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The Law of the River is paradigmatically the legal and policy framework for river basin governance in the largely arid Western United Sates. In parsing this notoriously arcane body of law, complexity theory and jurisprudence, or the philosophy of law, are useful tools. This work develops and applies a conceptual model of the Middle Rio Grande basin as a social-ecological system in an attempt to improve understanding, transparency, and a sense of meaning of the so-called Law of the River. This project confronts the legal ecology of the "Great River" and its principle middle valley tributary, northern New Mexico's Rio Chama, through the lens of what it takes to operationalize instream ecological flows. The overarching "legal mapping" analysis draws on various strands of theory and practice coalescing around the diversity of institutions--or "institutional ontologies"--which, employing techniques of material culture, or new materialism, are constitutive of and indeed construct the Law of the River. On the question of instream flows, the legal analysis is mainly descriptive, prescriptive, and ethical by nature. It also draws on a significant body of interdisciplinary scholarship and applied research into the coupled legal-operational framework for New Mexico's Rio Grande reservoirs. Especially relevant are the efforts of the Rio Chama Flow Project, a multistakeholder initiative studying and advocating for multi-objective instream flows on the Wild and Scenic-designated reach of the Rio Chama between El Vado and Abiquiu reservoirs. This otherwise largely untouched stream segment is, paradoxically, a highly engineered system and a core part of the transbasin water transfer under Reclamation's San Juan-Chama Project. Owing to these marked contrasts, the Rio Chama is, therefore, ripe for scientific and institutional analysis, which is where this article joins the relay, with its unpacking of the mechanisms for instream flow innovation there. But the Rio Chama Flow Project's original legal hypothesis--that these instream, ecological flows can be further optimized throughout novel applications of hitherto underutilized "flexibility" in existing legal authorities, requires refining. As this article asserts, we must urgently and fundamentally reorient ourselves with respect to the Law of River considering: 1) the manifold contingencies and historic processes which it rests upon; 2) the planetary forces and mission-critical exigencies of global climate, as reflected in local social-hydrologic conditions; together with 3) the core attendant issues of justice--including indigenous rights and settler colonialism--all in a fundamentally transboundary, entangled assemblage. To put it more prosaically, a complex, adaptive system. Because the Law of the River is such an apparent lingua franca or boundary object, the ontology of this legal framework is an idoneous starting point, methodologically and substantively, since canonical water law and policy belie that constitutive diversity of this not merely abstract but situated, material, and embodied, body of law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New Zealand Parliament has recently granted the Whanganui River and the Te Urewera mountain ecosystem rights as legal persons, with a Māori governing board to speak for the nonhuman entities, based upon traditional cultural precepts. Far from an isolated precedent, in what the U.N. Secretary General calls "the fastest growing legal movement of the twenty-first century," legislatures, courts, or voters in Australia, Colombia, Ecuador, Bangladesh, India, Uganda, and the U.S. have also declared that rivers and other living systems have legal rights. This Article chronicles the movement to grant nonhuman entities legal rights. I analyze the statutes and judicial opinions driving this legal evolution, drawing extensively from interviews I conducted with key figures negotiating and advocating for these initiatives. I explain what the current and developing laws and judicial opinions seek to achieve. Deriving from disparate historical, philosophical, and legal backgrounds, they pursue disparate goals; yet all of the moves to grant legal rights to nonhuman entities aim to enshrine in the law the fundamental symbiosis between human and nonhuman ecological health, and to empower suitable stewards who will nurture that symbiosis. I describe how newly vested spokespersons for nature seek to turn novel legal theories into real legal work that protects human and nonhuman communities. I explain who now represents the nonhuman entity and discuss what improvements--for human and nonhuman communities--they hope will redound that would not have resulted from more traditional legal protections. I also discuss early results that have emerged from grants of legal personhood to nonhuman entities. As these laws inscribe new legal relationships between people and nature, they ask: what does it mean to convert from "we own the River" to "we are the River?" I conclude that by sanctifying the interdependent relationship between human needs and healthy ecosystems, granting legal 546 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LAW REVIEW [Vol. 2021 rights to rivers may contribute to reversing ecological degradation in this century and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2017, some of the most beloved and iconic rivers in the world have been recognised in law as legal persons and/or living entities, with a range of legal rights and protections. These profound legal changes can transform the relationship between people and rivers, and are the result of ongoing leadership from Indigenous peoples and environmental advocates. This paper uses a comparative analysis of the legal and/or living personhood of rivers and lakes in Aotearoa New Zealand, India, Bangladesh, Colombia to identify the legal status of specific rivers, and highlight the disturbing trend of recognising rivers as legal persons and/or living entities whilst also denying rivers the right to flow. Rather than empowering rivers in law to resist existential threats, the new legal status of rivers may thus make it even more difficult to manage rivers to prevent their degradation and loss. This paper highlights an 'extinction problem' for rivers that environmental law has exacerbated, by recognising new non-human living beings whilst simultaneously denying them some of the specific legal rights they need to remain in existence. The paper also shows how a pluralist analysis of the status of rivers can help to identify some potential ways to address this problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Set at the intersection between political history and environmental history, this article shows the significance of administrative legacy and natural dynamics of rivers in the landscape for creating (and solving) border disputes. In 2006, Slovenia and Croatia engaged in such a dispute regarding the exact course of the border near the River Mura in the vicinity of the villages of Hotiza (Slovenia) and Sv. Martin na Muri (Croatia). After giving an overview of the Slovenian-Croatian border disputes between 1992 and 2019, the author analyses the border dispute around the River Mura. He then shows how the history of the river's regulations, of the Habsburg and Yugoslav land survey activities, as well as of the previous border disputes on the river are entangled in the current dispute. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification of the mouth of a river at law is a more difficult prospect than may first appear. Geography and the action of tides can make the location of a river mouth a difficult prospect. The law has had to face the question of identifying the mouth of a river over the centuries and a volume of statute and common law has built up, presenting a range of solutions. This article considers the historic approaches taken in statute and common law, with a view to distilling the key elements necessary to locate the mouth of a river. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, multiple claims and declarations from around the legal world appeared to signal a tipping point in the global acceptance of a new and evolving legal status for nature. Whether it was litigation in the United States, India, and Colombia, or legislation emanating from New Zealand and Australia, the law seems to be grappling with a new normative order in relation to the legal status of nature. However, this shift has been a long time coming, being at least fortyfive years since Christopher Stone famously asked whether trees should have legal standing. This Article explores what this emerging Ecological Jurisprudence means for the legal personhood of rivers. Nature, the environment, and even single complex ecosystems, are seldom easily quantifiable as bounded entities with geographically clear borders. Within the complex spectrum of establishing where a legal subject ends and another begins, however, rivers are more easily identifiable. A river's very being is premised on historicized boundaries that measure its watery ambit from riverbed to riverbank. Still, rivers elude a final, clearly defined, and uncontroversial description. As a result, they inhabit a liminal space, one that is at the same time geographically bounded, yet metaphorically transcendent, physically shifting, and culturally porous. Drawing on comparative case studies from Ecuador, Colombia, India, New Zealand, the United States, and Australia, this Article explores the deep and often murky bond of the river and us. This relational, ancient, and ultimately environmentally urgent bond forms the prism through which the rich story of legal personhood, ontological change, and the consequential nitty-gritty of river governance is told. Indeed, this complex story is best heard through the metaphor of song, since "[i]f we are to take metaphor seriously, we must explore its poetic dimension, the persuasive power of its rhetoric, coupled with its aesthetic appeal."2 In seeking to discern a river's legal personality, we ask, can we hear the rivers sing? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1950s Ontario and New York built hydroelectric structures in the St. Lawrence River, while the federal governments of Canada and the United States constructed the St. Lawrence Seaway to work in conjunction with these power works. The engineering works that enabled this megaproject, approved by the International Joint Commission (IJC), were also designed to regulate water levels and flows on the upper St. Lawrence and Lake Ontario, and a method of regulation was established to set outflows, named Plan 1958-D. This paper covers the initial establishment of this regulation plan, identifying its weaknesses. Though the new water regime provided benefits for certain interests (primarily power, navigation and property owners), it could not always adequately cope with high and low water supplies into the system outside those originally anticipated. Moreover, as is shown, the creation of the St. Lawrence dual project and the connected method of regulation had a range of negative ecological impacts and harmed other interests - including the Mohawk groups in the territory that straddles the project area. By the late twentieth century, serious consideration was being given to replacing Plan 1958-D. This paper explores the technical study, negotiations and political intrigue that involved hundreds if not thousands of professionals, public servants, riparians and commercial interests in both countries that eventually led to a new method of regulation. On 6 December 2016 the governments of Canada and the United States formally gave concurrence to a revised Order of Approval from the IJC that replaced Plan 1958-D with Plan 2014. The rationale for these changes is explored, as well as the challenges faced by the IJC and its technical advisory groups, and the lessons that can be learned are identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly after the Trump Administration took office, Congress and the White House repealed the Obama Administration's Stream Protection Rule, which reverted regulations on surface coal mining to the regulations issued in 1983. The 1983 regulations inadequately protect natural resources because they do not address the coal industry's drastic advances in mining practices or new scientific data evidencing coal's adverse environmental effects. This Comment analyzes and compares current regulations and the Stream Protection Rule to illustrate the inadequacies of the regulations in addressing the adverse effects of surface coal mining on natural resources. To address this issue, the federal government needs to enact new laws or mandate agencies to issue new regulations in order to provide federal guidance on how to appropriately and effectively address the inadequacies of current regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: River regulation influences hydrological regime, channel hydraulics, and habitat quality for freshwater biota. Environmental flow assessments typically require river managers to incorporate the requirements of different freshwater species and life stages in designing discharge regimes. However, these requirements can often conflict or be poorly quantified. There is therefore increasing interest in adaptive management whereby the ecological effects of changing flow regime can be monitored and assessed. This study investigated the effects of flow regulation on Atlantic salmon fry below an impoundment. The flow regime incorporated a compensation flow with an atypical seasonal profile where higher discharges were released in the summer than autumn and a spring high flow (freshet) to facilitate downstream migration of smolts through the dam. Saturation stocking and electrofishing were combined with hydraulic and habitat models to predict the effects of discharge on habitat quality and standardized fry densities. The discharge at which the highest standardized fry densities were observed varied depending on reach morphology, particularly channel roughness. Low fry survival was consistent with predictions of consistently low habitat quality during the spring freshet. Fish locations observed during electrofishing were not always consistent with contemporary flows and may reflect the influence of antecedent flows and high site fidelity. The combination of saturation stocking, hydraulic, and habitat models provides a valuable approach for assessing the effects of regulation. It is recommended that future freshets operate at night, that uninterrupted periods of high flow are avoided during the spring, and that compensation flows reflect natural seasonal patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a looming problem facing the Colorado River Basin: an increasing likelihood of a compact call on the Upper Basin due to projected climate change and population growth stresses on the Colorado River. To address this problem, water resource managers and natural resource management organizations throughout the Upper Basin have proposed a leading approach of an interstate water bank program. There are three main shortfalls to this though, which do not make the program a viable approach in addressing the problem: (1) legal uncertainty regarding individual water rights; (2) concerns regarding speculation; and (3) lack of incentives for state participation. Recognizing compact compliance as a beneficial use addresses these three shortfalls and strengthens the viability of the water bank program in alleviating the problem facing the Colorado River Basin. Compact compliance as a beneficial use provides legal certainty regarding individual water rights, which in turn encourages participation of depositors in the water bank program. More depositors equate to more water available in the bank for the Upper Basin to meet its compact obligations and reduce the risk of shortage. Compact compliance as a beneficial use also quashes any fear that the bank is merely speculation on behalf of the Upper Basin states. This encourages state participation because it removes the possibility of a barrier to participating in such a program. Finally, compact compliance as a beneficial use incentivizes states to negotiate and contract to an interstate water bank agreement because it decreases the transaction costs associated with such a program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Better understanding of the dynamics of hydrological connectivity between river and floodplain is essential for the ecological integrity of river systems. In this study, we proposed a regime-switch modelling (RSM) framework, which integrates change point analysis with dynamic linear regression, to detect and date change points in linear regression, and to quantify the relative importance of natural variations and anthropogenic disturbances. The approach was applied to the long-term hydrological time series to investigate the evolution of river-floodplain relation in Dongting Lake in the last five decades, during which the Yangtze River system experienced unprecedented anthropogenic manipulations. Our results suggested that 1) there were five distinct regimes during which the influence of inflows and local climate on lake water level changed significantly. The detected change points were well corresponding to the major events occurred upon the Yangtze; 2) although the importance of inflows from the Yangtze was greater than that of the tributaries flows over the five regimes, the relative contribution gradually decreased from regime 1 to regime 5. The weakening of hydrological forcing from the Yangtze was mainly attributed to the reduction in channel capacity resulting from sedimentation in the outfalls and water level dropping caused by river bed scour in the mainstream; 3) the effects of local climate was much smaller than these of inflows; and 4) since the operation of The Three Gorges Dam in 2006, the river-floodplain relationship entered a new equilibrium in that all investigated variables changed synchronously in terms of direction and magnitude. The results from this study reveal the mechanisms underlying the alternated inundation regime in Dongting Lake. The identified change points, some of which have not been previously reported, will allow a reappraisal of the current dam and reservoir operation strategies not only for flood/drought risk management but also for the maintenance and restoration of the regional ecological integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of court rulings and legislation worldwide are recognizing rights of nature to be protected and preserved. Recognizing these rights also entails the recognition that nature has the right to stand in court and to be represented for its defense. This is still an incipient field and every step taken in this direction constitutes a precedent from which to learn and on which to base new rulings and legislation initiatives. Within this doctrine, rivers seem to be on the spotlight and court rulings on the rights of rivers are the ones setting precedent. These cases have taken place in New Zealand, Ecuador, India, and Colombia. This review looks into what all these rulings and legislation worldwide say about the rights of nature and what legal and systemic considerations should be taken into account as the recognition of the rights of nature moves forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history and current state of the Yellowstone River, focusing on the Upper Yellowstone, from where the river exits Yellowstone National Park, as of January 2018. Topics discussed include economic benefits of having a clean Yellowstone River; surrounding communities' dependence on the river; and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, including the protections it could provide the Yellowstone River.

Fifty years ago, former Stanford Law School Dean Charles Meyers published The Colorado River, 19 STAN. L. REV. 1 (1966), arguably the most famous piece of legal scholarship ever written on this vital water source and the complex body of laws governing its flows--colloquially, the "Law of the River." That piece and a companion, The Colorado River: The Treaty with Mexico, 19 STAN. L. REV. 367 (1967), offered seminal accounts of the legal histories, doctrinal features, and unresolved perplexities of the Law of the River's international and interstate allocation framework. Five decades later, between thirty-five and forty million U.S. residents rely on flows controlled by this framework, and a historic drought and unprecedented water supply and demand imbalance face the Colorado River Basin. It is a transformative time for the Law of the River, and this Article revisits Meyers's scholarship from this vantage point. It begins by considering climate change and related dynamic changes in and around the basin over the past fifty years. It then considers the evolution of the Law of the River's allocation framework across this period--particularly, since the historic drought's onset in 2000. Finally, focusing on the concept of "adaptive framing," the Article synthesizes common patterns in the allocation framework's evolution, and offers prescriptions and prognoses regarding the continuation of these patterns in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Columbia River supports tens of millions of people in seven states and British Columbia through power generation, water supply, fishing, flood control, transportation, and other ecosystem services. Yet the river faces a number of environmental problems that negatively impact those same people. Salmon populations have collapsed, taking with them the commercial fisheries and depressing coastal communities. Salmon conservation efforts cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In Canada, reservoirs flood hundreds of square miles of land, causing mudflats and dust storms and transforming beautiful valleys into muddy wastelands. And everywhere on the river and its tributaries, human development has polluted water, destroyed habitat, and degraded ecosystems. Both the United States and Canada have domestic programs to slow or reverse these environmental problems, but the Columbia River Treaty is a large obstacle to these efforts. By the terms of the treaty, 15.5 million acre feet of storage--the majority of storage on the river--must be allocated only to maximize power generation and prevent floods, and cannot be allocated for environmental reasons. A new treaty for the Columbia River should be negotiated, one that includes an ecosystem function as a primary purpose of river governance. This ecosystem function should chiefly be a provision requiring environmental flows, which are a practical means for addressing environmental issues within the scope of existing international governance. The international law principle of equitable and reasonable use is the framework that should be used to resolve water allocation conflicts among the purposes identified in the treaty and the sharing of benefits with Canada. This new treaty will address the river's serious environmental issues and ensure it continues to benefit the people dependent on it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Sudan's independence has raised the number of Nile riparian states to eleven, and the questions of state succession and international law discourse on the issue are expected to arise in relation to South Sudan. Some of the international legal issues that may be raised in relation to Nile agreements are: whether the new state of South Sudan (in its utilization of the Nile waters) is under an international legal obligation to respect and honor the 1929 and 1959 Nile agreements made by Sudan with Egypt. The article addresses this issue in light of the law of state succession to treaties. Based on several theories of international law relating to state succession with respect to treaties, I argue that South Sudan is not bound by the 1929 and 1959 Nile waters agreements. More specifically, it is argued that the 1929 and 1959 agreements between Egypt and Sudan governing trans-boundary water resources do not fall within the boundary exceptional clause, and South Sudan can nullify the agreements at any time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ochrona Srodowiska i Zasobów Naturalnych is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In Australia, the sharing of water from a river -- such as the Murray River -- that flows through or forms the boundary between two or more states (a 'transboundary river') has historically been resolved by political agreement. Since colonial times, one of the great unanswered questions is how to resolve transboundary river disputes in the absence of an intergovernmental agreement. One argument that has been made is that the solution lies in the development of an 'interstate common law' on the basis that there must be equality between states. In evaluating this potential solution, I demonstrate that one difficulty with the argument is that the common law would be placing a limit on state legislative and executive power. I argue that if a limit on state power does exist, it is more appropriately derived directly from the text and structure of the Australian Constitution; however, the argument that an implication of 'equality of states' can be derived from the text and structure of the Constitution so as to place a limit on state power is not without difficulty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The global proliferation of dams within the last half century has prompted ecologists to understand the effects of regulated rivers on large‐river fishes. Currently, much of the effort to mitigate the influence of dams on large‐river fishes has been focused on downriver effects, and little attention has been given to upriver effects. Through a combination of field observations and laboratory experiments, we tested the hypothesis that abiotic conditions upriver of the dam are the mechanism for the lack of recruitment in Pallid Sturgeon (Scaphirhynchus albus), an iconic large‐river endangered species. Here we show for the first time that anoxic upriver habitat in reservoirs (i.e., the transition zone between the river and reservoir) is responsible for the lack of recruitment in Pallid Sturgeon. The anoxic condition in the transition zone is a function of reduced river velocities and the concentration of fine particulate organic material with high microbial respiration. As predicted, the river upstream of the transition zone was oxic at all sampling locations. Our results indicate that transition zones are an ecological sink for Pallid Sturgeon. We argue that ecologists, engineers, and policy makers need to broaden the regulated‐river paradigm to consider upriver and downriver effects of dams equally to comprehensively mitigate altered ecosystems for the benefit of large‐river fishes, especially for the Pallid Sturgeon. La proliferación de presas a nivel global durante el último medio siglo, ha llevado a los ecólogos a tratar de comprender los efectos que tiene la regulación de ríos sobre los grandes peces de agua dulce. Actualmente, gran parte de los esfuerzos dirigidos a mitigar la influencia de las presas en los grandes peces de agua dulce se han enfocado en los efectos observados en la porción inferior de las cuencas y poca atención se le ha dado a los efectos río‐arriba. A través de una combinación de observaciones de campo y experimentos de laboratorio, se probó la hipótesis de que las condiciones abióticas río‐arriba en las presas son el mecanismo que explica las fallas del reclutamiento del esturión pálido (Scaphirhynchus albus), una icónica especie de agua dulce, de gran tamaño, catalogada como amenazada. Se muestra por vez primera que la anoxia en hábitats río‐arriba en los reservorios (i.e., zonas de transición entre ríos y reservorios) es probablemente responsable de las fallas en el reclutamiento del esturión pálido. Las condiciones de anoxia en la zona de transición es función de la reducción de la velocidad de flujo del río y la concentración de material orgánico fino particulado, con un alto contenido de respiración microbiana. Como se predijo, las condiciones del río por encima de la zona de transición fueron óxicas en todos los sitios de muestreo. Los resultados indican que las zonas de transición representan un sumidero para el esturión pálido, Se argumenta que los ecólogos, ingenieros y tomadores de decisiones requieren de ampliar el paradigma de la regulación de ríos, con el objeto de incluir los efectos que tienen las presas tanto río‐arriba como río‐abajo y, así mismo, mitigar sistemáticamente los ecosistemas afectados en beneficio de los grandes peces de agua dulce, especialmente el esturión pálido. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various reports within the journal on topics including the laws governing the flow of the Colorado River in the U.S., American Indian tribal sovereign immunity, and the relationship between clean energy and climate change as of 2017.

The article discusses various legal aspects of environmental crimes in America, focusing on the reported differences between criminal and civil penalties, as well as issues related to U.S. corporate liability and the nation's Clean Air Act. U.S. Sentencing guidelines, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's monitoring of emissions standards, and the U.S. Clean Water Act are mentioned. Several U.S. constitutional defenses are examined, along with the U.S. Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899.

The article focuses on the decision of the New Zealand government to grant the legal personhood status to the Whanganui River in New Zealand with the enactment of the Whanganui Iwi Deed of Settlement (Ruruku Whakatupua) law. Topics discussed include transformation of Whanganui River in New Zealand from property to a legal person, Ruruku Whakatupua signed by the New Zealand government which will grant the Whanganui River legal standing and the concept of corporate personhood.

The article discusses issues related to the U.S. laws regarding transboundary waters. Topics discussed include need of creating exchange agreements and networks for data and information sharing among stakeholder basin states and institutions; environmental issues in the allocation and management of interstate rivers; and scope and content of a data and information sharing agreements.

An essay discussing issues related to Great Lakes water and the environment, including the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact in the U.S. is presented. Topics discussed include laws concerning interstate water compacts in Western U.S.; environmental issues in the allocation and management of western interstate rivers; and introduction of the Endangered Species Act.

The relationship between rivers and cities has evolved from a natural coexistence and interdependence to a progressive relationship of segregation and disintegration. This article uses a planning experiment to explore and discuss some concerns about visual attractiveness of city–river landscapes in promoting spatial integration of cities and rivers. It presents a methodological approach integrating expert opinions and public perception questionnaires. This is a contribution to making operational an ongoing aesthetic assessment of different dimensions and viewpoints at the city scale. This approach is illustrated with a case-study in the Lisbon metropolitan area and its main assessment results are integrated in a city–river profile that can be useful in ongoing evaluation processes of river landscapes and urban planning practice. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In studying rivers, physical and social science researchers tend to analyze water resource regulation at a national scale, treating “the state” as a monolithic entity mechanistically executing its regulatory code. Yet variation abounds in the interpretation and application of any national environmental policy. This study examines the complex geography of a small but crucial component of the U.S. Clean Water Act—compensatory stream mitigation—and how particular states and federal agency districts, and the individuals occupying key roles in those units of government, have interpreted the same national law in quite different social and environmental settings. The appearance of monotonic regulatory outcomes at a relatively coarse scale obscures a high degree of fine-scale heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Sécurité Globale is the property of Editions ESKA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Colorado River and the elaborate body of laws governing its flows (Law of the River) are at a critical juncture, with a formidable imbalance between water supplies and demands prompting diverse efforts to evaluate and to think anew about Colorado River governance. One such effort is the Colorado River Governance Initiative (CRGI) at the University of Colorado Law School. Incorporating CRGI research undertaken over the past two-and-a-half years, this Article focuses on the interstate compact constituting the foundation of the Law of the River-the Colorado River Compact (Compact)-and approaches the water apportionment scheme established by this Compact as a subject of central importance in current efforts to navigate the future of the river. Lying at the base of the Compact is a commitment to equity-"equitable division and apportionment of the use of the waters of the Colorado River. System"-which poses the fundamental question explored in this Article: To what extent does the Compact's apportionment scheme fulfill this commitment to equity in its existing form? After providing an initial overview of the Compact, this Article considers the meaning of "equity" as a norm, setting the stage for a subsequent examination of water supplies and demands in the basin and of longstanding interpretive disputes involving the Compact's key terms. This examination reveals several equity-related concerns associated with the composition of the Compact's apportionment scheme and the . governance structure devised for it. A discussion of these concerns occupies the final Part of this Article. Framing this discussion is our perspective that the Compact's commitment to equity is a venerable one and that the concerns raised in this final Part need to be addressed in ongoing dialogue about Colorado River governance in order to fulfill this commitment in contemporary times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A project is a task comprising a set of interrelated activities requiring time and resources for their execution. It is often the case that during the construction of longitudinal and cross section structures for the regulation of a torrential catchment the required resources (labour, materials, mechanization, and finances) are often limited and because of that we face the problem of their efficient use. This paper deals with the problem of planning the execution of river regulation works on the Jelašnička River with the aim to minimize the time extension due to limited resources. In the planning phase of project realization labour force is the limited resource. Heuristic techniques, i.e. the Gray-Kidd algorithm with the use of MS Project software were applied in the distribution of resources for the purposes of optimal labour engagement. This method uses the data acquired by the CPM method of network planning as input elements. Through more iterations, by moving noncritical and then critical project activities, the minimal extension of project duration was achieved by engaging more labour force. Therefore, the proposed heuristic and CPM method performed well in resolving the resource-constrained project scheduling problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Augustin Cournot''s original concept of “complementary oligopoly” has recently had a rebirth of interest after being relabeled “the tragedy of the anticommons” and finding fresh applications in the legal and economics literatures. The tragedy of the anticommons (the mirror image of the more well-known tragedy of the commons) occurs when too many rights holders to a good lead to sub-optimal usage. Inefficient outcomes are only overcome when rights holders are reduced or consolidated. Despite its renewed interest in other spheres, the theory of the anticommons has yet to garner noticeable attention in environmental resource applications. This paper attempts to show how the theory of the anticommons appears relevant to the environmental sphere, in particular, with an application to river-basin water regulation in the U.S. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Water and Empire uses canal construction and river regulation on the Danube to study the development of German imperial ambitions in South East Europe. Pre-war Bavarian plans to link the Danube with the Main were refashioned after the conquest of Serbia, becoming a plan to link the Black Sea and the Rhine and making the whole course accessible to large river shipping. The substantial costs associated with this plan and the regional advantages it would engender for Bavaria created resistance in the Reich and in Austria-Hungary, demonstrating some of the limits of the Mitteleuropa project. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses the developments in the environmental issues in Australia. It particularly examines the Wild Rivers Act of 2005 that was approved by Queensland's provincial government. The positions of lawmaker Tony Abbott and Queensland opposition leader Campbell Newman on the environmental issues are also cited.

The article reports the decision of the New Zealand Supreme Court in the case "Paki v Attorney-General" in which the court examined navigability of rivers under section 14 of the Coalmines Act Amendment Act 1903. It reports the court decided that the question of navigability depended on a "part of river" rather than a "whole river" approach.

The article discusses the claim of the Whanganui Māori people to the Whanganui River in New Zealand, or Aoteaora, examining the Whanganui River Inquiry undertaken by the commission the Waitangi Tribunal. It particularly considers moral, political, and philosophical aspects of the claim. The author comments on indigeneity and indigenous difference in the nation of New Zealand. She also reflects on native title and customary title. Other topics include the idea of "belonging" to the river and sacred and ancestral aspects of the claim.

The author discusses issues involving the public access to the rivers and streams in Ohio. She provides an overview of the public trust doctrine, the easement of navigation at the federal level, and the history of the laws of navigability and the doctrine in the state. She explores the trends in the law as well as other state's views on river access. She also explains the need to change the law in the state.

This paper situates the politics of canoeing on inland rivers in England and Wales in the context of property rights and protest repertoires. We argue that the dominance of property rights has created an asymmetrical position that has underpinned riparian rights holders' claims to exclusive use of rivers while simultaneously delegitimizing the apparently equally valid claims of paddlers and others seeking access along rivers. Utilizing a netnographic approach we interrogate the adopted cultural positions of canoeists as 'roving bandit' and 'social pirate' through a study of online discussion. By adopting identities as 'bandit' and 'pirate', paddlers seek to unsettle the hegemony over property relations exercised by anglers to win concessions for use and enjoyment of rivers. Informed by Mancur Olson's theory of property settlement by outlaws, we argue that these identities do more to substantiate the claims of anglers to possession than further the cause of paddlers to securing greater access. In order to substantiate their claims, paddlers need to shift the point of their attack from that characterized by the roving and ephemeral bandit to that of the settled ruler, in the process establishing a claim over inland waters that is as strong as that already imposed by the anglers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydropolitical complexes are emerging to negotiate water-sharing policies that promote political stability, regional security, economic prosperity, and environmental sustainability. Yet interstate disputes are occurring within most hydropolitical complexes, and weak riparians are often coerced to agree to water-sharing policies that adversely affect them. This research examines the strategies weak riparians use to assert leverage in international river basins with asymmetrical power, and the success of those strategies in achieving cooperation versus conflict. Grounded in the theoretical framework of hydro hegemony, hard power, and soft power, this study uses cross national analysis to test the effects of geographic, military, political, economic, technological, and external influence on water governance in eight international river systems. The results demonstrate that weak riparians mobilize the assets and capacities of external actors, such as donor countries and the World Bank, to increase their leverage within hydropolitical complexes. The study finds that strategies to balance hard power are largely ineffective; they fail to achieve cooperative water-sharing arrangements and often exacerbate conflict. In contrast, strategies to balance economic power and soft power, such as market access and political legitimacy, are more successful in promoting cooperation and preventing conflict in hydropolitical complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1. This study summarises our development and application in developing countries of a process for assessing the ecological, social and economic costs and benefits of water-resource developments, as an aid to basin planning. 2. During 15 years of work in Africa and Asia, the process sequentially included the whole river ecosystem and the whole flow regime in the assessment; used a multidisciplinary team and a scenario-based approach that gave equal weighting to the ecological, social, resource-economic and macro-economic costs and benefits of development; quantified or semi-quantified the costs and benefits in data-poor situations, capturing expert opinion and local wisdom as well as data; recognised that the final allocation of water for ecosystem maintenance should be a societal choice of trade-offs between resource protection and development. 3. Flow assessments were increasingly done at the basin rather than project level and introduced the concept and practicality of Development Space as a tool to aid basin planning. 4. Later assessments included valuation of regulating, cultural and provisioning services provided by rivers as part of the cost-benefit analysis. 5. Implementation of managed flows as outlined above is a complex and long-term process that should include a number of major steps, from development of the appropriate legislation to monitoring of management decisions and adaptive management. Country or region-wide implementation at this scale could well take one to two decades, even where the political will and technical skills exist. 6. We conclude by offering eight principles that we believe would promote genuinely sustainable use of rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]