Dané Smith, Aalto University, dane.smith@aalto.fi
Water management rarely occurs at a single level. Decisions and practices shift across local, national, and international scales depending on the challenges being addressed. Regardless of the scale, political actors (such as government ministries or municipalities) and technical actors (such as water engineers or environmental scientists) typically shape the process. The interactions among these different actors and institutions constitute water governance.
When countries share freshwater resources, such as a river or an aquifer, decisions about those resources rarely remain purely technical. Questions around water access, benefit-sharing, data sharing, water transfer, and risk management involve engineers and political representatives or diplomats. This is where transboundary water governance and water diplomacy come in.
Consider, for instance, the freshwater that flows between Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam along the Sesan, Srepok, and Sekong rivers, known as the 3S basin. These important tributaries of the Mekong River have undergone major hydropower developments that affect water flow. These developments present challenges related to biodiversity loss, water quality, ecosystem degradation, and food security (Piman et al., 2013). How these challenges affect each country varies, and how they are governed and managed across the countries that share freshwater is not necessarily the same as how they are governed and managed within each country. There are different levels of governance, actors, and interests involved. When these differences cannot be navigated to mutual benefit, there is a risk of tension or conflict. This is where water diplomacy aims to resolve water-related disputes and foster broader regional integration and cooperation (Keskinen et al., 2021).
In my research on transboundary water governance and water diplomacy, I’m particularly interested in the tension and overlap between technical expertise and political decision-making, and why bridging understanding between these two worlds matters for cooperation.
Moving Beyond Silos
The limitation of working in silos frequently comes up in discussions over the impact of research, donor-funded log frames, the design and development of policy, and among communities of practice working in transboundary water settings. This limitation is clear to identify, but much more challenging to address. “I realised the importance of bridging political and technical actors and interests in practice while working on programming activities that examined how shared environmental issues could serve a peace process. Despite the recognition that technical and political interactions are important in shared water resources decision-making and implementation, linking the political and the technical remains a challenge.
One reason for this is the vagueness of what defines a ‘technical’ and ‘political’ actor, institution, and interaction. These are neither linear nor neatly packaged. A political actor engaged in water diplomacy processes may hold a technical background and could be considered a ‘political’ and ‘technical’ actor. A researcher with a predominantly political science background, who may be helping to shape technical modelling through qualitative insights, could also be considered a ‘political’ and ‘technical’ actor.
What if we look at this from a broader perspective, not just from the individual? Should ‘technical’ be considered technical solutions and joint actions, while ‘political’ be considered the governance structures and processes that these solutions and joint actions are facilitated by? Should ‘political’ require formal state-level government representation and process, or should it cascade to the wider civic level? Should the ‘technical’ require specific benchmarks to be met before they can be considered enough of a value-added knowledge asset in policy-related decision-making? Bridging understanding between these domains is complex but necessary.
As we look to innovative solutions for transformative water resources management – including digitalization processes – understanding the tension and overlap between the technical and political will matter in implementation and impact.
Reference(s)
- Piman, T., Cochrane, T. A., Arias, M. E., Green, A., & Dat, N. D. (2013). Assessment of Flow Changes from Hydropower Development and Operations in Sekong, Sesan, and Srepok Rivers of the Mekong Basin. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 139(6), 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000286
- Keskinen M, Salminen E, Haapala J. Water diplomacy paths–An approach to recognise water diplomacy actions in shared waters. Journal of Hydrology. 2021;602:126737.
14.3.2026
