This book is a guide to understanding and practicing water diplomacy—a framework for building relationships, negotiating shared interests, and managing water challenges. It is essential reading for students and scholars of water diplomacy, water governance and water resource management, as well as for policymakers and water professionals
The Routledge Handbook of Water Diplomacy is a comprehensive guide to understanding and practicing water diplomacy—a framework for building relationships, negotiating shared interests, and managing complex water challenges across physical, political, and societal boundaries.
In an era marked by rising scarcity, deepening uncertainty, and growing geopolitical tension, this timely volume offers actionable insights for negotiated problem-solving grounded in both scientific understanding and diplomatic skill. Moving beyond abstract theory and technical fixes, the Handbook introduces a dual-pathway structure designed to meet the diverse needs of its users. The “Working Together” pathway invites readers to engage with water diplomacy through the lens of their roles, whether as professionals, decision-makers, funders, researchers, or affected communities. The “What Matters and Why” pathway highlights key thematic dimensions, including process design, adaptive learning, trust-building, divergent worldviews, and the management of uncertainty. Together, these pathways guide readers through a wide range of case studies, from transboundary river basins to subnational disputes and community-scale water systems, demonstrating how water diplomacy can resolve conflict, enable cooperation, and support adaptive, context-sensitive learning by doing under conditions of complexity and change. Whether addressing a transboundary dispute or a local allocation challenge, this book provides guiding principles, practical tools, and real-world cases to support water solutions that are scientifically credible, socially inclusive, and politically feasible.
The Routledge Handbook of Water Diplomacy serves as an essential reference volume for students and scholars of water diplomacy, water governance and water resource management, as well as for policymakers and water professionals who are seeking actionable insights into the nuanced challenges they encounter as they work to promote a more sustainable and equitable water future.
Section I- Overview
1. Why We Need a Water Diplomacy Handbook
2. The Key
Themes, Concepts, and Ideas of Water Diplomacy
3. Navigating the Water
Diplomacy Handbook
4. A Living Handbook: Connecting Handbook Contents with
the AquaPedia Case Study Database Section II Water Diplomacy Themes,
Concepts, and Ideas
5. A Hydrology Primer for Diplomats
6. Water as a Source
of Conflict
7. Water as a Source of Cooperation
8. Scales of Water Diplomacy
9. Water Diplomacy Paths: An Approach To Recognize Water Diplomacy Actions
10. Water Diplomacy and Third-Party Engagement
11. Actors in Water Diplomacy:
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Section III Common Water Diplomacy
Challenges
12. Mapping the Water Diplomacy Problem Space
13. Managing Water
Diplomacy Processes
14. The Role of Scientific Uncertainties in Transboundary
Water Negotiations
15. The Role of Distrust in Transboundary Water Relations
16. Creating and Distributing Benefits in Water Diplomacy
17. The Role of
Knowledge Transmission in Water Diplomacy
18. Disinformation Challenges in
Water Governance and Diplomacy Section IV Tools of Water Diplomacy
19.
Building Political Will for Water Diplomacy
20. Joint Fact-Finding to Tackle
Difficult Water Challenges
21. Modeling to Support Water Management
Negotiations
22. Mutual Gains Negotiation in Water Diplomacy
23. Water
Markets: Tools for Management and Diplomacy
24. Game Theory: Insights for
Water Diplomacy
25. Gender Mainstreaming and Gender Transformative
Approaches: Assessing Progress and Potential in Water Diplomacy
26. The Use
of Games in Water Diplomacy with Communities
27. International Law and Water
Diplomacy
28. Conflict Systems Analysis: Integrating Climate and Water Risks
29. Capacity Development for Water Diplomacy: The Experience Exchange
Approach
30. Movement Building Transformative Water Diplomacy Approaches
31.
The UN Watercourses Convention and its Relevance to Water Diplomacy and
Negotiated Agreements
32. Groundwater Diplomacy: Addressing Unseen but
Essential Water Resources
33. Organizations as Third Parties in Water
Diplomacy Processes
34. The Human Right to Water and its Relevance to
Transboundary Contexts
35. Regional Perspectives on Water and Diplomacy
36.
Principled, Pragmatic, Possible: Water Diplomacy in the Great Bay Estuary
37.
Neither Necessary nor Sufficient: Roles and Relevance of Enabling Conditions
in Resolving Complex Water Problems at Different Scales Section VI Case
Studies at the Transnational Scale
38. Türkiyes Perspective on Water
Cooperation in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin
39. The Complexity of Transboundary
Water Negotiations: A Case Study of Afghanistan and Iran
40. The Salween
River Basin: Navigating Transboundary Governance, Development Pressures, and
Civil Society Engagement in China, Myanmar, and Thailand
41. The Jordan River
Basin 70 Years After the Johnston Plan
42. Water Diplomacy in Support of
Sustainable Development: The Case of the Sava River Basin
43. Factors that
Contribute to Successful Diplomatic Outcomes: Case Study of the Colorado
River Basin Cross-boundary Institution
44. Failed Attempts to Conclude Water
Agreements: The Case of the Silala
45. Safeguarding the Sundarbans Mangrove
Forest: A Shared Commitment for Future India-Bangladesh Water Agreements
Section VII Case Studies at the Subnational Scale
46. Urmia Lake
Restoration Process: Challenges and Applicability of Water Diplomacy
Framework
47. Indigenous Nations, Water, and Conflict
48. Seeing Underground:
Understanding Complexity in the Great Basin Groundwater Grab Section VIII
Case Studies at the Community Scale
49. Sukhomajri Water Management as a
Coupled System: Understanding of and Adapting to Evolving Changes in System
Dynamics
50. The Role of Heritage in Understanding Community-Scale Water
Diplomacy: A Case Study of the Al-Ghab Plain in Syria Section IX
Reflections
51. Ground Rules for Water Diplomacy Negotiators
52. Water
Diplomacy and Transboundary Watercourses: Obstacles and Related Issues in
Some Middle Eastern Cases
53. Hydrodiplomacy: The Case of Post-Independence
Namibia
54. The Evolving Landscape of Diplomacy Epilogue: Navigating the
Future of Water Diplomacy Glossary: A Guide to Key Terms in the Handbook Index
Shafiqul Islam is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor of Water Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and the Director of the Water Diplomacy Program at Tufts University, USA.
Kevin M. Smith is a PhD Candidate in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering at Tufts University, USA, investigating how adaptive institutions and infrastructure can improve environmental governance and management outcomes by facilitating and incentivizing interjurisdictional collaboration.
Martina Klimes is a Senior Manager and Advisor on Water and Peace at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and the International Centre for Water Cooperation (ICWC).
Aaron Salzberg is a Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering in the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and served as the first Special Coordinator for Water Resources at the U.S. Department of State.
