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14 Global Governance 419 (2008)
Governance and the Global Water System: A Theoretical Exploration

handle is hein.journals/glogo14 and id is 427 raw text is: Global Governance 14 (2008), 419-435 Governance and the Global Water System: A Theoretical Exploration Claudia PahI-Wostl, Joyeeta Gupta, and Daniel Petry Public policy on water has long been approached in the context of a local- ity, a country, or a river basin. However, scientific evidence now provides compelling arguments for adopting a global perspective on water man- agement. This article argues that water governance today needs a multi- level design, including a significant global dimension. The discussion defines global water governance, highlights the implications for multilevel governance, and examines global water governance through the lens of governance typologies. The analysis along the categories of globaliza- tion/regionalization, centralization/decentralization, formality/informality, and state/nonstate actors and processes reveals that current global water governance is a fragmented, mobius-web arrangement. The article con- cludes by considering possible future trajectories of global water gover- nance. KEYWORDS: global water governance and institutions, multilevel governance, global environmental change. W ater governance can be traced back more than 5,000 years. How- ever, it was only in 1982 and 1997, respectively, that global water agreements like the UN conventions on the seas and water- courses were adopted.' Only recently has water become prominent on the global political agenda-for example, with the Mar del Plata conference of 1977, the Dublin conference on water in 1992, the water chapter in Agenda 21 adopted in 1992, the four World Water Forums since 1997, and the Mil- lennium Declaration of 2000. Likewise, scientific work on water has only recently been globalized-for example, with the Global Water System Pro- ject of the Earth System Science Partnership and the UN-wide World Water Assessment Programme. Growing political interest in water research and governance raises the questions: What are the appropriate levels at which research and policy on water governance should be undertaken; and which issues should be addressed at which levels? In this article, we argue that there are different levels at which water scholars and policymakers advocate governance, but the global perspective on water governance needs to be given more importance. We present a con- ceptual framework for analyzing governance and conclude that present global water governance (GWG) is a mobius-web form of governance. Regarding the future of GWG, we identify four possible trends in line with scenarios

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