The upcoming challenge: Transboundary management of the hydraulic cycle

The increase in population and subsequent demand for food will lead to rising demand for water. These, in turn, will lead to increasing utilization of transboundary water resources. In the past treaties have focused primarily on the utilization of freshwater surface resources, in particular rivers. Most of the treaties dealt only with water abstractions and, in some cases, with in-stream uses, mainly navigation and hydro-electricity. However, a hydraulic cycle view suggests that transboundary water resources include not only freshwater flows, but also return flows (direct or as effluents), lakes and reservoirs, aquifers, and precipitation. Moreover, water quality changes along the cycle, and effects the potential and cost of utilization. As water resources would have to accommodate increasing and diversifying demand, better management of all parts of the hydraulic cycle would be needed. This paper argues that as a result of these observations, and the increasing tendency toward decentralization of authority and in some areas separatist trends, this century would be marked by a need to establish increasingly intricate transboundary management structures, that would address all facets of the hydraulic cycle. This argument is demonstrated for the Israeli-Arab case.