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Climate change and water security: Impacting decision- making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin? Nina Hissen, PhD Researcher

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Page 1: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Climate change and water

security: Impacting decision-

making processes on water

management in the Equatorial

Nile Basin?

Nina Hissen, PhD Researcher

Page 2: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Outline

• Research Interest

• Water Management in the Nile Basin

• Embedded Case Study: The Equatorial Nile and

the Mara River Basin

• Theoretical Concepts

• Research Questions and Methods

• Preliminary Results

• Research Limitations

• Conclusions and Outlook

Page 3: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Research Interest

• Unravel decision-making processes of

transboundary water resources management

• Implications of water security and climate

change for water management in the Nile Basin

• Improve climate change adaptation of water

resources management

Page 4: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Water management in the Nile Basin

Owen Falls Dam, Jinja, UG

Photo by Malcolm McCrow

Page 5: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

(World Bank, 2000)

Page 6: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

The Equatorial Nile Basin and Mara

River Basin

Lake Victoria, Kampala

Page 7: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Lake Victoria Basin, (World Resources Institute,

2002)

Page 8: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?
Page 9: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Theoretical concepts

• (Environmental) Governance (Biermann et al. 2009)

▫ Integrated system of formal and informal

institutions

▫ Multiple levels of institutions relevant for decision-

making (local, national, international)

▫ Constructivist approach: Actors and institutional

structure mutually influence each other and

decision-making

Page 10: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Theoretical Concepts

• Climate Change Discourse (CCD) ( Hulme, 2009)

▫ “specific ensemble of ideas, concepts and categorization that are produced, reproduced and transformed in a particular set of practices and through which meaning is given to physical and social realities” (Hajer, 1995)

▫ Physical impacts of climate change vs. perceptions ofclimate change

▫ Relevance of policy discourses for political decision-making: CC on regional policy agendas: e.g. NAPAs, CC

strategies

Interest in climate adaptation funds

▫ But high uncertainty about CC, lack of understanding,

Page 11: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Theoretical Concepts

• Water security (Grey and Sadoff, 2007)

▫ Availability

▫ Quantity and Quality of water

▫ Water for health, livelihoods, ecosystems,

production

▫ Acceptable water-related risks (people,

environment, economies)

• Securitization of water resources (Brauch 2009; Buznan et

al 1998)

▫ Water insecurity results in the securitization of the

resource i.e. making water a matter of national

security

Page 12: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Research Questions

and Methods

Masai Mara Reserve, Kenya

Page 13: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

How are emerging

discourses around water

security and climate

change taking shape in the

EQNB?!

How does the

interaction between

transboundary and

national institutions

shape water

management decisions

in the EQNB?!

How could water

management

decisions relate to

water security in

the context of

delivering

adaptation to

climate change?!

What is the relationship between water governance and water management decisions in the Equatorial

Nile Basin (EQNB) in the context of water securitization and climate change?

!

How does the

discourse on water

security and

climate change

influence water

management

decisions?!

! "#

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$&"# ' "#

Page 14: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Methods

• Semi-structured interviews

• Institutional mapping

• Q-sorts (small N)

• Focus group

• Observations

Page 15: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

(Preliminary)

Empirical Results

Mara Basin Office,

Mulot

Page 16: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Climate Change Discourse

• Dominant policy discourse presents climate change as:

▫ CC impacts are already felt today

▫ Therefore climate change adaptation and mitigatingfuture impacts is essential

▫ Most water managers did not distinguish betweenadaptation and mitigation

• Strong link to Green Growth Paradigm

▫ Tension between sustainable development andoptimal climate change adaptation/mitigation

▫ Development paradigm is dominant over climatechange adaptation

Page 17: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Climate Change Policy

• Large gap between discourse on climate change

and policy implementation

▫ Climate change adaptation is still in its infancy

▫ Regional differences in development and

implemenation of climate policies

▫ Climate change financing as a key concern

▫ Climate change policies a mere lip service?

Page 18: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

CCD and water management in the

Nile• Climate Change as a proxy to access funds

▫ Current state of the Nile Basin Initiative: future

uncertain

▫ Main funding from the World Bank ran out this

year

▫ Hightened talk about climate change adaptation

and mitigation among NBI officials

▫ Focus on accessing climate change adaptation

funds

Page 19: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

12.09.2012

Actors’ map of Mara River Basin

Sustainable

water

management

Secondary actors

StatePrivate

sector

Civil society

Primary actors

Key actors

WRMA

WRUAs (KE)

Tourismindustry

WWF

USAID

GLOWS

Large-scalefarmers

LVBC

NELSAP

ProMara

SteeringCommittee

CARE Int.

BasinCommittee(TZ)

Mining Industry

WRUAs (TZ)

Page 20: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Research Limitations

• The results are so far only preliminary. A thourough analysis of the data needs to follow.

• Interviews were conducted mainly with expertsand policy makers. Hence there is a bias in theresearch towards the policy level.

• Very small N for the Q-sort based interviews.▫ Difficult to motivate interviewees to participate.

• The discourse analyzed is a highly specializeddiscourse amongst water experts, rather thanthe broad public climate change discourse in theregion.

Page 21: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Conclusions

• Gap between climate change experts and water

management experts

• Water managers know about climate change but

often the causal links are not clear

• This poses a threat to successful climate

change adaptation of water resources

• Despite that, no evidence for climate change

increasing political conflict over water in the

EQNB!

Page 22: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

Thank you!

Lake Victoria, Uganda

Page 23: Climate change and water security: Impacting decision-making processes on water management in the Equatorial Nile Basin?

References• Biermann, F., Betsill, M.M., Gupta, J., Kanie, N., Lebel, L., Liverman, D., Schroeder,

H. and Siebenhüner, B. 2009: Earth System Governance: People, Places and the

Planet. Science and Implementation of the Earth System Governance Project. Earth

System Governance Project Report, Bonn: IHDP.

• Brauch, H.G. 2009: Securitizing Global Environmental Change. In Brauch, H.G.,

Oswald Spring, Ú., Grin, J., Mesjasz, C., Kameri-Mbote, P., Behera, N.C., Chourou,

B. and Krummenacher, H., editors, Facing Global Envrionmental Change.

Environmental, Human, Energy, Food, Health and Water Security Concepts, Berlin,

Heidelberg, 65-102.

• Buznan, B., Wæver, O. and de Wilde, J. 1998: Security: A New Framework for

Analysis. London.

• Grey, D. and Sadoff, C.W. 2007: Sink or Swim? Water security for growth or

development. Water Policy 9, 545-571.

• Hajer, M. A. 1995: The Politics of Environmental Discourse: Ecological Modernization

and the Policy Process

• Hulme, M. 2009: Why we disagree about climate change. Understanding

controversey, inaction and opportunity. Cambridge.

• World Bank 2000: Nile River Basin Map.

• World Resources Institute 2002: Nile Watershed: Lake Victoria Subbasin.