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Indicator-based assessment of Transboundary River Basins released

UNEP/GEF Transboundary Waters Assessment Project

By IW:LEARN

December 7^th, 2016

A first global assessment of all transboundary river basins has been completed. The GEF-financed Transboundary River Basins assessment* covers all 286 transboundary river basins of the world. Many years in the making, including three years for indicator development and analysis, and involving nine expert partner organizations, the assessment results were finally launched to the wider public via the landmark report Transboundary River Basins: Status and Trends and an open access interactive results portal.

The Transboundary River Basins assessment is indicator–based, allowing for an analysis of basins based on risks to both societies and ecosystems. The assessment includes 20 core indicators covering five ‘clusters’ of issues: water quantity, water quality, ecosystems, governance, and socioeconomics. Indicators assessing ‘projected stresses’ have been included for a selected number of issues (projected indicator results for 2030 and 2050). The assessment has taken an innovative approach in assessing the relative risks not only at the basin level but also for the Basin Country Units within each basin (BCUs are the portions of each basin belonging to the respective country). This approach allows us to better understand the distribution of the relative risks within basins and underlines the need for basin level integrated approaches in resource management.

* The Transboundary Waters Assessment Programme (TWAP) was initiated by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to create the first baseline assessment of all the planet’s transboundary water resources. The TWAP project contains one component for each of the five water systems: (i) Groundwater, (ii) Lake Basins, (iii) River Basins, (iv) Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), and (v) Open Ocean. The assessment was implemented by UN Environment. More information on the full TWAP assessment: www.geftwap.org

Figure 1. Indicators for Assessing Transboundary River Basins

Figure 2. Relative Risk Map for Economic Dependence on Water Resources Indicator

Some of the key findings include:

- The extinction risk to freshwater biodiversity ranges from moderate to very high in 70% of the transboundary river basins.

- Risks are projected to increase over the next 15-30 years, particularly in four hotspot regions – the Middle East, Central Asia, the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna basin, and the Orange and Limpopo basins in Southern Africa.

- Dam construction and water diversion is in progress or planned in many transboundary river basins but often without adequate international water cooperation instruments in place (e.g, such as the commitment to avoid significant harm to the river).

Global and regional relative risk maps, shapefiles and tables (basin and BCU level) for more than 20 indicators can be accessed and downloaded via the interactive results portal. In addition, 286 Basin Factsheets containing key information for each of the transboundary basins can be downloaded from the portal. Basin factsheets include key water data for each of the 286 transboundary basins, as well as an overview of assessment results across all indicators for the basin. The technical report presenting assessment findings and integrated analysis across the indicators is accessible via http://twap-rivers.org.

For more information on Transboundary River Basins assessment go to http://twap-rivers.org/ or contact UNEP-DHI Partnership (Maija Bertule) or TWAP RB PM (Paul Glennie).