A legal licence for an ecological disaster: the inadequacies of the 1973 Helmand/Hirmand water treaty for sustainable transboundary water resources development

Vincent Thomas and Manijeh Mahmoudzadeh Varzi

International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2015, vol. 31, issue 4, 499-518

Abstract: This article questions whether the 1973 Helmand/Hirmand water treaty between Afghanistan and Iran is an appropriate institutional tool for sustainable water resources management in the context of transboundary water resources development. It shows that by failing to fulfil the most basic requisites for integrated water resources management and river basin management, the treaty does not ensure the integrity of the downstream agro-ecological system in the Sistan Delta. As a result, the 1973 treaty may not be the most relevant water regime for helping to balance legitimate development in upstream Afghanistan while also limiting harms to downstream Iran.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/07900627.2014.1003346 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:cijwxx:v:31:y:2015:i:4:p:499-518

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/cijw20

DOI: 10.1080/07900627.2014.1003346

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Water Resources Development is currently edited by Cecilia Tortajada

More articles in International Journal of Water Resources Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().