The River Roding near Abridge, Essex was monitored during 1979-82 to assess the short-term ecological effects of recent and contemporary river engineering works on a small, rural watercourse. Increased environmental awareness by Thames Water Authority river engineers and scientists resulted in implementation of an ecologically-sensitive flood alleviation scheme which provided an ideal opportunity for a pioneer case study. Sampling procedure was designed to describe aquatic and riparian habitats, flora and fauna along the watercourse. An extensive, 27 Jan survey revealed that the middle Roding was a typical, highly modified clay river, with limited conservation value. Intensive, continuous monitoring was confined to a 5km stretch; with reference to annual variations recorded in a control site, ecological change produced by three phases of engineering works between 1974 and 1980, each involving two-stage flood relief channels, are described. The magnitude of disturbance to the original habitat determined ecological impact. Retention of in-channel and waterside habitats ensured normal vegetation growth the following Spring, benefitting dragonflies and fish; furthermore, the subsequent development of a richer 'channel-margin' flora produced an increase in waterbird territories. By contrast, excavation below water level severely retarded waterside vegetation recovery, while construction of a trapezoidal, concrete-lined channel produced an impoverished environment which greatly reduced habitat diversity. Silting, plus greater aquatic plant growth in response to increased light levels caused by berm excavation, reduced channel discharge capacity, accentuated by dense Phalaris arundinacea stands on unmanaged berms subject to regular summer inundation. An hydraulically efficient two-stage profile which improves riverine wildlife potential could be produced by retention of the original dry-weather channel; excavation, from one bark, of shallow flood berms which remain dry throughout the summer; tree-planting to counter the effects of increased light; sowing low-profile grasses; and regular grazing or cutting of berm vegetation.

The unprecedented degradation of freshwater ecosystems due to the rampant exploitation of water resources re-establishes the importance of preserving freshwater ecosystems in order to ensure their continued viability that supports the attainment of sustainable development. This concern is addressed in Article 20 of the 1997 Watercourses Convention that specifically provides for the preservation of ecosystems of international watercourses. However, the interpretation and the subsequent application of this obligation are complicated by the proliferation of international instruments concerning the environment, which leads to the fragmentation of international law. In response to the apprehension raised over the undesirable consequences of the fragmentation of international law, the potential of Article 31(3)(c) of the 1969 Vienna Convention as an interpretative mechanism that enables the systemic integration of rules has come into the limelight. The objective of the present thesis, titled ‘Preservation of Ecosystems of International Watercourses and the Integration of Relevant Rules’ is to develop a interpretative framework for the operationalisation of Article 31(3)(c) that allows the full realisation of its potential as a tool of integration. A three-tier operationalisation framework that re-interprets the salient features of Article 31(3)(c) through the prism of an interactional understanding of international law is developed and executed through Chapters Two to Eight, where Chapter Nine provides a general conclusion of the thesis. The reconstruction of existing interpretation of Article 31(3)(c) provides a new understanding of this Article, which enables the realisation of its systemic integration potential. The application of this framework of operationalisation in the interpretation of the obligation to preserve ecosystems of international watercourses stipulated under Article 20 reflects contemporaneous development in international environmental law, and enhances the normative content and scope of Article 20.

Water resources located in more than one country are complex systems governed by customary international law embodied in a rule known as equitable and reasonable utilisation, a recent development in international law not yet been applied by an international tribunal to resolve a dispute or to allocate transboundary water resources between countries. Water scarcity on a global scale has reached critical proportions with 1.1 billion people without access to sufficient safe water for personal and domestic use; over half that number depend on transboundary watercourses that will disappear over the next century. Conflicts of use over shared water resource have the potential to escalate into armed conflict; certainty in the peaceful means to avoid and resolve disputes is needed. The thesis examines international procedural practice and jurisprudence applying equitable principles in a case study to illustrate how equitable and reasonable utilisation may be applied by an international tribunal. The survey of international practice will inform States about procedural options for dispute avoidance and resolution in disputes over the use of transboundary water resources.

Electrical imaging of groundwater that interacts with surface watercourses provides detail on the extent of intervention needed to accurately manage both resources. It is particularly important where one resource is saline or otherwise polluted, where spatial quantification of the interacting resources is critical to water use planning and where losses from surface waterways need to be minimized in order to transport water long distances. Geo-electric arrays or transient electromagnetic devices can be towed along watercourses to image electrical conductivity (EC) at multiple depths within and beneath those watercourses. It has been found that in such environments, EC is typically related primarily to groundwater salinity and secondarily to clay content. Submerged geo-electric arrays can detect detailed canal-bottom variations if correctly designed. Floating arrays pass obstacles easily and are good for surveying constricted rivers and canals. Transient electromagnetic devices detect saline features clearly but have inferior ability to detect fine changes just below beds of watercourses. All require that water depth be measured by sonar or pressure sensors for successful elimination of effects of the water layer on the data. The meandering paths of rivers and canals, combined with the sheer volume of data typically acquired in waterborne surveys, results in a geo-referencing dilemma that cannot be accommodated using either 2D imaging or 3D voxel imaging. Because of this, software was developed by the author which allows users to view vertical section images wrapped along meandering paths in 3D space so that they resemble ribbons. Geo-electric arrays suitable for simultaneous imaging of both shallow and deep strata need exponentially spread receiver electrodes and elongated transmitter electrodes. In order to design and facilitate such arrays, signed monopole notation for arrays with iv segmented elongated electrodes was developed. The new notation greatly simplified generalized geo-electric array equations and led to processing efficiency. It was used in the development of new array design software and automated inversion software including a new technique for stable inversion of datasets including data with values below noise level. The Allen Exponential Bipole (AXB) array configuration was defined as a collinear arrangement of 2 elongated transmitter electrodes followed by receiver electrodes spaced exponentially from the end of the second transmitter electrode. A method for constructing such geo-electric arrays for use in rivers and canals was developed and the resulting equipment was refined during the creation of an extensive set of EC imaging case studies distributed across canals and rivers of the Australian Murray- Darling Basin. Man made and natural variations in aquifers connected to those canals and rivers have been clearly and precisely identified in more than 1000 kilometres of EC imagery.

Recent transboundary disputes between the United States and Canada and in particular, the dispute concerning Devils Lake outlet, call for an improvement of the agreements between the two countries that govern North American international watercourses. One way to do so is by assimilating the cooperative spirit contained in the more recent 1997 U.N. International Watercourses Convention and incorporating its guidelines for balancing different principles and interests into the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada. This paper analyzes the different theories and main international legal instruments in the area of transboundary waters within the context of the issues arising out of Devils Lake and its outlet. It is proposed that the Boundary Waters Treaty be vastly improved by increasing the participation of both the Canadian provinces and the American states as well as renewing and enhancing the role of the International Joint Commission.

Recent transboundary disputes between the United States and Canada and in particular, the dispute concerning Devils Lake outlet, call for an improvement of the agreements between the two countries that govern North American international watercourses. One way to do so is by assimilating the cooperative spirit contained in the more recent 1997 U.N. International Watercourses Convention and incorporating its guidelines for balancing different principles and interests into the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty between the United States and Canada. This paper analyzes the different theories and main international legal instruments in the area of transboundary waters within the context of the issues arising out of Devils Lake and its outlet. It is proposed that the Boundary Waters Treaty be vastly improved by increasing the participation of both the Canadian provinces and the American states as well as renewing and enhancing the role of the International Joint Commission.

Electrical imaging of groundwater that interacts with surface watercourses provides detail on the extent of intervention needed to accurately manage both resources. It is particularly important where one resource is saline or otherwise polluted, where spatial quantification of the interacting resources is critical to water use planning and where losses from surface waterways need to be minimized in order to transport water long distances. Geo-electric arrays or transient electromagnetic devices can be towed along watercourses to image electrical conductivity (EC) at multiple depths within and beneath those watercourses. It has been found that in such environments, EC is typically related primarily to groundwater salinity and secondarily to clay content. Submerged geo-electric arrays can detect detailed canal-bottom variations if correctly designed. Floating arrays pass obstacles easily and are good for surveying constricted rivers and canals. Transient electromagnetic devices detect saline features clearly but have inferior ability to detect fine changes just below beds of watercourses. All require that water depth be measured by sonar or pressure sensors for successful elimination of effects of the water layer on the data. The meandering paths of rivers and canals, combined with the sheer volume of data typically acquired in waterborne surveys, results in a geo-referencing dilemma that cannot be accommodated using either 2D imaging or 3D voxel imaging. Because of this, software was developed by the author which allows users to view vertical section images wrapped along meandering paths in 3D space so that they resemble ribbons. Geo-electric arrays suitable for simultaneous imaging of both shallow and deep strata need exponentially spread receiver electrodes and elongated transmitter electrodes. In order to design and facilitate such arrays, signed monopole notation for arrays with iv segmented elongated electrodes was developed. The new notation greatly simplified generalized geo-electric array equations and led to processing efficiency. It was used in the development of new array design software and automated inversion software including a new technique for stable inversion of datasets including data with values below noise level. The Allen Exponential Bipole (AXB) array configuration was defined as a collinear arrangement of 2 elongated transmitter electrodes followed by receiver electrodes spaced exponentially from the end of the second transmitter electrode. A method for constructing such geo-electric arrays for use in rivers and canals was developed and the resulting equipment was refined during the creation of an extensive set of EC imaging case studies distributed across canals and rivers of the Australian Murray- Darling Basin. Man made and natural variations in aquifers connected to those canals and rivers have been clearly and precisely identified in more than 1000 kilometres of EC imagery.

Achieving global water sustainability through a resilient international legal architecture presents one of the most pressing challenges within our resource finite planet. A staggering 42 percent of the total land area of the earth is covered by transboundary river basins, where more than 40 percent of the global population lives and depends on the ecosystem services of the 286 transboundary river basins and 200 transboundary aquifers stretching across the political boundaries of 151 countries. There is already evidence of water resources becoming a source of conflict in many regions and constraining a whole myriad of securities – climate, human, environmental, food, economic, energy – on various levels of society. The international legal architecture to manage this critical natural resource is the overarching area of inquiry in this thesis, and requires improvement to address current and predicted future transboundary water challenges, conflicts and strengthen cooperation. Despite the establishment of around 690 river basin treaties, many of these agreements completely miss or provide unclear provisions on principles and rules of international water law. Until recently there was no legally binding global treaty on transboundary watercourses and customary international law has provided the default rules in the absence of agreements and facilitated the re-interpretation of older agreements in accordance with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Now there are potentially two global treaties, with the recent entry into force of the 1997 UN Watercourses Convention and the global opening up of the 1992 pan-regional United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) Water Convention, to all UN member states. There is also a plethora of other international environmental legal and non-legally binding instruments, indirectly addressing international law relevant to transboundary watercourses and freshwater ecosystems. Legal regimes for the protection and use of international river basins cannot be interpreted and applied in isolation from other relevant norms of international environmental and general international law. This thesis seeks to understand the rising role and contribution of regional approaches relevant to international law on transboundary watercourses and freshwater ecosystems. More specifically it explores the contribution of the UNECE Water Convention and other relevant UNECE environmental instruments as a structurally distinctive ‘regime’. This thesis introduces a novel conception of a broader ‘UNECE water regime’ which includes the Water Convention, the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice (Aarhus Convention), the Convention on Transboundary Environmental Impact Assessment (Espoo Convention), the Convention on the Transboundary Effects of Industrial Accidents, as well as their protocols and non-binding instruments. This research demonstrates how these instruments and their institutions can be interpreted and understood to form a common framework of rules, principles and approaches which fills critical gaps in basin treaties, and collectively contributes to the clarification and development of international law on transboundary watercourses and freshwater ecosystems. This analysis also explores institutional interaction and coordination between and beyond the UNECE pan-regional agreements, as well as the role of soft law or non-binding instruments, and state and non-state actors in the regime. This thesis seeks to contribute to a more coherent understanding of the relationship between the UNECE water regime, international water law, international environmental law and general international law. The UNECE water regime has contributed to clarifying many of the cornerstone rules and principles of international water law and it is argued that the UNECE water regime is lex specialis, which can and mostly does go beyond the UN Watercourses Convention. The UNECE water regime has also arguably spearheaded a paradigm shift in international water law, which sees it moving beyond its historically predominant focus on issues of transboundary impact and utilisation towards a stronger ecosystem orientated approach to environmental protection and equitable use of transboundary river basins. This research identifies key elements of an ecosystem approach, drawing from international environmental and international water law and demonstrates how the ecosystem approach, including ecosystem services, as supported by the UNECE water regime, affects interpretation of international water law towards enhancing ecosystem protection and intra-state equity. This research also explores how the UNECE regime goes beyond what exists elsewhere in international law and international water law on public participation and access to justice. Finally, this research examines the contribution of the UNECE regime vis-à-vis international and European Union water law, across the spectrum of pan-European river basins, especially focusing on the Danube, Sava and Western Bug basins. The UNECE water regime is the most evolved pan-regional regime of its kind, providing ambitious detailed standards and clarification of rules and principles relevant to transboundary watercourses and freshwater ecosystems. It also provides a valuable model of institutional cooperation, progressively engaging state and non-state actors. As this regime takes steps towards realising its global ambition, with almost all instruments now open to all UN member states, and the recent accession by Chad to the Water Convention, this analysis demonstrates why this is predominantly a positive endeavour but also highlights potential challenges and hurdles. This research thus explores the implications and benefits of the UNECE’s rising role in strengthening the international legal architecture to protect the world’s fragile transboundary watercourses and freshwater ecosystems.

A presente tese se propõe à análise da requalificação ambiental em assentamentos precários sobre áreas de fundos de vale, orientadas à proteção pelos instrumentos do planejamento ambiental da metrópole de Curitiba, e urbanizados pela Companhia de Habitação do Paraná no âmbito do Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC), modalidade Projetos Prioritários de Investimento (PPI), Intervenção em Favelas (IF). Parte-se da hipótese de que a adoção de técnicas compensatórias de manejo de águas pluviais, associadas ao tratamento urbanístico, nas intervenções do PAC Favelas, contribuíram para a requalificação ambiental dos fundos de vale da franja leste. A partir da estrutura metodológica de análise, composta por quatro descritores-chave - cursos d´água, áreas de preservação permanente, saneamento ambiental e vias públicas -, constatou-se nos estudos de caso do PAC Iraí e Guarituba, municípios de Pinhais e Piraquara, que as urbanizações vêm promovendo um inegável ganho ambiental às planícies fluviais da Área de Interesse Especial Regional do Rio Iguaçu (AIERI) ao restituir, com os parques lineares, áreas de restrição à ocupação degradadas por ocupação irregular precária. No entanto, também se verificaram impasses institucionais e projetuais, especialmente no que diz respeito à recomposição da cobertura vegetal das matas ciliares e aos aspectos de desenho urbano, que podem resultar no abandono do uso coletivo dos espaços públicos ribeirinhos, dando margem ao reinício do ciclo de degradação ambiental no pós-urbanização. Constatou-se, ainda, o caráter setorial das urbanizações na metrópole de Curitiba, delimitadas por limites administrativos em detrimento à unidade da bacia hidrográfica, o que resultou em experiências com maior ou menor adesão participativa das prefeituras em relação ao Governo Estadual, proponente do PAC PPI-IF. / This thesis aims to analyze the environmental requalification realized in precarious settlements on valley bottom areas oriented for protection by the environmental planning instruments of the metropolis of Curitiba. Such settlements were urbanized by the Companhia de Habitação do Paraná under the Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC), modality: Projetos Prioritários de Investimento (PPI), Intervenção em Favelas (IF). It is hypothesized that the adoption of compensatory rainwater management techniques, associated with urban treatment, in the interventions of the PAC Favelas, contributed to the environmental requalification of the east side valley bottoms. From the methodological structure of analysis, composed of four key descriptors - water courses, permanent preservation areas, environmental sanitation and public roads -, it was verified in the case studies of PAC Iraí and Guarituba, municipalities of Pinhais and Piraquara, that the urbanizations have been promoting an undeniable environmental gain to the fluvial plains of the Área de Interesse Especial Regional do Rio Iguaçu (AIERI) by restoring, with the linear parks, areas of restriction to the occupation degraded by precarious irregular occupation. However, there were also institutional and project impasses, especially regarding the restoration of the vegetation cover of the riparian forests and urban design aspects, which can result in the abandonment of the collective use of the riverside public spaces, giving rise to the resumption of the cycle degradation in post-urbanization. It was also verified the sectorial character of urbanizations in the metropolis of Curitiba, delimited by administrative limits in detriment to the unit of the hydrographic basin, which resulted in experiences with more or less participative adhesion of the prefectures in relation to the State Government, proponent of the PAC PPI-IF.

Mit landschaftsplanerischen und wasserbaulichen Maßnahmen soll die Kleine Spree gemäß EG-WRRL einen guten Zustand erreichen. Das 40 km lange Nebengewässer der Spree ist stark vom Braunkohlenbergbau beeinflusst. Der Bericht beschreibt und bewertet den Ist-Zustand der Kleinen Spree, analysiert die Defizite und leitet die Maßnahmen für einen guten ökologischen Zustand ab. Für die Gewässerabschnitte wurden Pläne zur Renaturierung im Maßstab von 1:10.000 erstellt. Sie basieren auf dem Strahlquellen- und Trittsteinprinzip, bei dem ökologisch gute und sehr gute Abschnitte so im Gewässerverlauf platziert werden, dass die Strahlwirkung das gesamte Gewässer umfasst.