IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being Jayanta Bandyopadhyay Nilanjan Ghosh Chandan Mahanta IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being Jayanta Bandyopadhyay Nilanjan Ghosh Chandan Mahanta i Observer Research Foundation 20, Rouse Avenue Institutional Area, New Delhi - 110 002, INDIA Ph. : +91-11-43520020, 30220020 Fax : +91-11-43520003, 23210773 E-mail: [email protected] ©2016 Copyright: Observer Research Foundation ISBN: 978-81-86818-22-0 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder (s) and/or the publisher. Typeset by Vinset Advt., Delhi Printed and bound in India Cover: Vaibhav Todi via Flickr. ii IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being Table of Contents About the Authors v Acknowledgements vi Foreword vii Preface ix I The Brahmaputra River Sub-basin 1 II Integrated Management of Trans-boundary Water Regimes: A Conceptual Framework in the Context of Brahmaputra Sub-basin 19 III The Brahmaputra Sub-basin in the DPSIR Framework 43 IV Management Challenges Facing Human Well-being and Environmental Security in the Brahmaputra Sub-basin 49 V Institutional Response: A Regional Organisation for the Lower Brahmaputra Sub-basin 61 References 73 iii IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being About the Authors Jayanta Bandyopadhyay is a retired Professor from IIM Calcutta. He obtained his PhD in Engineering from IIT Kanpur, and after completing his doctoral work, shifted his research interests to the Himalaya and, in particular, the challenges in sustaining the region's rivers. He was Coordinating Lead Author for the global exercise, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. He was the Chair for the Scientific Advisory Committee of the G B Pant Institute for Himalayan Environment and Development, Almora (2007-12). He serves as adviser to the Water Diplomacy Program at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, Tufts University, US. His latest publication by Springer (New York) is titled, Environmental Sustainability from the Himalaya to the Oceans: Struggles and Innovations in China and India. Nilanjan Ghosh is Senior Fellow (Professor) and Head of Economy and Development Programme at ORF Kolkata. He is also Senior Economic Adviser at the World Wide Fund for Nature, New Delhi. A natural resource economist and econometrician by training, he obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta. His publications include six books and numerous research papers in various journals like Water Policy, Conservation and Society, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Journal of Index Investing and EPW. His most recently co-edited book, Nature, Economy, and Society: Understanding the Linkages, published by Springer (India) attempts to delineate the evolution and scope of the interdisciplinary framework of ecological economics. Chandan Mahanta is an alumnus of Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was former Head and Professor at the Centre for the Environment and currently a Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at IIT Guwahati. He has been an ASCE-EWRI Visiting Fellow at the Utah Water Research Laboratory of the Utah State University, US, and in 2014 attended the Hydro Diplomacy programme jointly hosted by MIT, Harvard University and Tufts University. He has authored more than sixty technical publications in peer-reviewed journals, proceedings and books. One of his major projects on Digital Brahmaputra attempted to leverage IT applications in building robust hydrological information systems. His current research engagements are focused on sustainable drinking water and sanitation, and river restoration and management. v IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being Acknowledgements We would like to acknowledge (deceased) Prof. Pranab Ray, without whose initiative this research project would not have even begun. His untimely demise in April 2015 was a big loss. We appreciate the help of Mr. Mihir Bhonsale, Junior Fellow, ORF Kolkata who provided research assistance for this project. Two anonymous reviewers who commented on this Report provided valuable inputs. Mr. Ashok Dhar, Director, ORF Kolkata Chapter, was the prime motivator behind the project. While a two-year academic project cannot be expected to be perfectly smooth-sailing, Mr. Dhar's unwavering interest in the Water programme of ORF Kolkata, and his massive support to the Brahmaputra sub-basin management project, provided us tremendous support. Mr. Sunjoy Joshi, Director, ORF, has always been encouraging, and followed the project with keen interest. In the same vein, we acknowledge Dr. Samir Saran and his team at ORF Delhi. We would also like to acknowledge Prof. Rakhahari Chatterji, Adviser, ORF Kolkata, and all the faculty members of ORF-Kolkata for their support and helpful comments at various stages of this research. Jayanta Bandyopadhyay Nilanjan Ghosh Chandan Mahanta vi IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being Foreword Observer Research Foundation (ORF)-Kolkata embarked on its Water Resources Management and Governance programme in 2014, following a lecture delivered by Prof. Pranab Ray on the challenges of Brahmaputra sub-basin management. Held in February 2014 at the ORF-Kolkata campus at Rajarhat, the lecture was commented upon by Prof. Jayanta Bandyopadhyay. A seminar paper was published thereafter, and in discussions with Prof. Ray and Prof. Rakhahari Chatterji, ORF-Kolkata Adviser, we planted the seed of a new research project on IRBM for Brahmaputra. I requested Prof. Jayanta Bandyopadhyay to join in the project. Dr. Nilanjan Ghosh then joined our Chapter, and the “IRBM for Brahmaputra sub-basin” project. The Water programme got a boost over the last two and half years, with the publication of articles in peer-reviewed journals, as well as the holding of important events at our chapter, the most recent one being the “South Asia Water Dialogue”. There have been important policy- relevant publications emerging from this programme. Our scholars have regularly been commenting in the media on critical issues of water sharing over the Ganges-Brahmaputra- Meghna basin, the National Framework Water Bill, the Farakka sedimentation issue, and the Cauvery water conflicts. Nilanjan Ghosh's recent commentary on the Farakka and the Cauvery were critically acclaimed, and resulted in a new debate in the discourse on looking at water conflicts. Similar was the case with a recent paper on India-Bangladesh hydro-political relations by Jayanta Bandyopadhyay and Nilanjan Ghosh, which evoked interest in the policy research community. Meantime, the untimely demise of Prof. Pranab Ray not only affected us on a personal level, but also triggered a pause in the IRBM research project on Brahmaputra. We were fortunate to eventually get on-board Prof. Chandan Mahanta, and his scholarly contribution helped in completing this important work. This report is the result of the scholars' hard work over more than two years. One of the most unique findings presented in this report is that unlike other river basins, the overarching challenge of the Brahmaputra does not lie in the neo-Malthusian thinking of physical scarcity of the resource. Rather, the overarching challenge lies in the co-existence of extensive poverty and ample water availability –indeed a developmental paradox. The authors perceive that the explanation of the paradox needs to be related to the lack of an ecosystems perspective in river basin management. To address this, the authors propose an institutional setup in the form of a river basin organisation. This will be of particular interest to the country's policymakers. This is a rare occasion of the coming together of a multi-disciplinary team consisting of an environment and development expert, an engineer, and an economist. This research will therefore be of interest to policymakers, academics, water-resource managers, institutionalists, research professionals, and also the general public. I congratulate the authors for producing this important and highly relevant piece of research work. Ashok Dhar Director, ORF Kolkata October 13, 2016 vii IRBM for Brahmaputra Sub-basin: Water Governance, Environmental Security and Human Well-being Preface The Brahmaputra sub-basin—spread over Bangladesh, Bhutan, China and India and part of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin—has historically been endowed with abundant water. Yet the populations who live in the region have not benefited from the natural wealth of the sub- basin; the levels of poverty are high. Traditional development theory makes a direct correlation between scarcity of natural resources (like water) and poverty. In the case of the Brahmaputra sub-basin, however, the paradox is clear: “ample water, ample poverty”. The situation is not expected to improve in the future, and the governance of the Brahmaputra will continue to be a huge challenge. Environmental security and the promotion of human well-being are two of the most crucial aspects of such difficult task. 'Environmental Security' is defined in this report as “a state of absence of conflicts in the complex and interconnected relations in and between the