Can Benefit-Sharing be a path towards a cooperative use of Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra?

Benefit-Sharing – The Concept

• Benefit-sharing implies ”win-win”, mutually beneficially agreements

• Benefit-sharing should be sought in parallel with, not versus, equitable water rights

• The need to identify the benefits is crucial and allows the development of positive-sum outcomes (Sadoff & Grey, 2005)

Benefit-Sharing – The Concept

Benefits to to

the river

Benefits from from

the river

Benefits because because

of the river

Benefits beyondbeyondthe river

BENEFITS OF COOPERATIONBENEFITS OF COOPERATION

Environmental Social Economic Political

Source: Ana Cascao, 2008

“A focus on sharing the benefits derived from the use of water,rather than the allocation of water itself,

provides far greater scope for identifying mutually beneficial cooperative actions”

Possibilities of Cooperation

• Primarily: cooperate on smaller, less-conflict-prone and more easily manageable projects

• Secondarily: hydropower development• Why? Big projects not the norm: what we need is

not minimum flows, but minimum interference with the flows (Iyer, 2011)

Benefits to the River

• Joint institution for data sharing and monitoring of water quality and quantity

+ Improves water quality, riverflow characteristics

+ Supports trust-building• Empirical case: China´s Digital Yellow River Project –

a success story!• A Cross-border Integrated Digital Platform:

The Yarlung-Tsangpo River Geographical Information Center (YZRGC)

Benefits from the River1. For Regional floods: focus on

cross-border monitoring & alarm systems, not just water storage

2. Ground water storage: more immediately & at lower costs compared to dams

+ agriculture production, disaster preparedness

3. Hydropower-cooperation

+ sharing of hydro-electricity

Benefits beyond the River

• Asia´s irrigation systems face 50 % increase in food demand by 2030 (Chellaney, 2011)

• Sino-Indian-Bangladeshi thread: agriculture sector is the largest water user, requires a common solution

• China´s leading role in irrigation water productivity: in 1980, only 0.667 kg grain/t. By 2007, it had risen to 1.393 kg/t (Jia, 2007)

• General cooperation: + improve water efficiency, improve water infrastructure, increase opportunities to utilize technologies

ASIAN CITIES AT RISK DUE TO SEA-LEVEL RISE

Source: UN-HABITAT, 2008

Benefits beyond the River

• Climate adaptation can begin now: improve coordination to respond to water-related disasters

• Sino-Indian Cooperation: + developing skills in preventing the erosion of coastal land, developing sea water-desalination plants

• R&D Funds and technologies: provide and assist countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka with public goods

Obstacles to Benefit-Sharing

• Securitised river: Can water-derived benefits be shared equitably when the water itself cannot be?

• Generally: The economic imperative prevails, not water management

• Sino-Indian Dam-race

The Way Forward

• Address contentious issues while expanding cooperation on less contentious issues that creates ”spill over” effects into a larger basket of benefits

• Horizontal cross-sectoral approaches:initiate NGO, Academic and Industrial cooperation

• Why? Participation at all levels of river basin management and beyond contributes to cost and time savings