Hydrologic data as a human right? Equitable access to information as a resource for disaster risk reduction in transboundary river basins

Kibler, Kelly M.; Biswas, Robin Kumar; Lucas, Andrea M. Juarez

doi:10.2166/wp.2014.307

Cited by 17 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…As hydro meteorological data can be a powerful resource with potential to profoundly influence lives and livelihoods, enhanced awareness of justice related to data sharing, data confidence and data calibration is needed (Kibler et al, 2014). Therefore, collection and sharing of the appropriate and necessary data, information and models for the entire basin and across the water cycle is needed.…”

Section: Institutional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving governance in transboundary cooperation in water and climate change adaptation

Timmerman

Matthews²,

Koeppel

et al. 2017

Water Policy

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Climate change adaptation in water management is a water governance issue. While neither climate change nor water respects national borders, adaptation in water management should be treated as a transboundary water governance issue. However, transboundary water management is, in essence, more complex than national water management because the water management regimes usually differ more between countries than within countries. This paper provides 63 lessons learned from almost a decade of cooperation on transboundary climate adaptation in water management under the UNECE Water Convention and puts these into the context of the OECD principles on water governance. It highlights that good water governance entails a variety of activities that are intertwined and cannot be considered stand-alone elements. The paper also shows that this wide variety of actions is needed to develop a climate change adaptation strategy in water management. Each of the lessons learned can be considered concrete actions connected to one or more of the OECD principles, where a range of actions may be needed to fulfil one principle. The paper concludes that developing climate change adaptation measures needs to improve in parallel the water governance system at transboundary scale.

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Section: Institutional Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Improving governance in transboundary cooperation in water and climate change adaptation

Timmerman

Matthews²,

Koeppel

et al. 2017

Water Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…For example, discharge data can be used for testing hypotheses regarding hydrological and geomorphological processes that govern erosion and sediment transport in the Brahmaputra River. Current monitoring of river characteristics and discharges of the Brahmaputra are, however, not freely accessible (Kibler et al 2014), and the lack of publically available data sets constrains the reproducibility of previously published results (e.g. Goswami 1985;Islam et al 1999;Sarma 2005).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Present to future sediment transport of the Brahmaputra River: reducing uncertainty in predictions and management

et al. 2016

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The Brahmaputra River in South Asia carries one of the world's highest sediment loads, and the sediment transport dynamics strongly affect the region's ecology and agriculture. However, present understanding of sediment conditions and dynamics is hindered by limited access to hydrological and geomorphological data, which impacts predictive models needed in management. We here synthesize reported peer-reviewed data relevant to sediment transport and perform a sensitivity analysis to identify sensitive and uncertain parameters, using the one-dimensional model HEC-RAS, considering both present and future climatic conditions. Results showed that there is considerable uncertainty in openly available estimates (260-720 Mt yr -1 ) of the annual sediment load for the Brahmaputra River at its downstream Bahadurabad gauging station (Bangladesh). This may aggravate scientific impact studies of planned power plant and reservoir construction in the region, as well as more general effects of ongoing land use change and climate change. We found that data scarcity on sediment grain size distribution, water discharge, and Manning's roughness coefficient had the strongest controls on the modelled sediment load. However, despite uncertainty in absolute loads, we showed that predicted relative changes, including a future increase in sediment load by about 40 % at Bahadurabad by 2075-2100, were consistent across multiple model simulations. Nevertheless, for the future scenarios we found that parameter uncertainty almost doubled for water discharge and river geometry, highlighting that improved information on these parameters could greatly advance the abilities to predict and manage current and future sediment dynamics in the Brahmaputra river basin.

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“…It is obvious that sustainable river management is demanded and challenged in the large GBM river, which tends to flow in international basins (Gupta 2007;Rasul 2014). However, the lack of publicly available long-term and spatially distributed hydrological data (discharge and river characteristics) at a basin-wide scale limits the understanding of hydrological and geomorphological processes of the GBM river basin (Kibler et al 2014), which is a prerequisite for sustainable water resource management in this downstream region (Fischer et al 2017). Being a downstream country, Bangladesh faces Faisal and Hayakawa Progress in Earth and Planetary Science (2022) 9:41 many challenges in coping with altering geomorphic characteristics of the large GBM river basin and is often dictated by decisions taken outside its border.…”

Section: Sediment Dischargementioning

confidence: 99%

Geomorphological processes and their connectivity in hillslope, fluvial, and coastal areas in Bangladesh: A review

Faisal

Hayakawa

2022

Prog Earth Planet Sci

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Geomorphological knowledge is critical in understanding watershed scale surface processes, including steep mountainous areas and flat lowlands, particularly if the mid- and downstream areas are densely populated and hazard assessments are highly required. However, our knowledge about such surface processes has relatively been limited in some areas in South Asia due likely to the lack of comprehensive studies of geomorphology and related fields. This article undertakes an overview of the geomorphological processes of the disaster-prone deltaic landscape of the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna (GBM), particularly focusing on fluvial processes. The area locates in the downstream of the watershed system including Himalayan Mountains and highly connected with the upper basin morphodynamics, hydrology, and sediment flux. The previous studies are summarized at different geomorphic settings concerning hillslopes, fluvial plains, and coastal areas to provide clarity about the geomorphic processes linking erosion-prone upstream source areas to deposition-dominated downstream areas. The review found that most of the geomorphic researches in Bangladesh are exploring landslide inventory and susceptibility mapping in hilly areas; river channel or riverbank shifting, riverbank erosion and accretion in fluvial environments; watershed morphometric analysis and geomorphic unit identification in plain land; and coastline shifting or coastal erosion and accretion in coastal environments at a small scale. Then, we discuss the fluvial dynamics and sediment transport of the GBM river system to address the knowledge gap in the context of deltaic plain land in Bangladesh, where upstream fluvial sedimentation processes impact the geomorphic connectivity from Himalayan to the Bay of Bengal. Although some studies on the fluvial dynamics and sediment dispersal in the upstream GBM river basin are present, the fluvial processes in the downstream domain of Bangladesh are not fully understood with a limited number of research with field-based approaches. Some future perspectives of geomorphic research in Bangladesh are then mentioned to understand better the complex geomorphological settings in the entire GBM watershed and to strengthen the existing research capacity. This review will also develop a holistic understanding of fluvial geomorphic processes of the GBM River to the policymakers and may be helpful to improve the transboundary river basin management policies or strategies.

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Hydrologic data as a human right? Equitable access to information as a resource for disaster risk reduction in transboundary river basins

Cited by 17 publications

References 36 publications

Improving governance in transboundary cooperation in water and climate change adaptation

Improving governance in transboundary cooperation in water and climate change adaptation

Present to future sediment transport of the Brahmaputra River: reducing uncertainty in predictions and management

Geomorphological processes and their connectivity in hillslope, fluvial, and coastal areas in Bangladesh: A review

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