A NEW APPROACH TO REDUCING THE VULNERABILITY OF WATER SUPPLIES TO CLIMATE CHANGE IN THE U.S.-MEXICO BORDER AREA

摘要

The U.S. and Mexican governments need to create a bottom-up stakeholder process to design a set of allocation rules, market-based mechanisms for the transfer of water rights, and water conservation incentives that reflect conditions in the watershed in question. Such a process will only work, however, if the two governments provide a carrot and stick package that force the stakeholders to arrive at difficult decisions within certain time-frames and give them the technical assistance and financial resources necessary to implement those decisions. The IBWC, the BECC, and the NADB, as well as a number of state and local institutions have important roles to play in this process. It will be necessary, however, to find a single bi-national institution that will charter, supervise, and coordinate the activities of the various watershed stakeholder councils. Given the political cen-trality of the 1944 Treaty, the logical institution would be the IBWC. The BECC and the NADB would play critical supporting roles by providing many of the "carrots" referred to above in the form of technical assistance and financing.