Transboundary water basins are becoming increasingly vulnerable due to climate change, which is putting pressure on riparian states and water agreements. Transboundary water agreements should be able to respond to changing circumstances, adapt to changes, and deal with uncertainty. For the purpose of this thesis, a multi-faceted qualitative case study of the Euphrates Tigris basin was conducted to investigate the impact of water allocation and institutional mechanisms on cooperation in the basin. For this a document analysis of the water agreement texts (specifically the 1987 Turkey -Syria agreement and the 1989 Syria-Iraq agreement as well as various Memoranda of Understanding between the riparian states) related to the inclusion of adaptability, specificity, and institutional mechanisms was performed. In addition, water-related event data from the Factiva and the Basins at Risk databases was collected and analysed to identify trends between the two time periods. The findings show that the 1987 Turkey -Syria agreement has high legal specificity but lacks in adaptability. The 1989 Syria-Iraq agreement has both high adaptability and specificity. However, both agreements lack institutional mechanisms. As a consequence, the compliance to agreements has remained low. The average BAR scale declined from -0.2540 for the period 1990-2000 to -0.7308 for the period 2013-2023. In both time periods, almost all events are classified in the three least conflictive and least cooperative event categories with almost no extreme events recorded. The number of water-related events declined in the time period 2013-2023. Additionally, the percentage of conflictive events increased in the same period. However, the variety and percentage of issue areas increased to include issues besides water quantity in the second period. Due to the inflexible allocation mechanism, the absence of institutionalisation and the strong presence of issue linkages, non-compliance for the 1987 agreement have arisen.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-533734 |
| Date | January 2024 |
| Creators | Grün, Giulia |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Examensarbete vid Institutionen för geovetenskaper, 1650-6553 ; 2024/13 |
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