Water Law Commons^™

The Role Of Data Sharing In Transboundary Waterways: The Case Of The Helmand River Basin, Najibullah Loodin, Gabriel Eckstein, Vijay P. Singh, Rosario Sanchez

Faculty Scholarship

While data and information exchanges theoretically play an effective role in the decision-making process of a shared watercourse, in practice, there are several challenges that prevent riparians from sharing data in an effective and cooperative manner. This chapter seeks to assess why the riparian nations of the Helmand River have failed to adopt an effective data exchange mechanism although both nations signed an internationally recognized bilateral water treaty in 1973. Applying a mixed study approach, the study draws on the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to interpret the main obstacles of data sharing between Afghanistan, the upstream state, and Iran, …

Fishing And Fisheries Under International Water Law: A Dialogue Between Professor Gabriel Eckstein And Professor Paul Stanton Kibel, Gabriel Eckstein, Paul Stanton Kibel

Faculty Scholarship

On April 10 and 11, 2023, the Center on Urban Environmental Law (CUEL) at Golden Gate University School of Law hosted a two-day webinar on International Law Aspects of Fisheries and Hydropower in Europe. To open the webinar, Professor Gabriel Eckstein (of Texas A&M University School of Law) and Professor Paul Stanton Kibel (of Golden Gate University School of Law) participated in a keynote dialogue titled Fishing and Fisheries under International Water Law. What follows is a transcription of this dialogue between Professor Eckstein and Professor Kibel.

Characterizing Legal Implications For The Use Of Transboundary Aquifers, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Groundwater resources that traverse political boundaries are becoming increasingly important sources of freshwater in international and intranational arenas worldwide. This is a direct extension of the growing need for new sources of freshwater, as well as the impact that excessive extraction, pollution, climate change, and other anthropogenic activities have had on surface waters. It is also a function of the growing realization that groundwater respects no political boundaries, and that aquifers traverse jurisdictional lines at all levels of political geography.

Due to this growing awareness, questions pertaining to responsibility and liability are now being raised in relation to the use, …

Do Not Put All Your Eggs In One Basket: Social Perspectives On Desalination And Water Recycling In Israel, Gretchen Sneegas, Lucas Seghezzo, Christian Brannstrom, Wendy Jepson, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Israel has set ambitious goals in terms of the widespread adoption of desalination and water recycling technologies. Policymakers in Israel consider these technologies as the key to improve urban water security but knowledge of stakeholder views on this policy approach is not well established. We deployed the Q-methodology, a qualitative–quantitative approach, to empirically determine social perspectives on desalination and water recycling across a wide range of stakeholders in the Israeli water sector. We identified the following four distinctive social perspectives: (1) desalination should be the option of last resort; (2) desalination is moving us to an infinite resource; (3) equating …

Current Challenges In The Rio Grande/Río Bravo Basin: Old Disputes In A New Century, Regina M. Buono, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

The Rio Grande River traverses 2000 kilometres of the international border between Mexico and the United States. The river and its tributaries are governed by a series of border treaties and institutions, as well as under the domestic laws of each nation. Often lauded for enabling innovative and collaborative governance, in recent years the complicated regime has come under pressure as domestic and international water governance institutions struggle under the strain of climate change, population growth, and other stressors on water supply and demand in the region. This chapter considers three of the major challenges currently facing the Rio Grande …

Come Hell Or No Water: The Story Of Sandbranch And The Unincorporated Community Fight For Public Services, Daeja Pemberton

Student Scholarship

Sandbranch is the only unincorporated community left in Dallas County, and the residents of this majority-Black, impoverished community have had their cries for basic necessities—such as clean, running water—largely ignored. With the County and the City of Dallas not remedying the problem so far, there is a question as to who is responsible for providing water and other public services to the community’s eighty residents. As it currently stands, Texas law simply permits local governments to offer assistance to unincorporated communities but does not mandate that affirmative measures be taken to ensure that these communities are provided for. What is …

Natural Transplants, Vanessa Casado-Pérez, Yael R. Lifshitz

Faculty Scholarship

Policymakers are constantly faced with the complex task of managing novel challenges. At times, these challenges result from new technologies: Consider fights over allocating air rights for drones or decisions about how to share scarce vaccines in a pandemic. Other times the resources are old, but the challenges are new, such as how to fairly allocate water in times of unprecedented drought or previously undesirable rare earth minerals that are in demand for modern manufacturing and energy production. Often, instead of carefully tailoring a regime to the new resource, decisionmakers simply rely on mechanisms they are familiar with. When jurisdictions …

Groundwater Laws And Regulations: Survey Of Sixteen U.S. States, Abigail Adams, Jack Beasley, Rebekah Bratcher, Justin Clas, Jackson Field, Ian Gaunt, Ashley Graves, Merrick Hayashi, Jenna Lusk, Matthew Maslanka, Erin Milliken, Connor Pabich, Margaret Reed, A. Wesley Remschel, Lauren Thomas, Ashley Wilde

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This report is the second volume in a continuing project designed to explore and articulate the groundwater laws and regulations of all fifty U.S. states. This particular report presents surveys for sixteen states throughout the country. The first volume featured thirteen state surveys and can be found at: http://www.law.tamu.edu/usgroundwaterlaws.

The purpose of the project is to compile and present the groundwater laws and regulations of every state in the United States that could then be used in a series of comparisons of groundwater governance principles, strategies, issues, and challenges. Professor Gabriel Eckstein at Texas A&M University School of Law and …

Everything Is Bigger In Texas, Including The Need To Incentivize And Implement Innovative Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems As A Method Of Water Reuse, Haley Varnadoe

Student Scholarship

Texas will need to adapt to a drier climate and reduced water supplyin the 21st centuiyas the negative hydological effects ofclimnate change continue. Rising temperatures will accelerate evaporation of surface water resources, which in turn both increases rehance on depletable groundwater resources and decreases the amount of surface water available for aquifer rechaige. As a result, Texans who rely on either groundwater or suiface water to meet their domestic water needs-particularlyt hose in rurala id regions-mays uffer as both quantities decrease in the coming decades. The practice ofdomestic water reuse presents one solution to a decreasing water supply by safely …

Groundwater Policy And Planning, Jenny Grönwall, Marianne Kjellén, Gabriel Eckstein, Kerstin Danert, Lesha Witmer, Rebecca Welling, Viviana Re, Katharina Davis, Lulu Zhang

Faculty Scholarship

Groundwater policy defines objectives, ambitions and priorities for managing groundwater resources, for the benefit of society. Planning translates policy into programmes of action. Both are often part of a wider water resource policy and planning framework, but the specific challenges pertaining to groundwater have traditionally received less attention than surface water.

The terms ‘policy,’ ‘strategy’ and ‘plans’ are used interchangeably in many countries and contexts.

Transboundary Aquifers, Raya Marina Stephan, Alice Aureli, Aurélien Dumont, Annukka Lipponen, Sarah Tiefenauer-Linardon, Christina Fraser, Alfonso Rivera, Shammy Puri, Stefano Burchi, Gabriel Eckstein, Christian Brethaut, Ziad Khayat, Karen Villholth, Lesha Witmer, Renee Martin-Nagle, Anita Milman, Francesco Sindico, James Dalton

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter gives an overview of the status of transboundary aquifers and the cooperation related to shared groundwater resources, highlighting the complexity of the assessment, analysis and management of these systems. It summarizes the main challenges regarding transboundary aquifers and the need for more comprehensive and integrated management, which would include technical, legal and organizational aspects as well as training and cooperation.

Legal And Other Institutional Aspects Of Groundwater Governance, Jenny Grönwall, Marianne Kjellén, Alice Aureli, Stefano Burchi, Mohamed Bazza, Raya Marina Stephan, Gabriel Eckstein, Lesha Witmer, Margreet Zwarteveen, Aurélien Dumont, Danielle Gaillar-Picher, Rio Hada, Rebecca Welling, Maki Tsujimura

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter defines the linked concepts of groundwater governance and groundwater management, explaining how they differ from each other. Then, it describes the prevailing legal instruments for, and the institutional aspects of, groundwater management and governance.

Environmental Law, Disrupted By Covid-19, Rebecca Bratspies, Vanessa Casado-Pérez, Robin Kundis Craig, Lissa Griffin, Keith Hirokawa, Sarah Krakoff, Katrina Kuh, Jessica Owley, Melissa Powers, Shannon Roesler, Jonathan Rosenbloom, J.B. Ruhl, Erin Ryan, David Takacs

Faculty Scholarship

As we were in the final phases of editing a book on disruption in environmental law, a pandemic swept across the world disrupting daily life and the functioning of society to an extent unprecedented in living memory. The novel coronavirus known as COVID-19 was identified in China in late 2019 and by late February 2020, it had spread to every continent except Antarctica; as of April, 2021, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that over 148 million people had been infected worldwide with over 3 million deaths. Scientists and public health experts have raced to understand the virus—how is it …

Whose Water? Corporatization Of A Common Good, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter encourages readers to think of agricultural communities in the era of climate change-induced droughts and population growth similar to when western Pennsylvania’s steel industry collapsed in the 1980s. If water must flow uphill to money, it should not leave a dust bowl behind. While this chapter’s proposals to address the effects on community build on examples of water reallocation where those effects have been addressed, both the just-transition literature and the experiences of some of the towns successfully adapting to abrupt changes in their economic tissue can offer lessons for areas suffering big water losses. In addition, privatization …

Binational Reflections On Pathways To Groundwater Security In The Mexico-United States Borderlands, Rosario Sanchez, Jose Agustin Brena-Naranjo, Alfonso Rivera, Randall T. Hanson, Antonio Hernandez-Espriu, Rick J. Hogeboom, Anita Milman, Jude A. Benavides, Adrian Pedrozo-Acuna, Julio Cesar Soriano-Monzalvo, Sharon B. Megdal, Gabriel Eckstein, Laura Rodriguez

Faculty Scholarship

Shared groundwater resources between Mexico and the United States are facing unprecedented stressors. We reflect on how to improve water security for groundwater systems in the border region. Our reflection begins with the state of groundwater knowledge, and the challenges groundwater resources face from a physical, societal and institutional perspective. We conclude that the extent of ongoing cooperation frameworks, joint and remaining research efforts, from which alternative strategies can emerge, still need to be developed. The way forward offers a variety of cooperation models as the future offers rather complex, shared and multidisciplinary water challenges to the Mexico–US borderlands.

Flood Management In Texas: Planning For The Future, John Diggs, Samantha Mikolajczyk, Lora Naismith, Margaret Reed, Rory Smith

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This Report examines existing flood-related regulations in Texas and the United States, the Texas State Flood Plan, current flood mitigation strategies in the state, and the potential to implement green stormwater infrastructure. The report offers policy recommendations to clarify and help alleviate the current ambiguities and uncertainties between the Texas State Water Plan and State Flood Plan for future flood mitigation practices, and to simplify the implementation of green infrastructure.

Introduction To The Symposium On Interstate Disputes Over Water Rights, Gabriel Eckstein, James Salzman

Faculty Scholarship

Disagreements over the management and allocation of transboundary freshwater resources have become increasingly prominent in international relations. Serious diplomatic tensions surround management of the Jordan, Mekong, Nile, Rio Grande, Silala, Syr Darya and Amu Darya, and Tigris and Euphrates rivers, to name just the most prominent examples among the world’s more than three hundred shared watercourses. Nor is there any reason to think tensions will subside in the future. Whether disagreements over shared freshwater resources will continue to be resolved peacefully will depend, in part, on the viability, durability, and flexibility of international law to prevent and resolve such disputes. …

International Law For Transboundary Aquifers: A Challenge For Our Times, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Quarrels between states sharing a transboundary aquifer (TBA) have been relatively minor in comparison with the more boisterous disputes seen in many of the world's shared river basins. Yet, transboundary groundwater can easily serve as the basis for cross-border disagreements. Twice as many TBAs and shared groundwater bodies have been identified globally as compared to transboundary rivers and lakes, and the volume of accessible groundwater exceeds all surface waters by a factor of one hundred. Yet, the number of treaties in force for TBAs is miniscule in comparison with those for transboundary rivers and lakes. Moreover, dozens of nations exploit …

Water Diplomacy And Shared Resources Along The United States-Mexico Border, Maria Elena Giner, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

The United States and Mexico are geographic neighbors with high economic asymmetry, but also a shared history and intense social, cultural, economic, and security relations. Over 15 million people reside along the U.S.-Mexico border and share an environment that includes many watersheds and air basins transcending political boundaries. Pollution impacts on both sides of the border have required a coordinated response at the local, state, and federal level.

At the federal level, a joint institution was created in in 1889 as the International Boundary Commission and later renamed the International Boundary and Water Commission to provide binational solutions to issues …

Taking Back The Beach, Lora Naismith

Student Scholarship

The numerous effects of anthropogenic climate change, including sea-level rise, continue to make global changes to our environment. With greenhouse gas emissions come warmer temperatures, melting glaciers, and a higher sealevel. In an attempt to address the rising sea, communities have the option to protect the shoreline, alter structures to be able to remain in the area, or abandon the area as the sea rises. The Texas coast alone is home to roughly 6.5 million people and provides jobs to nearly 2.5 million of those people. As the sea continues to rise, the Texas coast is subject to more severe …

Part 2: Water Recycling Technical Report For Direct Non-Potable Use, Seth J. Boettcher, Courtney Gately, Alexandra L. Lizano, Alexis Long, Alexis Yelvington

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This Water Recycling Technical Report examines the legal frameworks that affect water recycling in Texas. The goal of this report is to provide insight into the legal and regulatory barriers, challenges, and opportunities for these technologies to go online. Each water recycling implementation site has to find ways of complying with various laws and regulations. The information in this Report comes from the study of water recycling facilities currently operating in Texas, as well as extensive research into available literature and documents from various agencies. While there is no updated “one-stop-shop” resource that provides detailed information on all the necessary …

Part 1: Brackish Groundwater Desalination Technical Report, Seth J. Boettcher, Courtney Gately, Alexandra L. Lizano, Alexis Long, Alexis Yelvington

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This Brackish Groundwater Desalination Technical Report examines the legal frameworks that affect desalination in Texas. The goal of this report is to provide insight into the legal and regulatory barriers, challenges, and opportunities for these technologies to go online. Each desalination implementation site has to find ways of complying with various laws and regulations. The information in this Report comes from the study of brackish groundwater desalination facilities currently operating in Texas, as well as extensive research into available literature and documents from various agencies. While there is no updated “one-stop-shop” resource that provides detailed information on all the necessary …

Part 3: Case Study Appendices To The Technical Reports, Seth J. Boettcher, Courtney Gately, Alexandra L. Lizano, Alexis Long, Alexis Yelvington

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This Case Study Appendix to the Technical Reports expands on regulations in San Antonio and El Paso where these water alternatives are in place. The goal of this report is to provide insight into the legal and regulatory barriers, challenges, and opportunities for these technologies to go online. Each desalination and water recycling faciality implementation site must comply with various laws and regulations. The information in these Case Studies comes from the study of brackish groundwater desalination and water recycling facilities currently operating in Texas. While there is no updated “one-stop-shop” resource where a municipal leader can find a list …

Groundwater Management In The Borderlands Of Mexico And Texas: The Beauty Of The Unknown, The Negligence Of The Present, And The Way Forward, Rosario Sanchez, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

Over the last decade, transboundary aquifers traversing the Mexico‐Texas border have generated growing interest of federal institutions on the Mexico side and state and federal institutions on the Texas side. Notwithstanding this, binational efforts to understand, assess, and manage shared groundwater resources remain limited and politically sensitive. On the Mexico side, long‐standing centralized groundwater governance structures have created institutional barriers at the local level to the expansion of knowledge and cooperation over these transboundary resources. On the Texas side, property rights related to groundwater resources limit the scope of options available for cooperative management of cross‐border aquifers. This paper examines …

Liquid Business, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

Water is scarcer due to climate change and in higher demand due to population growth than ever before. As if these stressors were not concerning enough, corporate investors are participating in water markets in ways that sidestep U.S. water law doctrine’s aims of preventing speculation and assuring that the holders of water rights internalize any externalities associated with changes in their rights. The operation of these new players in the shadow of traditional water law is producing elements of inefficiency and unfairness in the allocation of water rights. Resisting the polar calls for unfettered water markets, or, contrarily, the complete …

Conferring Legal Personality On The World's Rivers: A Brief Intellectual Assessment, Gabriel Eckstein, Ariella D'Andrea, Virginia Marshall, Erin O'Donnell, Julia Talbot-Jones, Deborah Curran, Katie O'Bryan

Faculty Scholarship

The following compilation is substantially reproduced and adapted from a series of essays that appeared in the blog of the International Water Law Project (www.inter nationalwaterlaw.org). The series was solicited in response to the unique recent phenomenon in which a number of courts and legislatures around the world have conferred legal personality on particular rivers. What resulted is a fantastic, thoughtprovoking and timely compilation.

In effect, various water bodies around the world have been accorded legal rights – some though legislative actions and others via judicial decisions – that in some jurisdictions, equate with those recognized in human beings. Although …

Survey Of Legal Mechanisms Relating To Groundwater Along The Texas-Mexico Border, Jessica Foster

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

The purpose of this study is to present a factual picture of the multiple groundwater governance frameworks that cover the same transboundary aquifers on the Texas-Mexico border. The study can then serve as a foundation to support future research and as a reference for those sharing groundwater resources on the border to use in considering whether and how to coordinate management. Currently, Texas A&M School of Law, the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and the Texas Water Resources Institute are collaboratively pursuing a larger interdisciplinary project, and the study presented in this report is …

Groundwater Laws And Regulations: A Preliminary Survey Of Thirteen U.S. States (First Edition), Rachel Louise Cain, Marcus Goll, Tyler Hood, Colton Lauer, Matthew Mcdonough, Brett Miller, Shea Pearson, Scott Rodriguez, Travis Riley

EENRS Program Reports & Publications

This report presents preliminary results of a study investigating the groundwater laws and regulations of thirteen U.S. states. The purpose of the project is eventually to compile and present the groundwater laws and regulations of every state in the United States that could then be used in a series of comparisons of groundwater governance principles, strategies, issues, and challenges. Professor Gabriel Eckstein at Texas A&M University School of Law and Professor Amy Hardberger at Saint Mary’s University Law School developed a matrix to ascertain chief components and characteristics of the groundwater legal regime of each state. Student researchers then used …

Inefficient Efficiency: Crying Over Spilled Water, Vanessa Casado-Pérez

Faculty Scholarship

As the drought in Western states worsens, the agricultural sector is being criticized for failing to adopt technical responses, such as shifting to less water-demanding crops and state-of-the-art irrigation systems, in a timely manner. However, these responses can have the reverse effect: they can increase water consumption. Technological responses alone are insufficient to reduce water consumption if unaccompanied by changes in how the law defines and allocates water rights. This paper proposes a redefinition of water rights to ensure that changes in crops or irrigation techniques are socially efficient.

In the West, which uses the doctrine of prior appropriation to …

Transboundary Legal Perspective: International Water Law, Gabriel Eckstein

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter provides readers with an introduction to international law in general and international water law in particular. The chapter discusses the scope, principle tenets, procedural obligations, and sources of international water law, and delves into discussions about transboundary aquifers and joint institutional mechanisms. An appendix that provides exercises and discussion topics to help readers retain and apply important information.