Transboundary Water Management in Federal Political Systems: A Story of Three Semi-arid Rivers

Federalism has increasing influence on river basin management across diverse geographic and political economic contexts, ranging from Australia and the US to India and Iraq (Garrick et al. 2013). Federal countries divide authority across territorial and national governments, which presents a classic governance test to manage conflicts and spread risk in shared waters. Federal rivers lie at the intersection of two traditions of research on collective action in the water commons—one focused on user self-organisation and the other on the geopolitics of international rivers.