By Dr. Partha Jyoti Das
"Many of the wars of the 20th century were about oil but wars of the 21st century will be about water unless we change the way in which we manage it" - Professor Ismail Serageldin (Vice President of the World Bank, 1992-2000; founder and former Chairman of the Global Water Partnership (GWP, 1996–2000) and distinguished professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands)
The mighty Brahmaputra
Photo: Udayan Borthakur
INTRODUCTION
Today is the World Water Day and the right occasion to ponder about one of the most happening crises affecting humanity and nature the world over. Yes, the reference is to the global water scarcity and degeneration of freshwater sources, water bodies and aquatic ecosystems.
Water is the most important of all natural resources given its necessity for survival of lives and livelihoods of human beings and sustenance of natural ecosystems, flora, fauna and biodiversity. Sustainable and equitable management of water is indispensable for providing access to safe and clean water for drinking, sanitation, health, hygiene, economic development and overall human security. Water is a flowing entity, which is unevenly distributed over space and time. Freshwater resources of the planet are finite, only 2.5% of all available water on the earth. Water is a globally scarce resource due to increasing human needs such as for domestic use, agriculture and industry.
As per recent estimations, about 26% of the world’s population (2 billion people) do not not have access to safely managed drinking water services, and an estimated 46% (3.6 billion) lacked access to safely managed sanitation. On average, 10% of the global population lives in countries with high or critical water stress. Globally, water use has been increasing by roughly 1% per year over the last 40 years with the increase is concentrated in middle and lower-income countries, particularly in emerging economies. This trend is the result of a combination of population growth, socio-economic development and changing consumption patterns (UN, 2023).
It goes without saying that groundwater provides half of the volume of water withdrawn for domestic uses globally and around 25% of all water withdrawn for irrigation (UN, 2022). Overall global demand for water will continue to increase at an annual rate of about 1%, resulting in an increase of between 20 to 30% by 2050, with a margin of error of more than 50%. The rate of groundwater storage depletion is estimated to be between 100 and 200 km³/year, accounting for 15 to 25% of all groundwater withdrawals (UN, 2022). Hotspots of groundwater depletion are found around the world, most often in areas with intensive groundwater withdrawals for irrigation or to supply large cities.
The global volume of renewable freshwater was estimated at around 37,000 km³/year in 2015. Climate change is likely to increase seasonal variability in, and uncertainty about, water availability, quality, and quantity in most regions (UNESCO/UN-Water, 2020). Water scarcity, exacerbated by climate change, could cost some regions up to 6% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2050 due to water-related impacts on agriculture, health and incomes, potentially spurring migration and even conflict.
Freshwater ecosystems are among the most threatened in the world (Vári et al., 2022). The most significant pressures on river basin water balances are from freshwater withdrawals and drainage from agricultural land (FAO/IWMI, 2018), which can compromise the hydraulic continuity of downstream wetlands and associated ecosystem services (UN, 2023). About 75% of the land surface has been significantly altered, with over 85% of natural wetlands area lost. Since 1970, land use change has had the largest relative negative impact on both terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems (IPBES, 2019).
Water for peace
Photo: Udayan Borthakur
The theme for this years’ world water days is Water for Peace’. Water is so vital for life , national economy, prosperity and development that having ownership and user rights over the sources of freshwater has led to acts of completive policies and aggressive actions by many counties over other sharing common water resources regimes. We present below a perspective on how the rivers of northeast India are vital for maintaining socio-political relations among states within India as well as trans-national relations. interstate important role in India as well as the South Asian region covered by their river basis. While unilateral decisions of water management over shared rivers and their basins that could lead to contestations and conflicts, cooperation through co-management and consensual decision making would help in resolving disputes and enhancing the prospects of peace and prosperity.
THE RIVER SYSTEMS OF NE INDIA
The Brahmaputra and the Barak are our main river systems within Northeast India(NER) where we have numerous rivers, from the first order streams to rivers as large as Subansiri and Teesta which are tributaries of the Brahmaputra River. But the fact that most of the major rivers that originate from the region or flow through the region ultimately debouches to the Bay of Bengal and therefore are transboundary in nature make them strategically important for the country.
The Brahmaputra River System
With a drainage area of 580,000 km2, the Brahmaputra is one of the world’s largest rivers. About 50.5% of its basin lies in China, 33.6% in India, 8.1% in Bangladesh and 7.8% in Bhutan. In India, its basin is shared by Arunachal Pradesh (41.9%), Assam (36.3%), Meghalaya (6.1%), Nagaland (5.6%), Sikkim (3.8%) and West Bengal (6.3%). Originating from the Angsi glacier in the in Burang County in Tibetan Autonomous Region at an elevation of 5300 meter above sea level [1], it traverses 1,625 km in China and 918 km in India, before passing 337 km through Bangladesh and emptying into the Bay of Bengal through a joint channel with the Ganga, called the Meghna. Two rivers, the Dibang and the Lohit, join the upper course of the Brahmaputra, known as the Dihang (or Siang) river, a little south of Pasighat and the combined flow, hereafter called the Brahmaputra, traverses westward through Assam for about 640 km. until near Dhubri, where it abruptly turns south and enters Bangladesh (Goswami and Das, 2003).
The Dihang flowing through Arunachal Pradesh
Photo: Udayan Borthakur
The river has several names in different stretches of its journey. In Tibet (China) the river is known as the Tsangpo or the Yarlung Zhangbo whereas in Arunachal Pradesh it is called the Dihang or the Siang. In Assam the river is famous as the Brahmaputra and Luit. Among the Bodo community of Assam, the river is known as Bhullam Buthur. In Bangladesh it is called the Jamuna.
In the course of its 2,880 km journey from its origin in Tibet (China) to the confluence with the Bay of Bengal in Bangladesh, the Brahmaputra receives as many as 22 major tributaries in Tibet, 33 in India (in the north-eastern part, 20 of these coming from the north and another 13 from the south bank) and 3 in Bangladesh.
The Brahmaputra is the fourth largest river in the world in terms of the mean annual discharge of 33,600 m3/s at its mouth (Goswami and Das, 2003; Gupta 2007). It ranks second among the rivers of the world transporting the heaviest sediment load (Goswami and Das 2003). In terms of water yield per unit discharge area (0.0306 m3/s/km2 in Pandu, Assam, India) the Brahmaputra ranks highest among major rivers of the world. The same is true of its tributaries such as Subansiri, Jia Bhoroli and Manas. The yields of these rivers are as high as 0.076, 0.086 and 0.023 m3/s/km2, respectively, which are higher than those of many of great rivers of the world (Goswami 1998).
One of several tributaries of the river Brahmaputra
Photo: Udayan Borthakur
The Barak River System
The river Barak rises in the northern hills of Manipur, from where it flows through the Manipur hills, Mizoram and Assam-Manipur border and debouches into the plains, known as the Barak valley, in South-eastern part of Assam. It traverses the valley in a westerly direction up to Bhanga in Karimganj District where it bifurcates into two branches known as the Surma and the Kusiyara near the India-Bangladesh border. Both these rivers flow further into Bangladesh through Sylhet and reunite at Markuli (in Ajmiriganj Upazila, Habiganj District), Bangladesh, the joint stream being called the Meghna which later meets with the Brahmaputra, known as the Padma (after the Brahmaputra, known as the Jamuna in Bangladesh, meets the Ganga and takes the name of Padma) near Chandpur, flows further south as the Meghna and merges with the Bay of Bengal.
The Barak has a total length of 902 km from its origin to its outfall with the Meghna in Bangladesh out of which the Indian reach is 564 km long and the rest of its course (338 km) lies in Bangladesh. In the Indian course, about 403 km upstream of Lakhipur (in Cachar District, Assam) is in the hilly terrain and it is not navigable [2].The principal tributaries of Barak in Assam are Jiri, Chiri, Madhura, Jatinga in the north and Sonai (or Tuirial), Rukni, Tlawng (or Dhaleswari, or Katakal), Singla and Longai in the south.
The Barak-Meghna system covers a transboundary catchment area of 82,000 km2 spreading across the north-eastern part of India and Bangladesh, out of which 47,000 km2 (57% of the total basin area) lies within India (NE India) and 37,000 km2 (43% of the basin area) in Bangladesh (Sinha et al., 2018). The basin is bound by the Meghalaya Plateau on the north; hills of southern Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland on the northeast; hills of Tripura and Mizoram on the east and southeast in India. In India the Barak River basin spreads over Manipur, Mizoram, Assan, Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland.
Within the north-eastern region of India, the state of Assam is the land of highest number of perennial and vibrant rivers. With more than 125 prominent (major, medium, small) rivers flowing in the state, which contribute to either the Brahmaputra or the Barak, the density of rivers is so high that we can call it a riverine land.
The Brahmaputra has 41 tributaries inside Assam out of which 26 are flowing from the north (right bank) and 16 from the south (left bank). The Barak also has eight important tributaries within Assam (Das, 2021).
Rivers flowing eastward to Myanmar
There are several rivers which flow to Myanmar from NE India, and which are not part of the Brahmaputra-Barak River systems. There are a few small rivers flowing from the eastern part of Manipur which flow to the Chindwin River which is a tributary of the Irrawady that flows from China through Myanmar, traversing through Yangon and falls into the Gulf of Martaban, a part of Andaman Sea. The Imphal River or Manipur River (with tributaries like the Iril, Thoubal and Khuga River) also flows to Myanmar [3]. On the other hand, there’s another part in southern Mizoram wherefrom some rivers directly go and meet the Kaladan, which falls directly into the Bay of Bengal, on the west coast of Myanmar at Sittwe (Akyab). There is not much information about these rivers and their tributaries (Dikshit and Dikshit, 2014).
Thus, it is seen that although the Brahmaputra and Barak originate at different places, yet they come together in Bangladesh and flows into the Bay of Bengal with the name Meghna. On the other hand, the rest of the east flowing rivers, which do not belong to the Brahmaputra-Barak system, also drain out ultimately into the Bay of Bengal through Myanmar. Thus, the waters from all major rivers of the NE region of India finally flow down to the Bay of Bengal through either Bangladesh or Myanmar.
This means that all the rainfall that is caught in the catchments of our rivers starting from the Tibetan region in the Trans-Himalayas, ranging through the lofty high Himalayas in Bhutan, China, and India to the north-eastern hilly region in India finds its way through these rivers as run-off finally flowing into the Bay of Bengal. This is how hydrologically the Trans-Himalayas; Himalayas and the other Hills and Valleys of the north-eastern India are connected to the Bay of Bengal. In this sense India’s northeast is hydrologically a part of the Bay of Bengal Region.
Rivers transcending political boundaries
Owing to such a hydro-physiographic orientation of the NER and its river basins, we have several transboundary rivers flowing from one country to another country as well as many inter-state rivers passing through more than one state within India. This is an important feature of many of our rivers for which these rivers have assumed strategic as well as political significance in terms of management of these rivers and utilisation of their water resources. Some of our transboundary rivers have become a contentious issue, often leading to contestations and conflicts between and among countries as well as states or provinces within a country.
As per a study of the IUCN, The Ganga, Brahmaputra, and the Meghna basins have 14, 11 and 29 major rivers respectively that flow from India to Bangladesh (Nishat et al., 2014). Thus, there are 54 transboundary rivers that flow from India to Bangladesh of which about 32 rivers flow from NE India. These NE Indian transboundary rivers include three rivers of the Brahmaputra basin (Brahmaputra, Teesta and Jinjiram) and all the 29 rivers of the Barak-Meghna basin. There may be an addition of 10 more rivers to this list of trans boundary rivers between India and Bangladesh soon, raising the number of officially recognized transboundary rivers to 64. These are the Moharoshi, Uddakhali, Sonkosh, Mohadeo, Harivanga, Chela, Luva, Loha, Kamjhora and Khasimara, flowing from Meghalaya and Assam in India to northern Bangladesh [4].
Moreover, there are about 56 rivers of various sizes, big, medium, and small, that flow down from the Bhutan to Assam in India to meet the Brahmaputra River [5]. Examples of important ones are, Sonkosh (Punatsangchhu), Saralbhanga (Sarbhang Chu), Gauranga, Gangadhar, Gadadhar, Manas (Mangdechhu/ Drangmechhu), Aai, Manas, Beki, Dhansiri, Puthimari and Pagladiya. Yet, there are few other rivers such as the Amochhu (Torsa), Wangchhu (Raidak/Dudhkumar), and Dichhu (Jaldhaka/Dharla) that originate from the Bhutan Himalayas and pass through the northern part of Bengal to meet the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh.
ISSUES AROUND THE TRANSBOUNDARY RIVERS OF NE INDIA
Trans-national rivers are managed differently in different countries as per their own policies and priorities. Although there are some internationally proposed norms and best practices, these are not accepted or honoured equally across the globe. For example, the UN Watercourses Convention [6], the only international ‘framework law’ applicable to transboundary waters in South Asia, has not been ratified by any of the countries sharing the Brahmaputra-Meghna (Barak) basin, i.e., China, India, Bhutan, and Bangladesh (Yasuda et al., 2017).
Teesta river
Photo: AJT Johnsingh/ Wikimedia Commons
Even within a country, the rivers that transcend provincial boundaries may be subjected to different management rules and goals. Conflicts over water sharing and other management issues on inter-state rivers is common in India, prominent examples being the (i) Cauvery river water dispute among four Indian states viz. Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry; (ii) Ravi-Beas rivers water dispute between Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan, and (iii) Mahanadi Water Dispute between Chhattisgarh and Odisha (Modak and Ghosh, 2021). In India there are established laws such as the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 and the Inter-State River Water Disputes (Amendment) Act, 2019, for resolving such disputes among states.
Similarly, there are issues of discordance of both trans-national and inter-state types over several rivers of NER. These issues pertain mainly to water resources development and water sharing. Bangladesh and India share several unresolved conflicts, which may develop into disputes soon, if not addressed properly without delay. For example, sharing of the water in Teesta River and concerns expressed by Bangladesh about detrimental effect on water security is a major point of inflection between the two country. Similarly, impact on the agriculture and economy of Bangladesh due to building of a number of hydropower projects in the Brahmaputra and Barak rivers and their tributaries in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in India is another moot issue. The proposed interlinking of some of the Himalayan rivers in India with their basins shared with Bangladesh (Das, 2016) has created grave concerns in Bangladesh and also drawn criticism and protest from both government and non-government agencies of Bangladesh.
The on-going and future potential development of large-scale dams and water transfer schemes upstream of Bangladesh could seriously threaten the flows in the country’s systems, significantly reducing both peak flows and low flows, with some major consequences for water avail-ability, public policy and poverty alleviation in the delta region (Whitehead, et al., 2015).
China’s interventions on the River Tsangpo or the Yarlung Zangbo (Tibetan names of the mainstream of the river Brahmaputra or the river Siang in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China) has remained a consistent controversy in the bilateral diplomatic relation between China and India. China has already constructed four Run of the River(RoR) hydropower projects on the river at viz. Zangmu, Dagu, Jiacha and Jeixu respectively. Several such other hydropower projects are under construction raising the number of operational dams to eleven by the end of this decade.
River Tsangpo
Photo: P D Tillman/ Wikimedia Commons
The mega ‘Mutou hydropower project’ proposed to be constructed by China at the Great Bend on the Yarlung-Zangbo river would generate a mammoth 60 to 70 gigawatt(60,000 to 70,000 megawatt) of power, more than three times the Three Gorges hydro project located on the river Yangtze in China, which is known as the World’s largest hydropower installation. The project is situated about three kilometres away from the China-Indian border where the Tsangpo enters Arunachal Pradesh in the Upper Siang district and takes the name of Siang (or Dehang) river [7].
Experts foresee occurrence of disastrous flash flooding affecting Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and even in Bangladesh triggered by these dams in the event of release of water during extreme rainfall and dam inflows. The cumulative impact of these projects such as unequal and inequitable sharing of water, water-induced risks of flash flooding, below-normal or extreme low flow in the lean season, when they will be operational all at a time on the seasonal water regime, is also matter of concern for India .
Due to the absence of a multilateral treaty and a formal mechanism of collaborative management of the Yarlung Zangbo-Brahmaputra-Jamuna Rivers among the basin sharing countries viz. China India, Bhutan and Bangladesh, such major interventions by China and their detrimental consequences downstream are not addressed with the required transparency and efficacy at a regional or international levels. Hydro-hegemony by upper riparian countries on rivers sharing common water courses and aquatic resources is a source of tension and conflict among neighbouring countries all over the world.
FROM CONFLICT TO COOPERATION & PEACE
About 40 per cent of the global population live in a transboundary river basin and two billion people get their water from aquifers shared by more than one country. There is no doubt that cooperation in management of shared rivers and their resources is the best way to minimise hostile situations triggered by contested use of rivers by the basin sharing countries. However, a recent study by the Stockholm International Water Institute(SIWI) has revealed that only about one-third of the world’s approximately 310 transboundary river basins currently have formalized cooperation agreements. The number is lower still for transboundary groundwater aquifers. This is a growing concern given the unsustainable pressure on much of the world’s freshwater, especially in poor and conflict-affected regions [8].
The world has seen several joint-management regimes over transboundary rivers that are working reasonably well to beget benefits to the nations concerned instrumented through bilateral or multilateral treaties. Such river cooperation arrangements have achieved diverse objectives like water sharing, irrigation, drought management, flood mitigation, navigation, wetland management, abatement of river pollution, conservation of aquatic ecosystem and biodiversity etc.
Examples are: India-Bangladesh Agreement on Ganga 1996; Indus Waters Treaty, 1960 between India and Pakistan; The Nile Basin Initiative, 1999 among 9 countries of Africa(Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo); The Mekong Agreement, 1995 among four countries of South east Asia(Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam) leading to establishment of the Mekong River Commission (MRC); The Danube River Protection Convention, 1994 signed by eleven European countries (Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine); The Convention on the Protection of the Rhine, 1999 among five countries bordering the Rhine River viz. France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland as well as the European Community.
The Mekong river between Laos and Thailand
Photo: Prince Roy/ Wikimedia Commons
In South Asia in general cooperation in managing transboundary watercourses and the basins is still in a nascent stage. Forging cooperation in water management has been difficult in the region due to historically embedded lack of trust, rivalry, asymmetrical power relation and short-term vision of nations involved. In the case of the Brahmaputra-Meghna(Barak) basin, the countries can generate substantial benefits if they decide to collaborate with each other with the pursuit of common development goals. The collaboration between Bhutan and India is lauded as a good example of using transboundary waters, mainly for jointly developing hydropower, to benefit from mutual economic growth and poverty alleviation (Biswas, 2011). Similarly India has the Koshy Treaty (1954) with Nepal and the Ganges Treaty (December 1996) as examples of bilateral cooperation in water sharing and peripheral benefits such as flood mitigation and irrigation. The abundance of water in the GBM region as a shared resource can be the principal driver of poverty eradication, development and social transformation in the region and that optimal development of the shared waters is possible only through collaborative efforts(Das, 2016).
Moreover, the physiographic setting of the Brahmaputra-Meghna river basin besets the sharing countries(China, Bhutan, India and Bangladesh) with inevitable and linked hydrological implications through a strong upstream-downstream interactions, which necessitates redressal of issues like water induced disasters, riverine transport, water sharing, hydropower production and irrigation through collective efforts. Efforts to forge transboundary collaboration for sustainable utilisation and management of the water resources must begin with formulation of a framework of cooperation among the countries in sectors like energy, irrigation, flood and drought management, food security, health, water quality, navigation, tourism, biodiversity conservation, climate resilience, trade and commerce. Such a framework of cooperation should ideally lead over time to a multilateral treaty among the said countries by creating efficient institutions of co-management for equitable and sustainable benefit sharing from river uses.
Research by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has identified the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin as one. Of the five “hotspot” where a combination of intense water stress, climate change and population growth exacerbates “hydro-political risks”, the others being the Nile, the Indus, the Tigris/Euphrates, and the Colorado River Basin. Such facts underline the importance of having an adaptive river treaty of the Brahmaputra-Barak river even more strongly.
Some recent developments in riparian cooperation in the basin such as exchange of hydrological information among China, India and Bangladesh, capacity building of technical personnel from India(Assam) in Bangladesh, cooperation in transboundary inland navigation between India and Bangladesh, and academic collaboration among scientific institutions of Chin and India and trust building through inclusive transboundary river dialogues at non-diplomatic levels involving non-state actors like Civil Society Organisations have indicated the much-needed progress towards better regional cooperation in the future.
It is high time a multilateral mechanism for regional cooperation is established by the four basin countries for common interest of reduction of disaster and climate risk, equitable benefit sharing from sustainable utilisation of the water resources, regional peace, and prosperity of the basin region. In India, the need of the hour is to develop a long-term vision and time bound action plan with interstate collaboration for effective risk management and ecologically benign water resources development. This is the most plausible path to transform conflicts to cooperation and propagate peace and prosperity in the South Asian Region.
Technically known as the ‘Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses (New York, 1997), it is an international treaty, adopted by the United Nations on 21 May 1997, pertaining to the uses and conservation of all waters that cross international boundaries, including both surface and ground water which came into force on 17 August 2014.
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Dr. Partha Jyoti Das is an environmental scientist working as the Head of Water, Climate and Hazard Division, Aaranyak.
You can reach him at:
Mobile: 94351-16558, 9957189404