Shared Waters Lab Partnership Launches TFDD Explorer tool

On August 27 at Stockholm World Water Week, the Shared Waters Lab Partnership – a collaboration between Oregon State University, the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and IHE-Delft-Institute for Water Education - launched the Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database (TFDD) Explorer.

The TFDD Explorer is a new tool that enables users to explore physical and institutional data related to the world’s transboundary river basins and access qualitative and tabular data on treaties (including full-text downloads of transboundary agreements), River Basin Organisations, and events related to both conflict over and cooperation on shared water resources.

The launch of the TFDD Explorer coincided with an update of the Transboundary Transboundary Freshwater Diplomacy Database, a compendium of information and resources on water diplomacy. The updates include added geospatial information on river basins, new treaties and details on River Basin Organisations, as well as mapping of transboundary wetlands. Additionally, the database can be used to extract information on population, water consumption, water withdrawal, runoff, climate classifications, and existing and planned dams.

The newly launched TFDD Explorer brings together a number of different datasets which can be used for a range of different purposes. Firstly, the International River Basin Register and Spatial Database is a compilation of biophysical, socioeconomic, and geopolitical data relating to the world's 313 international river basins. Secondly, the International Freshwater Treaties Database is a collection of more than 800 international freshwater agreements and related documents published since 1820, which include both binding agreements and other non-binding documents such as declarations and Memorandums of Understanding (MOU)s that relate to international freshwater resources. Thirdly, the Explorer holds a collection of more that 6,400 International Water Events that have taken place between 1948 to 2008 and which have been ranked along a Basins at Risk (BAR) scale from conflict to cooperation. Fourth, the TFDD Explorer contains a dataset of more than 120 International River Basin Organisations with associated markers such as the river basin, the countries involved, the level and type of collaboration, key issues, and the date of establishment. The fifth dataset is the Transboundary Wetlands Database which contains information on more than 300 shared wetlands, including those with Ramsar designation, as well as their location with respect to transboundary river basins, and relationship with a river basin organisation. The sixth component is a collection of data on Transboundary Aquifers collected by the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC) as part of the IGRAC Global Groundwater Information System. The seventh dataset is a register of Existing Dams located within dams in transboundary river basins, while the eighth and related dataset is a list of Proposed Dams in International River Basins.

According to the partners in the Shared Waters Lab Partnership, the TFDD Explorer is the largest compendium of international water conflict and cooperation events, institutions, and treaties available. It is regularly used by diplomats, policymakers, development partners, and researchers worldwide, with approximately 1500 unique visits per month.

Data from the TFDD has informed several conclusions about transboundary water conflict and cooperation. The first is a conclusion from a publication that cooperation prevails over conflict. It is noteworthy that since 1948, 77% of the 6,400 water interactions on record have been cooperative, and only 19% involved conflict. However, more recent research shows that there has been a slight increase in conflictual events since 2000. Other scholars  (Kåresdotter et al., 2023). Some some scholars have noted complicating factors in these findings: conflict and cooperation can in fact be present simultaneously within a particular situation. Furthermore, not all cooperation is ‘good’ in that such cooperation may cement power imbalances or embed injustice within agreements.

The second key finding is that most conflicts relate to disputes over water quantity or the development of shared water resources by one country. In parallel, dam development in the ‘Global South’ is increasing, particularly with efforts to increase the production of renewable energy and adapt to climate change through increased storage capacity, creating increased potential for tension.

Finally, data shows that institutional capacity is essential but that its development is stagnating over time. Treaties and river basin organizations play a key role in reducing conflict—both in frequency and intensity. Despite the importance of institutions for water cooperation, however, the number of treaties signed each year has been declining since the 1990s and only 13 river basin organisations have been established since 2002. Further evidence of this trend can be found in the fact that only 14% of 830 treaties and other legal documents pertaining to international water management address entire river basins: many remain limited to bilateral agreements, even in the context of multilateral basins. This poses challenges to the principle of integrated basin management, which has also been put forward under UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6.5.2.

Going forward the TFDD Explorer and its associated datasets intend to form the basis for an ongoing update to create a comprehensive and accessible database that incorporates key indicators of early warning for potential tensions over transboundary basins as well as key features of cooperation. These updated data layers can be used in conjunction with biophysical and other datasets to help identify potential hydropolitical hotspots, as well as assist in research and policymaking for the cooperative and sustainable governance of shared water resources.

For more information about the TFDD, please visit the website or email the manager at caplana@oregonstate.edu.