Map description and dataset provided by: UNESCO – Institute for Water Education

Description

The introduction of national waterlaw does not seem to have an obvious spatial correlation, however a trend exists that Southern developing countries introduced national waterlaw more recently. When considering the time-component of this map and the impact of major international events regarding water governance on the introduction of national waterlaw, the UN Conference on Water in Mar Del Plata, 1977, and the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, 1992, were the best incentive for countries to introduce national waterlaw.

Interpretation

Global governance regarding water management and environmental issues started in the 60’s with The Helsinki Rules on the Uses of Waters of International Rivers, 1966. Since then a number of similar international events marked the way towards global water governance to date. This map visualizes which of these events had the most profound impact by assuming a direct link between the international event and the introduction of national waterlaw. The underlying reason for some international events to be more influential than others and have more countries to introduce their own national waterlaw are speculative but might be found in the institutional framework as offered at the conference.

Source

The dataset for this map was provided by: Joost-Jan Schrander, UNESCO – Institute for Water Education

Background

This dataset was developed for one of three case studies for the Master’s thesis ‘GIS-Implementation in Analysing and Communicating the Institutional Aspects of Transboundary Watermanagement’ written by Joost-Jan Schrander in cooperation with UNESCO-IHE, coordinated by Prof. Dr. Joyeeta Gupta and Prof. Dr. Pieter van der Zaag.

Citation

Please cite this map as: "GWSP Digital Water Atlas (2008). Map 21: Introduction of National Waterlaw (V1.0). Available online at http://atlas.gwsp.org."

Contact Information

Joost-Jan Schrander, Institute for Environmental Studies, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1078, 1081HV, Amsterdam, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Phone: +31 (0) 624 571 156