Resource frontiers: managing water on a trans-border Asian river

Recent years have seen increased global policy concern with the management and governance of fresh-water resources. From a humanitarian perspective, the United Nations aims to tackle 'global challenges' associated with water access. From the perspective of international law, a growing body of multilateral agreements aims to ensure countries have fair access to trans-border rivers. Against this policy background, the social sciences pay increasing attention to fresh water as a scarce global resource requiring careful management. Unlike other economically significant resources like coal and oil, water is regarded as supremely important as it is essential for the maintenance and reproduction of life on earth.

This project aims to explore the politics of managing, and planning the management of, trans-border rivers on water resource frontiers. In such contexts the actions of 'upstream' riparian states affect those in 'downstream' ones, and so often have strategically, politically and economically significant consequences. In particular, we aim to understand how these politics of management work in contexts where multilateral legal agreements on trans-border river use are eschewed. These aims frame and support a range of objectives. We seek to understand contexts in which participation in multilateral agreements on equitable access to trans-border rivers are unappealing. We aim to understand how, in the absence of such agreements, the management of such rivers works - or does not work - in practice. And we propose examining the frictions caused by the intersection of different national laws in relation to trans-border rivers.

The river Selenga, which runs from Mongolia into Russia's Lake Baikal, provides an exemplary case study. The Selenga is divided between two countries (Mongolia and Russia), and is the object of extensive Chinese economic and political interest. Unhindered by multilateral agreements, each country harbours different national interests in relation to the Selenga. Mongolia strives for energy security by planning hydroelectricity plants on the Selenga and its tributaries. Russia aims to preserve the unique ecology and cultural significance of Lake Baikal by protecting its water inflow from the Selenga. China seeks to fuel economic growth in its arid northwest and central agricultural provinces with water abstracted from the river.

Legal studies thoroughly examine trans-border river disputes, and political science documents international relations in Inner Asian regions. But little is known about the day-to-day realities of managing the Selenga and their wider political, economic and cultural implications for this geopolitically sensitive region. Using the Selenga as an example, this project draws on the methods and theories of Social Anthropology to provide a critically important means for understanding trans-border river management. Anthropological approaches are inherently suitable for examining the social relations through which management plans and proposals are conceptualised, implemented and worked through in everyday life. Six field-sites spanning Mongolia, Russia and China have been selected for their importance in generating data to support project aims and objectives.

Academic beneficiaries include UK and global scholars from disciplines including Social Anthropology, Law and International Relations. They will benefit from new perspectives on resource nationalism, sovereignty, and infrastructure generated by the project. Other beneficiaries include regional NGOs advocating for sustainable water resource management policies, policy units interested in trans-border river governance and the reach of international law, and residents of the Selenga river basin and other areas connected to its management.