Conceptualization of Equitable and Reasonable Water Sharing in the Nile Basin with Quantification of International Transboundary Water-Sharing Principles

Abstract

Transboundary waters account for a significant portion of the global freshwater resource. As such, effective water resource management should ideally have transboundary water management at its core. Despite this, however, two-thirds of the world’s transboundary rivers do not have a cooperative management framework. Nonetheless, numerous international treaties, laws, and principles have existed throughout history to govern transboundary water sharing. The principle of limited territorial sovereignty forms the basis for modern customary water laws. There are notable widely accepted transboundary water management rules and principles based on the prinicple of limited territorial soverginity such as the Helsinki rules, the U.N. 1997 convention, and the Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) in the case of the Nile basin. However, the contextualization and quantifications of such rule to useable frameworks are still mostly lacking. This study outlines the evolution of transboundary water-sharing rules and principles and the history of water sharing in the Nile basin. It then presents factors suggested by international water-sharing principles to determine equitable use. The study contextualizes, quantifies, and weighs these factors for the Nile basin to evaluate different scenarios, which can be a base for fair and equitable water sharing. Finally, the authors forward possible recommendations for equitable and sustainable water use in the basin to move forward collectively.