Date of Award

5-2012

Degree Type

Report

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Committee Chair(s)

A. Bruce Bishop

Committee

A. Bruce Bishop

Committee

Christopher M. U. Neale

Committee

David Rosenberg

Abstract

With increasing populations, urbanization and thus increasing demand for water, conflict on International River basins has been increasing over the years which has necessitated formation of International River frameworks to devise means of cooperation among the countries sharing the river basins. The main modes of cooperation in international river basins include allocating the waters of the river to the sharing countries such that each country manages its own water resources, or treating the river basin as one system and jointly managing and sharing the costs and benefits from the various services or use-sectors of the river.

This research was aimed at reviewing and comparing international frameworks managing some of the rivers in Africa and Asia, and their structures, history and accomplishments. The countries sharing the Senegal River are Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Guinea. The Senegal River was used as a case study because of the success of the OMVS, which is the organization managing the river basin. The OMVS has managed the river since 1972 and has succeeded in resolving water-related conflicts in the basin. The Senegal River basin countries are cooperating through joint management of the services and use-sectors fed by the river and thus sharing costs and benefits accumulated from use of the river. The benefits and costs from the project are calculated and then allocated through allocation models that were developed by the OMVS. The results in this research obtained from the Cost Allocation Model (as of 2011) which uses the Adjusted Separable Cost Remaining Benefit (ASCRB) method to allocate costs to the countries involved indicate that of the total project costs, Mali should pay 43.9%, Senegal should pay 38.94% and Mauritania should pay 17.16%. The ASCRB method was used because it satisfies the principles of benefit-cost sharing which include equity and economic efficiency. Countries sharing International River basins should therefore emulate the Senegal River basin countries on ways to resolve water conflicts with working methods such as the ASCRB method.

Comments

This work made publicly available electronically on September 4, 2012.

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