Lucas Beck

Geography of Conflict in International River Basins: The Zambezi Basin Case Study

Abstract:
Conflicts over water allocation in international freshwater systems are recurring phenomena in many parts of the world. While until now, historic linkages between water scarcity and conflict were weak at best, there is growing fear that environmental change and socio-economic development will increasingly lead to an entanglement of conflict and resources dynamics in the future.

Based on hydrological models we are able to explore scenarios for future water availability and demand as well as conflict interlinkages among riparian countries within a river basin. I illustrate the results of such a hydrological model using the Zambezi River Basin (ZRB), one of the largest river basins worldwide as a case study. We combine a comprehensive set of water demand scenarios and climate change projections with a hydrological model to estimate future water availability in key parts of the ZRB until 2050.

The results show in a first step, that population and economic growth, expansion of irrigated agriculture, and water transfers, combined with climatic changes are likely to have very important transboundary impacts if effective international cooperation on water allocation issues is absent. In particular, such impacts involve drastically reduced runoff in the dry season and changing shares of the Zambezi’s countries in runoff and water demand. These results imply that allocation rules should be set up within the next few years before serious international conflicts over sharing the Zambezi’s waters arise.

In a second step the hydrological model is used to show the implications of power asymmetries on water allocation within the ZRB: Within our model we argue, that in most transboundary surface water sharing problems, allocation outcomes are not primariliy determined by economic considerations but also by the distribution of political and bargaining power. In this sense our model accounts for how upstream countries exercise power by using water whereas downstream countries use power to obtain water.

Biographical Note:
Lucas Beck obtained an MSc degree in Rural Engineering with emphasis on hydrology and hydraulic engineering in 2002. After his time at University he worked in various projects as practitioner and hydraulic engineer in Switzerland and in the humanitarian context in conflict areas in Africa and Eastern Europe. From 2006 to 2010 he carried out a PhD at the Center for Comparative and International Studies at ETH Zurich. During that time he was doing extensive research on water use, water conflicts and water allocation in international river basins with extensive stays in Southern Africa and as visiting scholar at the Columbia University and NYU in New York.

Beck is the co-founder of hydrosolutions ltd., a private enterprise located in Zurich, Switzerland. The firm specializes on providing intelligence for environmental change but also does project management and engineering related to water infrastructure. Beck is affiliated with the Center for Comparative and International Studies at ETH, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.