A Multiscalar Framework for Water Resilience and Peacebuilding in Transboundary Basins: Insights from Central Asia

Eugénie Stoclet, Free University of Brussels (Belgium)

Climate and water challenges are often framed as potential drivers of conflict in transboundary basins, even though their impacts on cooperation and peace are far more nuanced. Building on a case study of the Syr Darya Basin, an analysis of transboundary interactions, and extensive fieldwork and interviews, this paper proposes a multiscalar framework for analyzing and building water resilience—understood here as encompassing adaptation—in transboundary settings. The framework functions both as an analytical tool and as a practical guide for designing resilience initiatives that preserve human security and minimize conflict risks. It highlights how interventions at one scale can generate unintended socio-environmental effects at another, and integrates principles of hydrosocial analysis, power-sensitivity, and conflict-sensitivity. Rather than offering a single solution, it outlines a set of approaches that must be considered in parallel across scales, contributing to efforts to reimagine environmental peacebuilding practice in increasingly complex and uncertain contexts.