Adaptation, Resistance, or Subversion: How Will Water Politics Be Affected by Climate Change?

Jun 9, 2015 | Anders Jägerskog, Anton Earle, & Ashok Swain
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One of the primary ways climate change is expected to affect international relations is through water. There are more than 270 bodies of water that cross over international boundaries, and various methodologies have identified several dozen that are particularly at risk for tension or conflict. So how is climate change affecting transboundary water politics? Are governments and institutions taking the threat seriously? A few years back, a group of researchers decided to focus on this question.

We found that understanding the power relations within basins is imperative. We put the physical science to the side (i.e., trying to determine the exact outcomes in a given river basin) and analyzed how various actors within transboundary water management are responding to climate change as they perceive it. A key conclusion is that questions about who gets what water, where, why, and how is going to depend heavily on the political context. Any physical change is going to be interpreted in light various actors’ interests (states, transboundary water management organizations). This may not seem revelatory to the political science-minded, but it bears emphasizing in the water world.