OKACOM Open Dialogue Forum
May 27 2010
Grand Palm Hotel, Gabarone, Botswana
From science to management: the Okavango Basin
Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis as an aid to basin
planning
Dr Jackie King, Water Matters, Cape Town
Jackie.king@watermatters.co.za
20 May 2010
1. Background
River systems can exist at different levels of condition (health), from pristine, when they provide
a range of natural ecological services of benefit to humans (Table 1); through various stages of
human-induced change, when the original ecosystem services may disappear and other
characteristics appear; to serious degradation, when virtually all ecosystem services essentially
disappear.
Table 1
Natural aquatic ecosystem services recognised in the Millenium Ecosystem
Assessment
Provisioning Services
Regulating Services
Cultural Services
·
Edible plants and
·
Groundwater recharge
·
National symbols and
animals
·
Dilution of pollutants
borders
·
Fresh water
·
Soil stabilisation
·
Religious and spiritual
·
Raw materials: rocks
·
Water purification
enrichment
and sand for
·
Flood attenuation
·
Aesthetic appeal
construction; firewood
·
Climate and disease
·
Inspiration for books,
·
Genetic resources and
regulation
art, photography and
medicines
·
Refugia/nursery
music
·
Ornamental products
functions
·
Advertising
for handicrafts and
·
Recreation
decoration
Supporting Services
Nutrient cycling, Soil formation, Pollination, Carbon sequestration, Primary production
At the different stages of change the ecosystem services that appear may be more or less
welcome than those that disappear, and at every level there are both benefits and costs to
society. As an example, the Provisioning Services provided by a pristine river ecosystem might
be water of good quality; an abundant fishery; and a centre of genetic diversity for future
medical and scientific exploitation. The Regulating Services provided might include extensive
floodplains that store floodwater and so ensure year-round river flow and moderate-sized floods;
and good bank stability brought about by a complex community of riparian trees, and thus low
sediment loads in the river. The Cultural Services could include its National Parks-type setting
and thus very high recreational and aesthetic value. These and more could collectively be
called the benefits provided by this river system. Among the costs to people of this system are
that the land and water are not in use for agricultural or industrial production, and water may not
be assured for any off-stream users during dry periods because flow has not been dammed and
stored.
In the early stages of development, water quality, the fisheries, the floodplains and the
recreational value might decline and some species disappear even before they are known to
science (costs), but the development project, perhaps a dam, that caused this, will have led to
increased food or energy production or allowed people to have running water in their homes
(benefits). With further off-stream developments that provided more of these kinds of benefits,
flow in the river might reduce to the point where the fishery disappears, the floodplains dry out,
the riparian trees die and lead to extensive bank erosion and siltation (and thus reduced life) of
downstream reservoirs, water quality might become so poor that expensive water purification
plants are needed before people can use the water, and the area may no longer be of use for
any kind of recreation (costs).
At this point, the costs may be seen as unacceptably high.
People might feel that too much has been lost, and that a bottom line should have been drawn
at some earlier point that represented an acceptable trade-off between development and
protection of the river and its natural resources.
The fact that people did not draw a line earlier is now obvious in river systems across the world.
As the era of large dams began in the early 1900s, it soon became apparent that flow
manipulations away from natural were extensively degrading river systems. We have gradually
recognised globally that rivers are living systems and that as we impose change upon them and
their drainage basins with land and water developments, they will in turn respond by changing.
Changes in the flow regime have the potential to do most damage to the river as flow is
recognised as the `master variable', driving the nature and functioning of the whole river
ecosystem. Actively managing the health of river ecosystems is important because of the great
range of services they provide­ many of these are `hidden' or `silent' services that we do not
think much about, but they nevertheless are providing essential support of great value to
people. Farmers along Australia's largest and highly-degraded river, the Murray-Darling, are
often quoted: "If we had made our mark in the sand (ie managed diversions with the water
needs of the river in mind) 50 years ago, we would not be in the mess we are now". `The mess'
was over-allocation of water, intense conflicts over water, very poor water quality including toxic
algal blooms, and a severe loss of ecosystem services. This situation is now being addressed
through `clawback' of water from established users and a recent stepping in of the Federal
Government to coordinate water allocations and recovery of the whole river system.
This story is being repeated endlessly across the world. With hindsight, it is clear that whilst the
case for developing rivers has been effectively promoted by engineers, economists and water
managers (the top block in Table 2), the case for doing this with due consideration for the
condition of the targeted rivers and their users has not, until very recently, been well articulated
by ecologists, sociologists and resource economists (the bottom block in Table 2). Without this
input, decision makers could understandably strive for development scenario E in Table 2,
seeing only benefits. With the additional information contained in the bottom block, however,
scenario E might appear less attractive and some earlier scenario, represented here by
scenarios A to D, might be seen by government(s) and other stakeholders as the optimum
trade-off between costs and benefits. The flow regime encompassed within this optimum trade-
off scenario would become the environmental flow (EF) for that river, representing the agreed
trade-off between development and resource protection for that basin and that society.
The bottom block has become the responsibility of river, social and resource-economic
scientists, and completing it in harmony with the top block is sometimes called an Environmental
Flow Assessment, or an Integrated Flow Assessment or a Strategic Environmental Assessment.
Table 2
Hypothetical example of the matrix of information that could be developed
for each part of a river basin. The indicators would be more numerous than
shown and would differ from river to river. The crosses represent the level of
beneficial use under each scenario as gleaned from research and are used here
merely to illustrate possible trends in the status of each indicator. PD = Present
Day ­ not necessarily pristine.
Scenarios of increasing levels of
Indicators
basin development
PD
A
B
C
D
E
Man-made benefits
Hydro-power generation
x
x
x
xx
xxx
xxx
Crop production
x
x
xx
xxx
xxxx
xxxx
Water security
x
xx
xxx
xxx
xxxx
xxxx
National economies
x
x
xxx
xxxx
xxxx
xxxx
Aquaculture
x
xx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
Ecosystem attributes
Wild fisheries
xxxx
xxx
xxx
xx
xx
x
Water quality
xxx
xxx
xx
xx
x
x
Floodplain functions
xxxx
xxxx
xxx
xx
x
x
Cultural, religious, recreational values
xxxx
xxx
xxx
xxx
xx
xx
Ecosystem buffer against need for
xxxx
xxx
xx
xx
x
x
compensation of subsistence users
Whatever the name, the approach is multi-disciplinary and can illustrate, for any considered
development option, the potential changes in, for instance, channel configuration; bank erosion;
water chemistry; riparian forests; river, estuarine and near-coastal marine fisheries; rare
species; pest species; human and livestock river-related health; availability of baptism areas;
household incomes; GDP; job creation; HEP production and much more. Decision makers in
several countries receiving such outputs from Flow Assessments have commented that they
have never before understood, or often even been aware of, the wider implications of
development decisions they make.
Providing both sides of the development picture in this way, for discussion and negotiation by
governments and other stakeholders, meets the requirements of Integrated Water Resource
Management (IWRM).
IWRM is defined as `a process that promotes the coordinated
development and management of water, land and related resources, in order to maximise the
resultant economic and social welfare in an equitable manner without compromising the
sustainability of vital ecosystems' (Global Water Partnership 2000).
It is a relatively new
concept that promotes sustainable use of water, encouraging people to move away from
traditional project-driven ways of operating and toward a larger-scale basin or regional approach
that takes into account the overall distribution and scarcity of water resources and the needs of
other potential water users
Such an approach was used to provide information for the Okavango Basin Transboundary
Diagnostic Analysis (TDA).
2. The TDA Integrated Flow Assessment
A major part of the TDA was a set of predictions of the costs and benefits that could arise from
water-resource development, in other words, aiming to provide decision makers with the
information represented in Table 2. Chapter 5 of the TDA and Report 08 of the Flow
Assessment provide full details and these are summarised briefly below with a few examples.
The predictions were presented as a set of water-use scenarios, each of which represented a
possible level of future water use as described in Box 1. The predictions were made by a basin-
wide scientific team guided by and an international process management team.
Box 1 Scenarios
The water-use scenarios assessed are simply ways of exploring possible management
options. None of the scenarios described in this study will necessarily happen but they could.
They are designed to alert the Okavango Basin countries to possible future benefits and
problems and help them identify, through negotiation, a preferred future pathway. The
scenarios were chosen through an iterative process of discussion between project staff,
OKACOM and other government representatives. The most important of these meetings took
place in Maun in November 2008 when two major decisions were made:
1.
The scenarios would be development-based rather than sector-based. In other words
they would explore a progressive growth in water use through various kinds of
development, rather than exploring the implications of, for instance, maximising
basin-wide hydropower generation or basin-wide irrigated crops.
2.
The scenarios would represent three levels of potential water use in the basin: Low,
Medium and High. The Low water-use Scenario would equate approximately to the
three countries' present short-term (i.e. 5-7 years) national plans. The Medium water-
use Scenario would reflect possible medium term (approx 10-15 years) plans, and the
High water-use Scenario possible long-term (>20 year) plans.
Major water uses included in the scenarios were hydropower generation; agriculture,
including irrigated crops and livestock; mining and industrial; growing numbers of people in
urban areas and as tourists; and inter-basin transfers of water.
The details of where to place individual potential developments within the basin hydrological
model were decided by the hydrological team after consultations within their respective
countries. This does not imply that any one of these developments will happen or, if it
happens, that it will be in the location indicated in the model. Modification of the site of a
development, or of its design or operating rules, could affect the consequent flow regime and
thus the predicted ecological and social impacts.
The creation of a Decision Support System (DSS) for this project enables many permutations
of development projects (scenarios) to be explored in terms of their ecological and social
impacts, not just the three created in the project. The DSS will reside with OKACOM.
The scenarios predicted how the situation could change for eight sites along the river system,
each of which represented longer stretches of the system and the social areas linked to it.
3A
1A
2A
4N
7B
5N
6B
8B
Figure 1. Location of the eight representative sites: three in Angola (marked A), two
in Namibia (N) and three in Botswana (B). Map from Mendelsohn and el
Obeid (2004).
The predictions covered changes in the following:
· the flow regime
· the river ecosystem
· the socio-economic situation of people using the river's natural resources
· the macro-economic situation.
Changes in the flow regime
The hydrological models set up as part of the EPSMO project simulated possible flows at each
of the eight sites under each scenario. These data were converted into several sets of
summary flow statistics that were relevant for the health of the ecosystem. Figure 2, by
example, shows how the flood season would shrink and the dry season grow in duration under
the three scenarios.
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Present Day
Low Scenario
Medium scenario
High Scenario
Flood season
Dry Season
Figure 2
Changes in onset and duration of dry and flood seasons at Popa Falls (Site 5)
and the Panhandle (Site 6) under different scenarios. White areas are times of
transitional flow between flood and dry seasons.
Figure 2 does not show how the size of the flows might also change, but this can be gleaned
from individual tables of other summary statistics. Table 3, for instance, details how the
minimum flows in the dry season could change. Sites 5 and 6 would again be heavily impacted,
with flows falling to 18% of Present Day under the High Scenario.
3 -1
Table 3 Dry season minimum flow (m s ). PD = Present Day
Site
PD
Low
Medium
High
Comment
1
12
0.4
0.3
0.3
All Scenarios similar. Drastic drop from PD
Minimum flow drops to 50% (L), 38% (M) of
2
32
16
12
24
PD and then under H increases to 75%
because of dam releases in dry season
Decline through L and M to 43% of PD then
4
35
20
15
19
increase for H to 54%
Progressive decline from PD to very large
5/6
114
101
93
21
drop for H: 89%, 82%, 18%
Changes in the river ecosystem
The kinds of flow changes described above would trigger changes in the river ecosystem.
These were predicted using more than 70 indicators that were grouped into the following major
parts of the ecosystem:
· channel form
· water quality
· vegetation
· aquatic invertebrates
· fish
· river-dependent terrestrial wildlife
· water birds.
The project produced a DSS that predicted the degree of change in each of these indicators
with each scenario. These predictions were combined into summaries of ecosystem health, in
other words, predictions of how well the river would still be able to provide ecosystem services
under the three possible levels of development. A common scoring system in this kind of work
is from A to F, where A is a natural, unmodified system and F is a critically modified system that
can no longer produce historical ecosystem services and thus may have little value for people.
A general aim among countries using such a system could be to not let any rivers fall below a D
category and to keep most well above that, with those of conservation value at an A, B or high
C. In the basin graphic of ecosystem health (Figure 3) rivers depicted in black had no
representative sites and so were not included in the assessment. Those coloured blue were
predicted to retain their present-day B status, whilst the remainder declined to a C (green), D
(orange) or E (red). The sections most under threat are shown with red flags, because they
would be unable to sustain present beneficial uses of the system.
Present Day
Low
Medium
High
A
B
C
D
E
Not asse
as ssed
Figure 3 Summary of expected changes in ecosystem health for the Low, Medium
and High scenarios.
If the developments mentioned in Box 1 were to be constructed with their assumed design and
operating rules then three main predicted trends are clear.
1. A progressive decline in condition of the river ecosystem would occur from the Low to
High Scenarios, with the High Scenario rendering large parts of the system unable to
sustain present beneficial uses and causing significant drying out of the Delta.
2. A severe impact in an upper-basin tributary would be localised around Capico (Low
Scenario) until it, together with further downstream developments, triggered a
widespread decline in the middle reaches to condition C (Medium Scenario).
3. Transboundary impacts would be felt first and most severely in the Delta and its outflow.
All the predicted river changes are likely to have been underestimated because they do not
include impacts not associated with flow manipulations, such as point and non-point pollution,
dredging, riparian clearance and so on. It is clear that the level of development represented by
the High Scenario would have a significant impact on this river system and severely reduce the
services it presently provides.
Changes in the socio-economic situation of people using the river's natural resources
Short-term livelihood implications
Many of the changes in the river ecosystem translate into impacts on the livelihoods and welfare
of the basin's people and on national economies. As a first statement of these impacts, the
ecosystem changes were applied to enterprise models that measure private net incomes
(livelihoods) and economic national income (economic contribution).
At the basin level, the livelihoods value would drop from the Present Day estimate of US$ 60
million per year, to less US$ 10 million per year for both the Medium and High water-use
scenarios (Figure 4).
TOTAL livelihood value (US$)
70,000,000
60,000,000
50,000,000
40,000,000
30,000,000
TOTAL livelihood value
(US$)
20,000,000
10,000,000
0
PD
Low D
Med D High D
Figure 4 The short-term implications of water-use scenarios for livelihoods in the
Okavango River Basin. Present Day (PD), Low Development (Low D), Medium
Development (Med D) and High Development (High D) (US$, 2008)
These predicted changes can be scaled up to economic national incomes as shown in Figure 5,
combined for the basin as a whole. Direct economic contribution to the national income
provides a better measure than household net income of the real impact on socio-economic
welfare. 1 This variable shows a decline from US$ 100 million per year to less than US$ 10
million per year for the Medium and High development scenarios.
1 Direct contribution is a comprehensive measure that includes the basin household net income, as well as the income to other
basin investors, and stakeholders.
TOTAL direct economic contribution (US$)
120,000,000
100,000,000
80,000,000
60,000,000
TOTAL direct economic
contribution (US$)
40,000,000
20,000,000
0
PD
Low D
Med D
High D
Figure 5 The short-term implications of water-use scenarios for direct economic
income in the Okavango River Basin. Present day (PD), Low development
(Low D), Medium development (Med D) and High development (High D) (US$,
2008)
The significant declines in both these indicators through the water-use scenarios are primarily
linked to declines in tourism. Relatively small, sustained reductions in tourism demand would
severely reduce livelihood values and economic contributions to national incomes.
Long-term livelihood implications
People and societies adapt to change if they can, although with high levels of poverty and
vulnerability adaptation can be both risky and costly if indeed it is possible. When the predicted
river changes in natural resources were assessed with possible adaptations by people included,
then the overall impacts scenarios that emerge are probably more realistic.
Over the Basin, losses in Botswana dominate the picture (Table 4). The negative impacts of the
Low Scenario would be moderate, but those of the Medium and High Scenarios would be very
significant (Figure 6).
Figure 6 Effect of the three water-use scenarios on direct economic contribution of
all riverine natural resource use in the Okavango River Basin. Present day (PD),
Low Scenario (Low Dev), Medium Scenario (Med Dev) and High Scenario (High Dev) water use
Table 4
Effect of the Low, Medium and High water-use scenarios on the 40-year net
present values (NPVs) attributable to river/floodplain natural resource use
in the whole Okavango River Basin
OKAVANGO BASIN
Present day
Low
Med
High
Development
Development
Development
Net present value @ 4%
(US$, 2008)
Tourism sector
1,989,596,200
1,089,222,700
199,104,700
206,341,600
Rural household sector
1,057,568,000
646,941,500
316,064,000
295,715,900
TOTAL resource use
3,047,164,200
1,736,164,100
515,168,700
502,057,500
·
Fish use
125,905,100
75,448,600
69,065,500
64,537,400
·
Floodplain reeds use
39,722,500
36,385,300
36,221,900
36,248,100
·
Floodplain grass use
99,901,600
92,956,800
91,953,300
92,932,800
·
Floodplain gardens
6,712,800
7,362,300
7,278,200
7,399,200
·
Floodplain grazing
10,752,600
9,115,000
8,864,900
11,046,700
·
Tourism wages
774,573,400
425,673,400
102,680,300
83,551,800
Losses from present day
Tourism sector
900,373,500
1,740,491,500
1,783,254,600
Rural household sector
410,626,600
741,504,000
761,852,100
TOTAL resource use
1,311,000,100
2,531,995,500
2,545,106,700
·
Fish use
50,456,500
56,839,600
61,367,700
·
Floodplain reeds use
3,337,100
3,500,600
3,474,400
·
Floodplain grass use
6,944,800
7,948,300
6,968,800
·
Floodplain gardens
(649,400)
(565,300)
(686,400)
·
Floodplain grazing
1,637,600
1,887,700
(294,100)
·
Tourism wages
348,900,000
671,893,100
691,021,600
The results suggest that the levels of water developments represented by the three scenarios
would significantly reduce the income that people in the basin and in the broader economies
derive from the river. For the Medium and High Scenarios, the aggregate losses would be
lowest in Angola, at about US$ 65 million and five times greater in Namibia at about US$ 330
million. Such losses would be 30 times greater in Botswana than in Angola, at around US$ 2.1
billion.
These losses would be felt differently at the household level in the three countries. Within the
socially defined areas linked to the river, Angolans derive 19% of their total household income
from it, Namibians 32% and Botswanans 45%. With the predicted changes in the river, the
percentage of their annual income that they might lose ranges from 8% to 39%, with a basin
average of about 20% loss under the Medium and High Scenarios.
These aggregate losses will impact on basin populations that are already poor and vulnerable
relative to the broader populations of their countries. As the losses are likely to be greater for
the tourism industry than for the rural household sector, the impact on the main income earners
in this industry - the investors, owners of capital, government, and employees including wage
earners from the rural populations - might be even greater than for the rural population as a
whole.
In conclusion, the emerging picture is that the people in the Angolan basin currently derive
relatively little income from the river system, while those in the countries downstream, and most
notably Botswana, derive considerably more from it. By far the major part of this income is
based on the natural status of the river/wetland ecosystem, with tourism making up the bulk of
this. Botswana has invested in this natural system through land allocation and protection, and
relies on it for the bulk of its basin economy.
Changes in the macro-economic situation
A macro-economic trade-off analysis showed the potential basin-wide economic consequences
of the three water-use scenarios. It groups the existing natural resource and tourism benefits
from the basin as ecosystem services, and the water supply and sanitation, irrigation and
hydropower values as water-resource developments. It does not include all ecosystem services
(Table 1), but relates principally to the provisioning services and some cultural services. It thus
underestimates the total value of ecosystem services provided by the river and consequently
underestimates the potential negative economic impacts of the three scenarios.
From a basin perspective, the potential large ecosystem losses faced by the downstream
riparian countries would be from US$ 700 million for the Low Scenario through to US$ 1.4 billion
for the Medium and High Scenarios. In effect, both the Medium and High Scenarios generate
such a magnitude of ecological economic losses that they would overwhelm all the benefits of
the water-resource developments they represent. This is the case even under an optimistic
economic projection. From a basin-wide perspective then, caution (Box 2) and further study is
called for before proceeding with any of the proposed scenarios given that the developments
they represent might not produce "optimistic" results (collectively or individually), and given the
now-documented risk that such developments would result in substantial economic losses in
terms of ecosystem services.
Despite this overall note of caution, the analysis does clarify a few key findings that could be
considered in future development planning.
· The provision of improved urban water supply and sanitation requires relatively small
amounts of water to be extracted from the system, and therefore may be judged and
promoted based on the contribution to human well-being and socio-economic development
(and not linked to the loss of ecosystem services) within the scope of national development
plans and budgets. This is with the proviso that effluents from such schemes are treated to
a high standard before return to the river.
· The hydropower schemes considered are run-of-river and will not necessarily have a
significant impact on downstream ecosystems (depending on their design and operation)
and, therefore, may be considered purely within the context of the planned development of
the Angolan and Namibian power sector plans (and not linked to the loss of ecosystem
services). This is with the proviso that no major storage occurs and sediment and fish
movement along the rivers past such schemes is resolved.
· The cumulative impact of the irrigation schemes suggested under the Medium and High
Scenarios is the major reason for the vast majority of the economic losses in terms of
ecosystem services. For this reason it may be best to contemplate only limited development
of economically sound irrigation projects while simultaneously exploring further development
of realistic alternative sources of income generation that are low in water use ­ such as
wildlife and tourism.
Box 2 The Cuito River
The Okavango River system has floodplains that store floodwaters and sustain the river in the
dry season. If they were diminished, there would be increased flooding downstream and a
significant drying out of the Delta and its outflow due to the weakening of dry-season flows. The
Cuito River is key to the functioning of the whole lower river system, because of its strong year-
round flow, its wet-season storage of floodwaters on vast floodplains and the gradual release of
water back into the river in the dry season. The riverine ecosystems and associated social
structures of people along the lower Okavango River, the Okavango Delta and the outflowing
Thalamakana and Boteti Rivers are sustained mostly by the annual flow regime of the Cuito. If
these areas are of concern at the basin level, then water-resource development along the Cuito,
or intervention in the functioning of its floodplains, should be modest and undertaken with
extreme caution.
A promising future economic path for the basin would be one of low water use and continuance
of the existing water economy that supports important ecosystem services. This would need
careful planning, not least because of the present asymmetry in levels of development and
economic opportunity between riparian countries.
3. Considerations for basin planning: the concept of Development
Space
The Flow Assessment done within the EPSMO project produced scenarios that describe
possible pathways into the future: multi-faceted views of potential changes in the river, the
social structure of its people and both local and national economies. Providing both sides of the
development picture in this way, for discussion and negotiation by stakeholders, adheres to the
principles of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM).
To help stakeholders use the scenarios and the governments make decisions on basin
development, the concept of Development Space could be useful (Figure 7). This is based on
the certainty that as river flows are modified then the natural attributes of the river ecosystem
will change.
The Development Space may be defined as the difference between current
conditions in the basin and the furthest level of development found acceptable to stakeholders
through consideration of the scenarios.
Beyond this point, costs would be perceived to
outweigh the benefits of development (cf Table 2).
The scenarios produced (the arrows in
Figure 7) lie at points along the development spectrum. Their position is not presently known
because the governments and their stakeholders would first have to identify the point of
unacceptable change.
We do not know at the moment if one or more of the Low, Medium, or High Scenarios represent
unacceptable change. The answer to this is not gleaned from science, but rather it is a value
judgement by society. To identify this point, the governments and their stakeholders could ask
themselves what they would consider to be unacceptable, what would be their `mark in the
sand', and then check which of the scenarios illustrate this in order to identify unacceptable
ones. Could their mark in the sand be, for instance:
· parts of the channel drying out seasonally?
· Floodplains no longer flooding?
· Water too polluted to drink or wash in?
· 30% loss of biodiversity?
· 60% loss of fisheries?
· Loss of areas of religious significance?
· Or what?
Figure 7 The concept of Development Space, which is defined by Present Day
conditions and the negotiated limit of ecosystem degradation as basin
development proceeds. Arrows with question marks represent the possible
positions of the three scenarios.
Different stakeholders, such as conservation agencies and agriculture, might identify different
acceptable end points, and it is the task of governments to take the final decision.
If that
decision shows that the point of unacceptable change lies to the right of Present Day then there
is, according to the stakeholders, Development Space remaining in the Basin. If it lies to the
left, then unacceptable change has already happened and rehabilitation that includes reversing
some flow modification could be considered. If necessary, more scenarios could be created by
the EPSMO Decision Support System in order to hone in on the point of unacceptable change.
If the Okavango countries were willing to identify the Development Space in this way, then
theoretically they could then divide this Space between them through negotiation.
If each
country has its Development Space, then some countries could develop more slowly, knowing
that their share of the water awaits them as needed. Other countries could develop in ways that
do not require much water, thereby choosing to use their share of the Space to maintain the
river condition at a higher level than the point of unacceptable change. This apparently is not
how international water law views the sharing of rivers, where present needs take priority and
future needs cannot be reserved but, from the perspective of sustainability, that approach is
flawed. Unless some limit on river degradation is drawn and people then live within that limit,
development cannot claim to be sustainable. For truly sustainable development, it is suggested
that development planning should start at the opposite end to present, that is, to first identify
and agree on the point beyond which ecosystem degradation should not be allowed to proceed
and then to work backwards, considering how to live and share within those limits.
4. Strengthening the Knowledge Base and capacity building
The EPSMO Flow Assessment and TDA were based mostly on best available information,
international knowledge and local wisdom, with very few new data collected. The resulting
scenarios provided the best predictions currently possible of the future consequences of a range
of possible water-resource developments, but their level of confidence needs enhancement.
A directed and carefully planned programme of basin-wide research, together with technical
development within OKACOM, is imperative to firm up the predictions and produce further
scenarios as desired by the countries. This could be done in a way that builds facilities and
capacity within the countries and OKACOM as they move toward a negotiated basin plan. The
EPSMO project has provided a solid basis for applying for future international funds, and its
Strategic Action Programme (SAP) captures in general terms how the process could be taken
forward, but the details would need careful alignment with OKACOM'S needs. . Ensuring
appropriate Terms of Reference for any of the work would be critically important, or time and
money could be wasted.
Technical specialists experienced in river basin management know what actions can be
effective and which do not work, how long specific activities take, how liaison with research
groups and stakeholders can best be used, and the sequence of steps for implementation of a
more sustainable approach to river-flow management. It is recommended that OKACOM
employs a small team of scientific advisors (an Expert Panel) that could help it develop suitable
TORs and monitor the quality and relevance of the work then done.

Document Outline