; On the Connexion of the Himalaya Snowfall with Dry Winds and Seasons of Drought in India; Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 37 (1884), pp. 3-22, EDD-COP15 Briefing papers, Environment and Development Desk, DIIR, Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala, HP, India. Available online, http://tibet.net/publications/

[5] Levacher ,Cécile. ‘Climate Change in the Tibetan Plateau Region: Glacial Melt and Future Water Security’, Global Food and Water Security Research Programme. Print

[6] Jayanta Bandyopadhyay, et al. ‘IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being’, 2016.Print.

[7] Yunwei Fu and Xinyu Guo, “Developing Nation’s Development Right Deserves,” Xinhua, December 28, 2009. Web.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/28/content_12712513.htm

[8] Ecological \and nontraditional security challenges in south asia, nbr special report #28 | june 2011.Print

[9] Water Clouds on the Tibetan Plateau Author: Eleanor Albert, Online Writer/Editor May 9, 2016. Web

http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/water-clouds-tibetan-plateau/p37848>

[10] EDD-COP15 Briefing papers, Environment and Development Desk, DIIR, Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala, HP, India. Available online, http://tibet.net/publications/

[11] Ramanathan A, et al. (2007), “Warming trends in Asia amplified by brown cloud solar absorption”,Nature, vol. 448, pp. 575-57. Print.

[12] Ecological \and nontraditional security challenges in south asia, nbr special report #28 | june 2011.Print.

[13] Water Clouds on the Tibetan Plateau Author: Eleanor Albert, Online Writer/Editor May 9, 2016. Web. http://www.cfr.org/asia-and-pacific/water-clouds-tibetan-plateau/p37848

[14] Ramanathan A, et al. (2007), “Warming trends in Asia amplified by brown cloud solar absorption”,Nature, vol. 448, pp. 575-57. Print.

[15] Mahanta, Chandan. et al., IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being, ,2016.Print.

[16] Maja Vasilijević, Kevan Zunckel, Matthew McKinney, Boris Erg, Michael Schoon, Tatjana Rosen Michel Craig Groves, Series Editor; Adrian Phillips, Volume Editor,‘Transboundary Conservation-A systematic and integrated approach’. Print.