Data concerning recognized rights, legal agreements, and public documents.

governance-law

Governance & Law

Samantha Kuzma

### Overview  
  
The Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database (TFDD) catalogs the number and delineation of the world's international river basins and also contains physical, socioeconomic, and political data relating to each of them. In the context of these datasets, an international river basin is defined by its ultimate outlet to an ocean, sea, or inland water body and has year-round flow crossing or drawing a political border. This database includes data at the scale of basins as well as basin country units, which is an area of an international river basin that falls within a particular country. 

The Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension estimates the relative level of risk a basin or basin country unit has for political tension over its transboundary rivers. This risk is based on:
  
  
 1. **water infrastructure development**: the ability to deal with disputes arising from the development of new water infrastructure
  
  
 2. **institutional vulnerability**: the capacity of a basin country unit to absorb tension, which is expressed by the presence or absence of treaties, treaty provisions, and river basin organizations

This data was calculated by TFDD-affiliated researchers as a part of the Governance thematic group within the Transboundary Water Assessment Programme's River Basin Component.  
  
### Methodology  
  
The delineation and count of international river basins and basin country units were determined using the [Register of International River Basins](https://transboundarywaters.science.oregonstate.edu/content/register-international-river-basins) and watershed boundaries from the [HydroBASINs](https://www.hydrosheds.org/page/hydrobasins) dataset. HydroBASINS provides global coverage of watershed boundaries with several levels of sub-basin delineations, including watersheds that range in scale from tens to millions of square kilometers (see [Lehner & Gill, 2013](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hyp.9740)).  For full documentation on the spatial boundary data, please see the [methodology](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07900627.2019.1572497).

Institutional Vulnerability is measured by five components of formal transboundary cooperation. The five components are:
  
  
 1. at least one water treaty
  
  
 2. at least one treaty with an allocation mechanism
  
  
 3. at least one treaty with a flow variability management mechanism
  
  
 4. at least one treaty with a conflict resolution mechanism
  
  
 5. at least one river basin organization
  
  
The presence of a component is summed to give the institutional vulnerability score from 0 to 5, with 0 being the most vulnerable and 5 being the least vulnerable. 

Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension is calculated based on the basin country unit's institutional vulnerability score and the presence of a large dam or water diversion project in the basin country unit or upstream of it. If a basin country unit has a lower score for its institutional vulnerability and has infrastructure development in the basin country unit or upstream, it is in a higher risk category for Hydropolitical tension. Relative Risk ranges from 1 (very low risk) to 5 (very high risk). 

For full documentation on the metrics shown in this dataset, please see the [Transboundary River Basins report](https://transboundarywaters.science.oregonstate.edu/sites/transboundarywaters.science.oregonstate.edu/files/Database/ResearchProjects/TWAP/GEF_TWAPRB_FullTechnicalReport_compressed.pdf).   
  
### Additional Information  
  
Resource Watch shows only a subset of the dataset. For access to the full dataset and additional information, click on the “Learn more” button.  
  
### Disclaimer  
  
Excerpts of this description page were taken from the source metadata.

Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database (TFDD)

Transboundary Water Assessment Programme - River Basin Component (TWAP-RB)

Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension and Institutional Vulnerability

wat-065-rw0-hydropolitical-tension-and-institutional-vulnerability-rw

2018 Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension of Basin Country Units

2018 Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension of Basins

2018 Institutional Vulnerability of Basin Country Units

Relative level of risk a basin or basin country unit has for political tension over its transboundary rivers

No Team

Hydropolitical Tension and Institutional Vulnerability

2018 Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension of Basin Country Units

2018 Relative Risk Category for Hydropolitical Tension of Basins

2018 Institutional Vulnerability of Basin Country Units