Datasets:

jilp00

/

youtoks-water-diplomacy-transcripts

like 0

Thank you, everybody. I'm going to talk today about the Confederated Salish Kootenai tribe, which are referred to a CSKT tribes, compact with the state of Montana, to which the US government is also party. This compact kind of evolved over the course of a couple of a few decades and actually just started to be implemented this year. So we'll talk about how they got there. Just to start, this is Montana. These is the various water basins in the state of Montana. This little area on the corner here is the Flatland Reservation. So it's actually a fairly large chunk of land. The water rights that we're talking about today really cover the entire region of Northwest Montana, mostly west of the Continental Divide, but there are some rights that were affected by the treaty that actually on the east side of Continental Divide. So we're going to talk about the history, the kind of way that these water rights came about, some of the context on the negotiations, talk a little bit about the negotiation topics, then where they ended up. And even as I go through the history, I hope to explain, because some of the disputed rights, kind of a lot of the questions go back to the origins of those rights. I hope to kind to kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kind kindthe historical context so that it's and also kind of begin to shed light on kind of the present status of them and and how they came up with the negotiations based on that context. So to quickly look a little bit at the history, the Treaty of Hellgate

which is the treaty that created the Flathead Reservation in North West Montana, it's about a million and a quarter acres, was signed on 1855 by representatives of the US as well as the tribes that were party to the treaty. The treaty gave them the rights to that land, but it also included an unusual line which has become very important that was not included in any of the other treaties that the US government negotiated with the state of Montana. This line is from Article 3, the exclusive right of taking fish and all the streams running through or bordering said reservation is further secure to set Indians, as also the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places in common with citizens of the territory. So this provision maintained that the tribes had the rights to use water that passed through some of the lands that they conceded, the part that says the right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed places. This is the basis of what I've become to be known as the tribes off-reservation water rights. And we'll talk about what those are and how those became contentious. As was often the case with treaties of Native tribes, the US government violated the spirit and the letter of the Hellgate Treaty within a number of decades. The kind of general history that pertains to a lot of the, you know, all the Native American tribes is in 1887 the Dahls Act was passed with subdivided Native reservations into individual allotments and open reservations to settlements by whites. In particular, the Flathead Reservation

this kind of accelerated after the Flathead Allotment Act of 1904, provided for the distribution and irrigation, actually, you know, actually a few different sizes of allotments, but predominantly a hundred and six acre a lotments, Indian households. And then the rest of those of the acres that weren't given out were considered surplus. And those surplus acres were available to to non-travel members. And so today, actually, most flatland reservation residents are not tribal members. And there are many, both public and private non-travel water uses, including municipal uses. For example, Pulse and Montana, which is the county seat of Lake County, which is one of four counties in the, that enters into the Flathead Reservation. Pulse, Montana is the sea county of Lake Montana and it's the largest town of the Flathead Reservation. So I think it's just important to recognize the complexity of the land use. The Flathead Indian Irrigation Project was a federally funded irrigation system that was developed over the course of the first half century, mostly in the 20s and 30s. And it's really a really extensive network of irrigable acres, canals, laterals, distribution systems, pumping stations, storage reservoirs, that provides irrigation to all the land that was described on the past slide, both native uses, native users, and municipal and non-native users, particularly agricultural users on the reservation who are not members of the tribe. So that's what you need to know about that. Oh yeah

and it's important to know that CSKT operates a large portion of FIIP of the Platin Indian Irrigation Project. It has since the 80s. So water rights. Like many western states, Montana adopted a first in time first and right doctrine of fire appropriation. And until 1973, most rights in the state were use rights, which means they were exercised when someone basically took water for beneficial use. Most of the time, they never filed those rights with the county or the state. So many rights have no paper record, you know, rights often span multiple counties and they were, and they'd be competing claims to the same quantity of water. I mean, this became increasingly complex because rights were also checked in county courthouses. So even if a right was filed, we had to go to every county courthouse to figure out, you know, if there were competing rights. So in 1972, when Montana adopted a new state constitution recognizing existing water rights, it also called upon the state legislature to, quote, establish a system of centralized records for water rights. And that's the origin of the dispute, is the status of the Indian Rights in the centralized record. In 1973, the Water, Montana passed the Water Use Act

which mandated that the Department of Natural Resources Conservation permit new claims and manage a record of water rights. And it established a system of adjudicating pre-1973 claims. This means that all new claims had to be filed with the Department of Natural Resources to Conservation. And it began to create a bureaucratic structure for looking at all claims filed prior existing, even if they were filed prior to 1973. In 79, the Senate Bill 76 established the Montana Water Court, which was set up initially on a 15 15 year term limit, although it's still around now 50 years later, and they're hoping to have all their work done. I believe the most recent estimate I saw was by 2028, but even that is, you know, questionable. And to establish the Water Court to adjudicate all priest 1973 claims. However, while this legislation was under consideration, both the US Department of the Interior and the tribes expressed opposition to having their water rights adjudicated by a state court because they argued that these water rights, the both the federal water rights pertaining to federal lands, whether the national parks or Bureau of Land Management lands, and also the native water rights, which were held and trust by the US government, say that they argue that they were not subject to state courts. And many in Montana's agricultural community also opposed the use of water courts to determine native rights because ranchers and others, both on the reservation

off the reservation feared that extensive tribal claims were supersede their historical rights because of the first and time doctrine. In response, the legislator amended the draft legislation and established the Montana Reserve Water Rights Compact Commission, which negotiates on the state's behalf. The commission was also initially authorized for a limited term, but that term has been was extended and extended and we'll talk about where it ended up. There are just, there are two kinds of travel rights that pertain. There are federally reserved rights that were set aside by the federal government for use by the native tribe. And these have a priority date that's equivalent to the date of the reservation's creation. So in the Flathead Reservation, it's 1855. And they're governed by what's called the Winters Doctrine, which refers to the Supreme Court doctrine that said that when the US set aside land for Indian Reservation, it implicitly reserved adequate water for the tribes to fulfill their livelihoods. And so this is the on reservation rights that we're talking about that are federally reserved. The Aboriginal rights are rights that predate a reservation and are explicitly recognized in the two years statute to create the reservation. And these rights have a different priority date of time immemorial. And time memorial means, I thought that was an interesting term, you know, time extended, what it means is time extended beyond the reach of memory, record or tradition, and definitely ancient

ancient beyond memory or record. So these are the off-reservation rights that were subject to that kind of the provision in the original treaty that I mentioned. And two things to note about this. The Aboriginal rights, you know, almost by definition because of the time and memorial claim, by definition, have an earlier priority date than the, than all other claims in all other water rights in Montana because of the tiny memorial date. And something similar is actually occurred, although it's been more disputed with the federally reserved rights. Given that the tribe, the Flathead Reservation was not open to homesteading by by not travel members until 1909. The tribe has argued that on-reservation rights are necessarily superior or senior, sorry, to all other on-reservation rights, regardless of whether they're aboriginal or reserved. But this fact, which has come to be accepted, was not accepted at the time by many non-travel residents of the reservation, especially ranchers and other kind of large irrigators, as well as a number of municipal governments and republic and state legislators who argued that this somehow constituted an unconstitutional takings, taking under the US Constitution under the Montana Constitution. It's not worth getting into it

but just to say that there wasn't agreement at the beginning that was the fact. Legislation that I just discussed set up the Montana State Compact Commission. And the Compact Commission is a nine-member commission appointed to four-year terms kind of in this makeup. And it created this really complex process for getting an agreement negotiated. First, the negotiations and then the full commission wants to read upon how to vote upon the negotiations. Then it had to go to the Montana State legislature who had to ratify it. Then the tribal compact, so on the left hand column now, then had to go to the Montana State Legislature who had to ratify it. Then the tribal compact, so on the left hand column now, then had to go to the US Congress. In Congress, both the Senate and the House had to ratify it. The president had to sign it. The tribe then had to vote to approve it. And it then needs a kind of pro forma approval by the Montana Water Court who issues the final decree entering the rights agreed upon into the system that the state now manages according to the 1973 Constitution. So it needs that there's a huge number of parties who have to sign on to this. And at every step of the way

there have been roadblocks and issues and renegotiations as a result of the complexity of this process and just how many parties were apart. So there are a couple of other contextual things that I want to bring up because I think they're important to kind of understanding the contentiousness of the conversations around the compact. Three court cases that I'm not try to pronounce it, Choti, one, two, and three I guess. There were three court cases cases that were far between 1996 and 2003 and argued before the Supreme Court. And actually, the last one was only, yeah, only found kind of during the actual negotiations. I was on the Supreme Court made its ruling. And it recognized the distinction between state appropriate water rights and reserve water rights. And the ruling was that new and amended water use permits on the reservation had to show that their proposed uses would not quote unreasonably interfere with a planned use for which water has already been reserved. And what the Supreme Court said again and again, as this case was re-fought in different forms, only the first one was actually called Jody, as it was fought in different forms, what they argued was that because the state and because private non-tribal water users couldn't show proof that their claims were not unreasonably interfering with a planned use, then that burden could not be met. And so a new water use permit could not be issued. And so this decision had a few significant impacts. It gave the tribes, the CSKT

the CSKT, a significant amount of bargaining power because municipalities and non-Indian reservations on the flat-hand reservation couldn't apply to the state for new or amended beneficial use permits so long as the tribe's reserved rights remained unquantified. And the potential negative impact of the state on the state of having to litigate each of the claims separately, each of the travel claims separately was ramified. It's also important to note because that non-Indian permit holders were frightened of not receiving sufficient water for their own use years or losing their water rights altogether because of the possibility of the tribes having reserved claims. And this generated political panic among non-Indian municipal and county politicians and amongst other irrigators in the region. In 1982, the tribes and coordination, or anticipation and negotiations with the compact mission, collaborated with the US theological survey on an extensive drainage by drainage measurement program of groundwater, surface water, stream flow, river flow, minimum fill levels of different bodies of water. And so by the time the negotiation started in 2000

the US government and the trials were in possession of an unprecedented amount of data about the water that was up for review. I got to interview a long-time travel attorney who started his career in the early 80s and retired last year. So his choice career was bookended basically by this negotiation. What he said was that fact-finding was a process of sharing data with the state to bring the state up to speed. And it's something that I think was interesting about the negotiations is that opposition, especially from legislators over the course of negotiations, was often ignorance because the, just the knowledge was so one-sided at the start of negotiations. Finally, it's important to note that the alternative to negotiations loomed over the negotiations. The tribes of the state, if they did not agree to a compact, the two sides would be forced to litigate each claim separately in the water court. That would have been very costly and taken many years. And it was valid fears on the part of the non-tribal water users that they would be at risk of losing their state-appropriated water rights because the tribes earlier priority dates. Even the tribes recognized that having to litigate their claims would be costly and burdensome. And just to give you a sense, these are just the off-reservation claims that you see here. The left are 97 rights that, of 2018 it changed a little bit after that. As of 2018

the tribe was going to rate was going to maintain off reservation. And these are the rights that the tribe that the state thought the tribe had the ability to adjudicate if they didn't have a compact. And so the tribe, if a compact wasn't reached, the tribe could have gone to court and litigated upwards of 10,000 different water claims across Western Montana. And as a result, there was a lot of incentive for the state to come to a settlement that both quantified the tribe's rights and also protected the junior rights of non-tribal water users so that this, so that this, you know, didn't occur and there wasn't decades of litigation over these rights. So in terms of kind of negotiation topics that the barred discussed, there were on reservation rights pertaining to the irrigation project on reservation rights pertaining to the irrigation deliveries. So this is water from the irrigation project that has historically been used by non-tribal water users. And so their right to continue to receive that water. There was water from the Flathead System, meaning the Flathead River, its tributaries, and the Flathead Lake. And there were a were a number of non-consumptive rights. Off-reservation, there were in-stream flow rights, as well as state law-based non-irrigation rights, which I'll talk about a little more later. Actually, one thing that I didn't put here is the other thing that was obviously a part of this was off-reservation rights claimed by non-travel users, which is most, you know, most rights

off-reservation rights that were at risk as a result of this were by non-travel users. And somehow I didn't put that on here. And then there was implementation. And so these were the discussions. I'm going to put a kind of calendar in front of you, and I don't need you to read through all of it. This is what first of two pages, because I really want to call your attention to a couple of things. So the first thing is a start date. The first negotiation sessions occurred in 2000. But in 2001, the state issued, and this is after all three of the, you know, Chioti 1 and 2 were done and the Chioti 3 was currently before the Supreme Court, and despite that, the state issued yet another on reservation permit during negotiations, despite multiple rulings by the Supreme Court. And I think it's important just because it chose to accept the level of distrust and also the level of skepticism that the tribe had about the state's ability to, in willingness to negotiate forthrightly. I think it's also important that the facilitator who was bought in 2011, Edward Sheets, I was told that I've been trying to get in toucest with him and I haven't been able to, but I was told that relatively little had been decided for the time he began working on the negotiations and he brought order to the negotiations and served as an unbiased party with which both sides could discuss. And I think the impact of him as a neutral party is really important. I think also just the number of years that passed between 2002 and 2005

the two sides turned their attention entirely to negotiate an interim agreement once they realize the long overtake to come to a final agreement. And then because of a number of, for a number of political reasons, they abandoned the interim agreement. When the compact failed in the state legislature in 2013, because that's what occurred, the first compact was agreed , it went to the state legislature, it failed. And much of the opposition at the time was Republican representatives expressing concern that the compact didn't sufficiently protect non-travel water uses. And some of it was legitimate concern, though some of it appears to have been political grandstanding. Then the state and the tribes agreed to a limited reopening. Two years later, when the legislature meets again, they pass it. And then it went to the US Congress, where it sat for five years in different forms with slight amendments occurring all over the place until finally it passed as a part of the COVID-19 stimulus bill in December. And just days after that, the tribe council passed it and now it's awaiting a bureaucratic review that is expected to be simple, routine. I was told by John Carter, the former staff attorney for the tribes, that one thing that helped the revised agreement passed two years later was extensive dialogue with a couple of key Republicans who were willing to learn more about the agreement, but whose opposition in 2013 faded by 2015 once they understood the big thing better. So that's I think something that I will return to at the end

but just the importance of that of understanding. So this is where they ended up. On reservation rights were protected in a number of ways. The tribes agreed to with 211 total on reservation rights. Really detailed, I didn't get into the detail here in terms of how it's apportioned, where it comes from, where it goes with a priority of 1855. They then agreed to relinquish the right to call all other on-reservation rights. The state agreed to give the tribe's ownership of the, or to the US ownership and trust of the tribe of the irrigation project, provided that the tribe continue to deliver a certain quantity of water to non-tribal water users, non-tribal irrigators who have historically used the irrigation project. And that was a really contentious part of the agreement because the number of non-travel users wanted the state to pertain ownership. Then there were a number of non-consumptive rights. Yeah, so one quote, I'll skip a little bit, but one quote I want to say, this is a quote from a big timber, a rancher named Lawrence Grosefield, who formed a group to help support the 2015 version of the compact, the revised version of the compact. She gave this in 2015, and she said there, oh, he gave this, I'm Lawrence. There wasn't much in the way two years ago of an educational effort for the press or legislatures or anybody were going to be out and visible and just trying to spread accurate information about the compact and the whole process and that two years later after the first failed

that that educational process was really important. Off-reservation, the tribes retained eight off-reservation in-stream flow rights, as well as 58 additional rights to be co-owned by the state and the tribes with very detailed parameters. The tribes agreed to relinquish 97% many thousands of claims protecting then non-travel users across Western Montana. And that was hugely important. I want to point out one thing which is that the map I showed you earlier of the off-reservation claims, it said on the map that there were 97 off-reservation rights in 2018 that the tribe were getting. But by the time the actual agreement was passed by the US Congress, that number had dropped to 58. And that occurred because Senator Danes in Montana, basically with the tribes, negotiated slight changes in order to get other senators on board, other U.S. senators on board. So it's interesting that even once the agreement had passed, you know, was agreed to by the two sides, even once the state legislature had agreed to it. Four years later, when it was with the U.S. Congress, they were continuing to negotiate over minor points so that they could get this thing passed once and for all and quantify the tribe's rights. Implementation. The tribes, at the very beginning, the tribes wanted a unitary system that they controlled on reservation. Over time

they came to an agreement for a unitary system that was jointly controlled. And this was unprecedented for the state and who had never given up some management to one of the tribes in the state and also was a significant concession by the tribes. This joint board is currently being set up with help from a state commission. And the state agreed also to give $50 million to a number of water measurement and irrigation efforts. The unitary system is something that a lot of the, also again, the non-traveling irrigators were very upset about because they felt that they would lose the ability to negotiate rights that they but they felt they didn't should not have to go to the tribe for I'll leave it at that for now. A couple conclusions that I want to bring up. One is that divergent knowledge is an impediment early on negotiations that water measurement should be undertaken or jointly observed. I think it's really interesting that one of the major impediments in the first years was simply the fact that the state didn't have anything close to the level of understanding of the existing water on the reservation that the tribes had and that the US government had. Second that impartial facilitators are essential and should be utilized even before negotiations begin. That the first decade, you know, it wasn't wasted a lot, some of the stuff was decided upon, but by the accounts when Edward Sheets was brought on, things moved forward much more smoothly in a really ordered fashion and with a lot less chest beating. And third

so when politics are bound to get in the way of an agreement's approval, it's better to include skeptical parties than to build wall about negotiators. I mean, this is a personal thing. I think that certain state representatives and senators as well as some major irrigators might have been, if they have been educated on the negotiations prior to the documents, public release, it's possible. I don't know know this is for certain, but it's possible that some of their resistance could have been mitigated. And then again, adaptive, which we've talked about before this class, adaptive governance necessitates shared control. Finally, I didn't know what to do with this. It's one question I've been graphing with the past days is I've been editing my doc by like my written report which is what should we basically what should we make of the fact that even after the CSKT after the tribes had negotiated with everybody in good faith they had to give up additional rights in order to get it passed by a US Congress is there another system given the complexity of process, another system that could have been set up to help create a process that wouldn't have required as much legal approval? Or is that simply a fact of history and we need to accept it? And I'm just, the question I'm interested. And with that, I will open it up for comments and questions and I know those a lot. So thank you all. Thank you. Um, Aaron for the nice presentation. So now I would like to ask us nine to make comments and feedback. Very well done, Erin

Erin, with your presentation. You really picked a very complicated case study because it involves a lot of stakeholders. So as it involves a lot of stakeholders, so my first question would be, how do you think that all stakeholders came into one page? And why do you think, why do you think this treaty, this this treaty took so much time to, you know, finally conclude? Because it involved a lot of litigation. What was the things which were not going in the right direction before? And what was the thing which happened this time to make it in the right direction? In terms of why it took so long, there are a couple of things. When the Water Commission was created, when the Compact Commission was created in the late 70s, you know, they had about about a little over a dozen thing, you know, agreements to negotiate with the federal government and with the state's tribes. And they decided they purposefully did all of the others and then did and then did the Flathead Reservation one because the latter one was the most complicated. And I think that actually, that actually wasn't a good thing. I think that there was a lot of a lot of study and animosity and kind of divergence that that occurred in those in those intervening decades. In part, I think because the tribes saw what was coming out of these other agreements and immediately began formulating alternate things, alternate ideas because they didn't like what the other agreements were saying. And so a lot more could have been done, a lot more could have been earlier, I think

I think, if discussions started in the early 80s for example or the mid 80s. I think the other things that that impeded the timeline. First is that because partially because of that the tribes came into the negotiations with a lot of preconceived notions about what the kind of what the final agreement should look like. And there were a lot of news reports, for example, after their first, after their first formal negotiation session of all of these things that the tribes said that they wanted the final agreement that the states immediately threw up their hands and said absolutely not. And negotiations actually shut down for a year at that point. And so if those conversations could have started in the 80s when the tribes were beginning their process of studying the water quantity, the water quality, and if that, you know, the questions regarding the implementation could have been ongoing, I think a lot of a lot of anger and, you know, could have been mitigated. So a part of it was, was just, uh, there was so much, there was so much confrontation going into the agreement and very little trust. And so you, and, and the other thing I think that I think the second thing I want to say is that I think that the role of the negotiator was really important. Without the negotiator, a lot of, you know, a lot of the opportunity for building trust didn't occur. And it became, you know, they became venting sessions

the negotiations. And it wasn't always a productive thing. So that's the question in terms of what went while it took so long. I think a negotiator helped a lot. And then I think eventually having, I mean, and this is where I think the water diplomacy framework does come to bear significantly, which is that I think once, once the two sides did have a shared understanding of the quantity of water in all the different locations and of the various, you know, various legal arguments and of the potential uses. Once there was that shared understanding, it was a lot easier to come to agreements because they understood from what, you know, point they were, they were compromising from. Whereas the tribes went into it with a lot more understanding and and would put up a very hard wall to begin with. And so having that shared understanding was was really important. Sorry, I think I've been able to do a little bit there, but I hope I got to your questions. So yes. I do have further specific questions. Yeah, one more. Yeah, yeah, it is related to the water diplomacy win-win framework. How do you think both parties agreed on this on a win-win side, for example, I read somewhere on the on I was doing some research on your yesterday and I said I read that the tribes were allocated the national bison range which I think somehow was an attractive thing for them for agreeing into this pretty. There's a secondary note with this question is, you mentioned in one of your slides that the number of non-tribes is kind of more than the actual tribal area

tribal people. So given the, I just want to understand from you what is a percentage of tribal people there and non-priva people and how do you think that that balances or evens out the whole treaty and things in the Montana region? So, so just to clarify, the national bison range is on the Flathead Reservation. So the tribes were given the kind of the management, rights over the management of that range. But it was already on the reservation. It wasn't, it wasn't something off reservation that they were fighting over. It was on reservation land that was, you know, under the legal authority of the tribes but managed and trust by the federal government until until this occurred. In terms of the sorry, what was your question about your question about the kind of the numbers of non-tribal members? Yeah, I wanted to know that in this whole Montana region, which we're just with, in which the treaty is enforced, what is a percentage of the tribal people are there and the non-tribal people? Like how much benefit aren't they going to get the non-tribal people? So I can't remember the population of the tribe I don't remember right now. I believe it's about 8,000 and about 60% of the members live on the reservation so I believe it's it's I don't know the tribal members maybe it's about 8,000 and about 60% of the members live on the reservation. So I believe it's, I don't know, the travel members, maybe it's 5,000. I can't remember exactly right now how many travel members live on the reservation. It's a few times that in non-travel members. It's not

I'm not sure the exact numbers again, not travel members of all the reservation, but it's a few times that the town of Polson, which is the biggest town on the reservation, has a population of about three and a half thousand, and there are many other small towns. So those, they were, those rights, the tribes were given a, you know, this agreement quantified, just to clarify, if anybody didn't make this clear before, this agreement quantified the tribe's rights on the reservation. But then there's still other water. So that other water then, because the tribe rights are quantified, can now be claimed by non-tribal users on the reservation. But that makes sense. With regards to the irrigation project, the irrigation project included a number of delivery schedules, and those delivery schedules were specifically to provide water to non-tribal irrigators who have historically used that water. And there was a lot of disagreement about that. Those irrigators, many of them argued that the amount of water they were being allocated was insufficient and they were going to have to move their lands. And the state of Montana agreed to actually support them by helping to invest and kind of, you know, drip agriculture and other things. But it will protect it over the long term their rights, the non-travel rights on the reservation, but the one limitation is that the travel rights, which are quantified now have priority. I took his name question to refer to proportionality. If you look at the overall benefits that are allocated to the federal government

the state government, the tribe and non-tribal members living on the reservation, as the final agreement reflect some kind of proportionality, equal proportion of gain, however measured, did everybody come out roughly the same relative to the gains that they got, not in terms of how many people, but just in terms of these different categories. Yeah that's a good question. I think in terms of number of people I really I don't know in terms of the categories the non irrigators on the reservation yes so not So non irrigators, meaning not the irrigation project users, not the non irrigators definitely did. The municipalities were portion are going to have sufficient water to grow. You know, homeowners and developers can build again for both reservation and non-reservation, not traveling, not travel members. There's a significant amount of enough water and now enough legal clarity that that was a gain in itself. The group, you know, off reservation as well, I think that a lot of the, off reservation, definitely the non-tribal members, not the of the citizens of the state gained a lot because the tribe of band, you know, gave up a lot of their claims. The one area where I think there's still disagreement on and I don't have a, I think that it's still very controversial and it will be throughout implementation is on reservation irrigators. I think our one group that's that still a number of whom still feel like they did not have sufficient, they did not gain sufficient protection by, as a result of the negotiations. Good

that's a good answer. Thank you. Yeah. Cassiana, do you have any feedback or go send to Arrows. I'll be very quickly. First, Aaron, congratulations for your case. Very well, very well done. Very well. It's a complex case study. I just want to highlight some points here. I appreciate the historic context that you gave from 1855 until 2000. Also, I learned, I like to learn a lot about the first in time, first in right that you mentioned before the 1973. And you mentioned that the facilitator arrived in the negotiation only in 2011. But even with the facilitator, it took like nine years to reach the agreement. So to clarify, it took, it actually took, so the facility arrived in 2011, they reached their first agreement in 2013. So that was when they reached the agreement. Then as a result, the result of the state legislature voting it down, they renegotiated the agreements for 20 in 2015. And at that point, and that point it was just sitting in Congress. So the facility, so they weren't negotiated anymore. There were some minor things that were changed, but and the facilitator is actually still involved, but what it actually only took two years with him to reach that agreement. Oh, two years, oh great. Got it. Yeah. Aaron, you don't have to do here because I know Jemma has to present the Columbia presentation. But if you can describe more in your paper, the negotiation process with the compact commission

I like a lot that's the slide you put over there with the nine members. And if you can compare with the water managed board that's only have five members, right? Yeah. Six members on, but only five can vote. It's still only I really appreciate. Congratulations. Thank you. I am. Trying to understand the negotiation process has been really tricky. I like I've heard I've read and I've heard that there are that there are transcripts of the negotiations out there. But I've actually called I've called around I've called like the DNRC and a number of other people who are partying them and I've emailed people who mentioned that who have cited them and I can't find them. I have a number I have a lot of the I have a lot of the, I have a lot of the, what's it called, the topic lists, the topic lists, but not the, but not the transcripts themselves, which is disappointment. So any, any other question or comments from Flora or Jima? Okay. Thank you all. I appreciate your feedback. Yes, so maybe before Larry, I would like to ask one thing. So how does national politics played a role? Because I learned that the comparison, the state legislator, specifically the Republican legislator is not in favor of this autorright issue and and there are some issue between within the Republican and there are some issue within the Republican and there are some conflicts. So how does it play role in the negotiation process in this treaty? I defy anybody to explain that. Anybody. I don't care who they are. Because there's what the system is designed to do

and there's what the system, a political system, actually does. And what it actually does is a function of who has the majority and who's in leadership in the executive branch. And it doesn't matter what it says on paper about what is a state's right, what is a national government's right, what is executive, what is legislative, doesn't matter. It all changes every time there's a shift in power and relationships. So there is no way to answer the question about what is this crazy intergovernmental system we have supposed to do relative to Indian rights because you then also have the court entering. We have these three branches and the Supreme Court got involved in this case at one stage, as you heard from from Aaron, and you have state legislature and you have the federal government legislate, the Congress, but you also have the agencies, and the agencies have responsibilities for the tribes, the Interior Department. It is an insanely complicated system, and it's very hard to know what's going on, even when it's happening, because it's not transparent. And people make all kinds of private deals. And other issues get traded off against the issue you're interested in. And you don't even know that that's why somebody voted a certain way. They didn't care about the issue, but they got something from somebody else for something else. So unraveling all that, I mean, I think Aaron did a wonderful job as best you can do of at least getting a timeline and looking at the outcomes. But the process, I mean, even with the transcript

it's indeciferable. And everything related to Native Americans in the United States doesn't go the way the law says it's supposed to. Every treaty has been broken, continues to be broken. Every promise, everything that the US government promised and committed to, none of it's been upheld. And so yeah, I can point to what the system says. And somebody can hold up a treaty and say, look, here, I'm guaranteed certain rights. Yeah, well, try to get it enforced. So it's the complexity of the US intergovernmental system and the extent to which it's really not transparent what's happening, make it impossible to answer your question. Thanks. So maybe for the final paper I would like to ask, because this is one of the treaty that is successful recently in terms of order treaty. So maybe you can share very specific lesson learned from the negotiation process. I think that would be much more helpful in terms of what are diplomacy aspect. I think as this is very new kind of treaty that is successful and how the process works and what are the general lesson learned. I think that would be much more interesting things. I really like the four concluding points that you had. I think those were very strong. And as long as in the text, you will give you elaborate on them slightly. But as four concluding points, in terms of what can be learned from this case, I think they're terrific. Yeah. Thank you.

Today I am going to be giving you a full run-through of the Singapore-Malaysia water conflict. This is something I knew nothing about before the class, but I've really enjoyed learning more about during this process and applying things we've learned in the class this semester. So please ask questions if things are not clear. I can't promise I have an answer but I'm excited to share what I've learned. Okay so these are the things I'm gonna run through today. Basically give you an overview of the case, then dive into the water resources for both areas and the key stakeholders, as well as a brief overview of the agreements, and then try to spend the bulk of the presentation talking about the water diplomacy framework and how I see room for improvement. So this is a map of the region just in case you're not familiar with this part of Southeast Asia. So Malaysia is much larger than Singapore and for this case we're only considering Peninsula Malaysia which is on the left and specifically Joe for which is the state that is most southern most and it's hard to tell from this perspective but Singapore and Malaysia are separated by a small water body called the Joe horse straight and connecting the two countries physically is the Joe or causeway or more commonly known as just the causeway. So a summary of this case can be summed up in these couple of bullet points. So current water agreements regulate the importation of raw water from Johore, to Singapore

and importation of treated water from Singapore to Johor. So this map shows a simple overview of the Johor River basin, and you can see the prominent Johor River in the Lingyu Reservoir, and then the dotted line represents the series of pipes that cross the Johor Strait. There is also complex river networks that offshoot from the main river, as well as you can see the Joe Horr river barrage, which is something I'll talk about a little bit more. That was a joint project to improve the water supply. There have been four main agreements signed between the two parties and the last agreements will expire in 2061. That's a number that early year that's going to come up a lot. And despite ongoing negotiation since 1990, they've still failed to reach another agreement. Singapore is classified as water stressed and relies on water from Joe or to currently meet 40% of its water to extremely significant and they're unable to meet their demand without this imported water. And a blossoming issue is the fact that Joe or has increasing issues with meeting its own water demand due to a combination of increased pollution as well as trouts. So to talk about Malaysian water resources, Malaysia is fortunate to have very abundant water resources, despite being so close to Singapore has quite a different landscape. It's covered in rainforests and experiences heavy rainfall almost all year. Some Malaysian states do suffer from chronic water shortages while others are experiencing surpluses. So how is that possible? Before 1992

state governments had almost complete control over surface water resources. So I guess there's, you can, so as a result, there's been a lot of issues of water management between the state government and the federal government, which has tried to become more involved as more issues arise kind of across the states that are common and related to water resources. Climate change and droughts put Malaysia at an increasing risk of becoming water stressed in the next 50 years, according to research done by institutions such as the World Resources Institute. I use their like water risk Atlas a lot to help shape like my projections for this case and I think it's really important to note that currently Malaysia and specifically Joe or has a lot of water and could manage it more efficiently to meet its needs but it's possible even managed efficiently they won't be able to do so in the future. And I think kind of the biggest point here is that Malaysia does not manage its water resources effectively currently, which is a big reason driving why they're unable to meet their water demand. This includes insufficient infrastructure to collect rainfall, extreme water pollution due to unregulated practices of mining, logging, land development and sewage disposal. They have almost no water conservation efforts. They're hesitant to invest in alternative water resources, so things like desalination or wastewater reuse. And still, despite all of these things

they have agreements in place to export water to both Singapore and Malacca. So the image here on the upper right is from part of a river and Joe for, and it was taken many years ago, so it's actually much harder to find natural river or like water resources that don't more resemble that bottom image where there's just a lot of pollution buildup and very poor water quality. So Singapore water resources is quite the different story. The main issue that Singapore faces is that it doesn't have enough natural water supply to support their growing population and economy. And since 1965, when Singapore and Malaysia separated from their brief union quite acrimoniously. Singapore has made a very extreme effort to implement a three-pronged strategy to decrease their water vulnerability and water dependence, especially from Malaysia by 2061 when their current agreements are going to expire. So this three-pronged approach first focused on optimizing their domestic water supply by building dams and reservoirs. They have built a total of 11 reservoirs in addition to three that existed before 1965. These reservoirs cover about half of Singapore's total land area. You can see in this image in the upper right, kind of a glimpse of where the reservoirs are. It's hard to tell, but there's small colorful dots. This is from 2014, but these are all the projects that are started or finished, having to do with water catchment. So actually, after 1986, there is almost no opportunities to increase their water catchment

just due to restrictions and land area. So they then turned to the second two prongs of their strategy, which includes securing alternative water supplies through seawater desalination, wastewater reuse, which they're one of the most advanced systems in the world. They have a reclaimed water program called new water, and negotiating a new agreement with Indonesia for imported water. I'm really not going to focus on that third one because they haven't reached an agreement yet, but the other two are part of their, have currently already started to be implemented and hope to increase in the future. And the final prong of their approach is to improve water conservation. So they also went at this quite aggressively. They added regulations as well as monetary incentives for individuals as well as businesses. They've made investments in new water conservation technology as well as improving existing infrastructure to decrease the amount of water lost to leaks. And then they also launched a large budget education campaign. So it was very successful already. Singapore is experiencing a 0.2% decrease in water consumption per year despite continued population and economic growth. So very impressive. Most parts of the world, especially with developing economies are increasing water consumption per capita. So pretty interesting. And then here, this is a slightly outdated infographic published by Singapore's public utilities board, also known as PUB

which shows Singapore's plan for decreasing their reliance on imported water and increasing their reliance on reclaimed water from wastewater, which is the new water campaign, which currently supplies 30% of their water demand, but they have ambitious plans to be relying on it for about up to 55% by 2060. And then seawater desalination is currently 10% of their water demand, but they hope to be up to 30% by 2060. So again, they're really, I think the domestic water supply is about 20% and won't really change. So they're hoping that if they are successful in this three-pronged approach, they wouldn't be reliant on Malaysia. But as I mentioned at the beginning, currently, they're still 40% reliant on water from Malaysia, and it seems pretty unlikely that they'll be 100% independent in just like 40 years. So next I want to talk about the key stakeholders in the water negotiations. So I'm not very familiar with the governmental structure of Singapore and Malaysia. So based on my research about the water conflict, I'm going to show you the stakeholders that stood out. In my paper, I mentioned more about how media had a unique role in the water conflict. Basically, news about water negotiations and agreements were widely covered in the local newspapers in both Singapore and Malaysia

where the newspapers were not only publishing factual news coverage. There is also like increasingly negative partisan editorials and letters that were shared. So this combined with the lack of transparency from both governments went so far as like one point the governments were just communicating with each other through the newspapers. So like one government official in Singapore read a Malaysian newspaper with a public statement from a Malaysian official that had not been talked about officially behind closed doors. So then they had to release a different statement to their local newspapers and on and on. So it is quite complex and something that I didn't want to muddle this idea, but it meant that there's a lot of stakeholders with opinions about the negotiations that are not at the table. So people are groups like representing ecology, as well as competing minority political groups in both territories. So here we're going to talk about the Malaysian key stakeholders, which are stakeholders from both the federal and state governments. So much of Malaysia's water management happens at the state level. However, Malaysia's political relationship with Singapore inherently involves federal stakeholders. So that would be people like the prime ministers. Later I'll mention that a change in Malaysian leadership will improve negotiations. So that's due to Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed, whose picture is I placed on the right

because he was a driving force preventing further water agreements from being reached during his like position as prime minister and unfortunately for water diplomacy he governed two times separately and basically has a very primary focus on water pricing and wanting to increase water prices for Singapore and unfortunately like a focus on competitive pricing is just not conducive to progress. So anyway, the National Water Council and the National Water Resources Council were created in the 1990s to improve water management specifically between the state and federal levels. But I would say overall Malaysia's water management is still relatively disorganized and ultimately ineffective. And that's just a challenge that will need to be addressed. And then finally, the Baccage is a Malaysian counterpart of the PUB, which is the Singapore Public Utilities Board that runs their water management. So currently, Baccage and PUB have monthly meetings to discuss water topics. Quickly to go over the Singaporean key stakeholders, as I've mentioned several times now, their management is led by the PUB, which was founded in 1963 and as part of the Ministry of Sustainability and Environment in Singapore. Publicly, the Singaporean Prime Ministers and more recently, the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Minister Vivian has been quite involved in the diplomatic relations with Malaysia and they're the ones who would be responsible for signing any official agreements between Malaysia and Singapore. So in my paper I have like a pretty in-depth description of the terms of all four water agreements between Singapore and Malaysia, but for the sake of time, I'm going to highlight the main points that you need to understand. So starting in 1927, Singapore rented a plot of land in Johor at an annual rate and then can use all the water found in and on the land. In return, Joe Horr would buy back specific amounts of treated water from Singapore. An interesting thing to note is that this agreement allowed for increases in land and treated water purchased and traded, expecting that the water needs would change and they would probably want to increase that. So they specifically wrote that in. The 1961 and 1962 agreements replaced the 1927 agreement. They expanded the amount of resources that would be traded between the two. They defined a certain rate at which the prices, like the water would be bought. So in this agreement, Singapore would buy raw water from Johor at three cent per 1,000 gallons while Malaysia would buy treated water for 50 cent per 1,000 gallons. So I mentioned that because the agreements both include price, like a joint price review every 25 years. Unfortunately, none of the times that they've met, so I think the last one was in 1986 and 1987. They weren't able to reach any update

even though an update was necessary. It's like both sides kept asking for a little bit too much, so as a result, they got no agreement. So to this day, the water is still being sold for three cent per 1,000 gallons and 50 cents. So that will really come back later when I talk about what needs to be done. And finally, the 1990 agreement was an extension of the 1962 agreement. It authorized a new construction of another dam. Singapore has made a lot of infrastructure investments in Johor to increase their water supply but also benefits the local Johor community and completely at the Singaporean expense. I guess to sum up the one agreement expired in 2011 and then there's two that are still active. But again they were not able to renew the one that expired in 2011. So as a result, Singapore had to decrease the amount of water they imported from Malaysia. A couple of supplemental things that you might care about is the 1965 separation agreement, which is also known as the independence of Singapore agreement, and it included a clause ensuring that Malaysia would abide by the terms of the water agreements already signed to ensure Singapore's water security

and this was filed with the United Nations. The 1998 and through 2003 water pricing negotiations were a time when Malaysia and Singapore were trying to negotiate another agreement that would last for 100 years to extend this deadline of 2061. Malaysia was motivated because they needed finances from Singapore to back their currency because there was a financial crisis. And Singapore just wanted to secure water resources for an extended period of time. Once Malaysia no longer needed the finances because they got it from somewhere else, the negotiations were reduced to debates about the water pricing, packaging the water policies with other partisan issues, and just got out of control. In these negotiations, Malaysia tried to increase the price of raw water from 3 cent per 1,000 gallons to 45 cent, then 60 cent, and finally 625 cent per 1,000 gallons to 45 cent, then 60 cent and finally 625 cent per 1,000 gallons in 2002 and as you might expect no agreement was made. Finally I highlight the Johor River Barrage project which was a three year project funded by Singapore

and address the saltwater intrusion to the Johor River Basin. So that's an example of both Johor and Singapore were suffering from a reduced quality of water in the river basin. So Singapore agreed to fund a project that would improve these and ensure a longer term water resource. So now I would love to talk about the water diplomacy framework and how this fits in. So the Singapore Malaysia water conflict is unique because there's only two parties involved sharing water resources that are not physically common. The water networks are defined through several water agreements where water is being traded rather than shared. However, Joe Horn and Singapore still mutually benefit from the terms of the existing agreements and they have acknowledged that publicly. The water diplomacy framework acknowledges the complexity of managing competition, feedback and interconnection between the natural and societal domains in the context of the political domain. So that is absolutely true in this circumstance, there were ongoing societal tensions between Singaporean and Malaysian communities at every level over a lot of issues, not just water. And so, and then Joe Hor has been experiencing increasing water problems in the natural domain related to water quantity as well as quality, which threatens both stakeholders. And finally, because the media was so involved in covering the water negotiations, the group of stakeholders with opinions is actually much larger than the officials that are involved in the signing of the agreements. And as a result

there's like kind of a negative error around the, like, agreements and signing a new agreement. So something that I recognized immediately is that there would need to be trust built between the stakeholders. So the first issue that needs to be addressed is how to build this trust and enhance cooperation between the different stakeholders, mainly state government officials. And before negotiations can make progress, stakeholders from both sides will need to recognize and accept the value of being cooperative rather than competitive, which is something we talked a lot about in this class. So one of the stickiest points in the current negotiations is the water pricing for the raw water bought by Singapore and the treated water bought by Johor. However, both like Singapore and Joe who are have increasing concerns about their water security. So I think it'd be really beneficial to shift the conversations away from competitive water pricing that's motivated by self-interest and start by discussing cooperative strategies for making sure that both parties will have enough water of the right quality because the opportunities for mutual gains would then be more prioritized which is what obviously they both need. So I guess I will note that there are ongoing negotiations and conversations and meetings between Singapore and Malaysian officials. So I think things that have been highlighted is they have an annual leaders retreat

which is literally just a retreat for their leaders to meet joint ministerial committee meetings that happen on monthly and yearly basis. The ministers of both countries visit the other country to improve relations. And then they have recently created the Malaysia Singapore Joint Committee on the Environment, which is also like basically for this kind of to increase the relations and these topics. So there's starting to be progress, but it's really not being reflected in any legislated progress, in my opinion. This is something that I thought was interesting to point out. So most partisan media articles from both sides reflect slightly different versions of the same story. So Malaysian media articles would say that the current agreements only benefit Singaporean stakeholders. Joe Hor is experiencing increasing incidents of water scarcity and Singapore just keeps taking the amount that it's always agreed upon despite the circumstances changing. The water pricing has not been updated and as a result Singapore is getting this raw water at way below the price that they should be buying it up. And then conservative Singaporean media outlets would frame the issue quite differently, but it's ultimately the same story

where Singapore has been actively trying to reduce its reliance on water from Johor while continuously granting requests from Joe for more treated water than agreed upon in the agreements at the same discounted rates. This is just to maintain goodwill between the two parties. And Singapore has prioritized enhancing their water security by extending the water agreements. However, if Joe Horr wants to increase the price of raw water, Singapore would have to increase the price of treated water. So this slide is basically to go over how both sides, if you look at it objectively, could be gaining from this relationship. I chose this image. This is a screenshot from the aqueduct water risk Atlas tool that I mentioned before. This is their projection for water risk in Singapore and Johor in 2040 if things continue quote business as usual. So as you can tell Singapore is classified as extremely high risk and Joe Hor is medium to high risk. So for reference currently if you click to baseline, both are classified as low risk. So this is something where their water risk characteristics are increasing due to changes in climate change, drought and pollution. So currently Singapore and Johor rely on each other to meet their water demands. They both care about the decreasing water quality in Malaysia since it jeopardizes both water security of Singapore and Malaysia. I recognize that Singapore has much more and better experience in launching water conservation campaigns

as well as investing in alternative water supplies. They have one of the most advanced systems in the world for desolination and water reuse, as well as like very strict water quality tactics because they don't want to waste their own water. So I think that's one opportunity where both nations could benefit if Singapore could give some of their experience and help improve the situation in Malaysia. Secondly, both parties are unsure of the long-term effects of climate change and drought on their water security. So they both want to be resilient and prepared to adapt to changing water circumstances. The water prices for both the raw water and the treated water are absolutely outdated and should be updated. However, that should not be like the only thing included in the conversation because that is currently only representing self-interest. Singapore benefits from Joe Horse's water supply to support its economic growth

it needs the water. And while they say that they will be independent by 2061 that has not been proven. And I think furthermore an ongoing water relationship for Singapore is convenient because Singapore has already made long-term infrastructure investments and already have good existing relationships with the water representatives there so rather than trying to find a different importing place to get water from it makes sense that Singapore want to stick with Malaysia. And finally Malaysia would benefit because they need the increased supply of treated water and they need assistance stimulating progress in increasing their supply long term, since they have no progress in water treatment, development, water conservation development or water pollution regulation. So finally, a couple other ways that the water diplomacy framework could be utilized include utilizing an impartial moderator. So it was really successful when they lodged the document with the UN after they split politically to ensure that Malaysia would not renudge on their agreement. And I'm really confused why they haven't done that since. It seems like incorporating some more impartial stakeholders could really help promote progress. And secondly, I think it'd be interesting if they would start conversations about signing a new agreement unrelated to the water supply but kind of more toward a joint agreement

trying to become more resilient in the face of climate change. This part of the world is extremely vulnerable. And if Singapore and Malaysia and some of these other south eastern Asian countries and states joined together in their efforts to develop new technology and get better information, it would really benefit them all. So, yeah, these are the key takeaways, but I think just for the sake of time, it's pretty clear that Singapore and Malaysia can't already recognize that their agreements are mutually beneficial. However, they have not been able to reach further agreements, which is threatening both the water security of both and ultimately preventing progress and security. Thank you Flora for the nice presentation. It's really wonderful. So yeah, is there any feedback for Flora? As 9 or Cassiano? Well, well done for your wonderful presentation. As this topic was new for you, you have been a very great job. Just, first of all, let me give you a small comment. As you mentioned, a prospect about decalination. My view would be that decalination is expansive and its production is energy intensive and it involves carbon emissions. In the long run, Malaysia might not be able to operate and maintain it as well. As you mentioned in the case study that Malaysia has hand some availability of water of fresh water and receives ample rainfall, it would be better for Singapore to cooperate and invest in water infrastructure, enhancing militia's storage capacity

which in turn would ensure long-term water security for Singapore. The Malaysia could in turn offer increased water quantity to Singapore. This could be a practical mutual gains approach in respect to the water diplomacy framework. And secondly, the question would be that what is the public sentiment in Malaysia, given their own water scarcity situation, you mentioned that some states receive our water scars. And you mentioned that as politically, water flows freely to Singapore, but some states within Malaysia face water scarcity. So what is a public sentiment within Malaysia about that? I can respond to that. Yeah, so definitely the public response is pretty negative. I think it's like negative in every regard. It's like we want to sell the water to Singapore, but they need to pay us way more. Like we want to sell it to them but they're not paying enough. And then it's also like, why are they taking our water when we don't have enough water? Like that's not, that's not fair either. So I think part of that is unavoidable just because, yes, Singapore also needs the water and it's confusing. But I think the public sentiment is tainted by political sentiment. That's just like Malaysians don't like Singaporean as like a like stereotype, but then like further aggravated by this increased water scarcity caused by these droughts and lack of rain capture. So yeah

definitely is negative and not very controlled. Like the information shared in Malaysia is not the same information shared in Singapore. Media is extremely regulated in both countries and is highly partisan. So as a result, it's really hard to change public opinion, but from what I understand, the public doesn't have much control over what happens. So. Okay. And just one more thing. You know, as you mentioned that the treaty expires in 2061, and it is still four decades until the existing treaty is going to expire. And some clarity is required why negotiations are needed to extend, like why negotiations have, like why negotiations have already started as of now because it is still four decades remaining or the two countries are eyeing to formalize a new treaty before 2061 in order to get it for existing water scarcity and water quality issues. Yeah so basically from their point of view, 40 years is not long at all. They, in the early 2000s, they were trying to negotiate a treaty that would last for 100 years, so extend it from 2061 to more like 3,000 and one, sounds so weird to say. But yeah, they were unable to reach one. But basically, especially for Singapore, since this is more of an issue of water security in the next 40 years, if in 2061 they don't, they aren't able to import water from Malaysia anymore, and they have not succeeded in increasing their water reuse and water desalination. Basically, Singapore will no longer be able to supply water to run its municipal and industrial water supply. So that

that I guess is the threat of water security and like some parties would even say like, what would they do like, would they try to like fight Malaysia some kind of water war. Most people say no, but that's like basically why it's so urgent, why they don't want to wait until 10 years before, because already negotiations have been going on for 30 years and they haven't reached any agreement. Thank you. Wonderful presentation, Flora. Every time I have a question my mind, your next slide answer my question. It was very good. Do you think that Indonesia could be considered a butchner for Singapore? Well, it seems like they'll run into the same issues that they're running into with Malaysia, but having a little bit less bad blood. And it's extremely less convenient since, like already Singapore has invested so much in the Malaysian water resources that if they were going to do the same thing in Indonesia, it would be like starting from scratch and also probably ruin their relationship with Malaysia, like decrease their chances of renewing the water agreements. So I think in that regard, it's been quite hard. Also, the main thing holding up any negotiations is that Indonesia has had a lot of political turmoil internally. So just the lack of governance has prevented real conversations from happening. Yeah, Florida, if you know more about this innovation, can you talk about the four taps and the new water solutions? Yeah, so Singapore has one of the like most developed, I mean, Larry and Anamesh can stop me if I'm just saying wrong things

but like a very advanced water recycling program so new water is what they're calling it. I have a manager from my internship that lives in Singapore and she always laughs at me when she says like in your country, you like water reclaimed water like to tap and she's like that sounds gross like no wonder no one likes it. She's like you know in Singapore we call it new water like everyone wants new water. New water sounds great and like cool and innovative. She's like toilet to tap, like that's bad advertising. So yeah, basically they've really worked on increasing their reclaimed water supply. They have very advanced technology to do water reuse, which is a technology that's not utilized very much in the US. There's not as much technology development in the US because of this hesitancy from the public and industry to adopt it, but that is like what they're mainly relying on where instead of getting rid of wastewater you'd be able to recycle it one or two times to use it again, which obviously makes sense. And then sea water desalination is their other big technology push for their four taps other than the rainfall capture, since that is basically just like exhausted. They don't have any more land to expand into. So yeah, I think Hussein like raised a good point. Desolination is expensive. It currently relies on carbon fuel and will wear out potentially if it's not maintained properly. So yeah, I think that's interesting. I haven't really read any articles. Right now

Singapore is just really in the push to increase the amount of water that they are obtaining from non Malaysian sources. Thank you very much for congratulations again. Thanks. I just want to annotate the question of desal a little bit. Dissal nation now is completely solar powered. And the Israelis have created very advanced desalination technologies, again, for their own uses. Israel's going to be almost 85% desal in the next decade, even though they have water. They have aquifers, but they're not going to hold out forever. And Israel has developed new technologies for separating the brine from the fresh water. Kuwait is 95% diesel. Everything in the country, 95% of the water is from desal. So yes, it was true that desal was mostly fossil fuel driven. It isn't, no one planning future desal facility of large scale would think, unless they were an oil generating country and had so much extra oil. They didn't know what else to do. But that isn't the case in Singapore. I personally think that Singapore will have no problem through recycling. People have to understand that Malaysia and Singapore think of themselves as developed countries. They do not think of themselves as developed them. They have the most advanced technology. They have the most advanced universities. Singapore has used advanced technology, they have the most advanced universities. Singapore has used advanced technology on just about everything. And because it is a small island nation, it has the limitations, as well as nicely pointed out, of scale in terms of land

but it's going to be able to claim existing space at its edges and expand development on the water. And my sense is that it's not crazy to think that Singapore through desal, because it's got all of this area on the ocean, and water recycling, which is the most advanced in the world for municipal systems, and a space that can't grow in terms of large additional population. And it can't increase density because it's already as high as Manhattan. So my sense is that they've made some smart choices and I think they will take advantage of water from Malaysia when they need it as they need it. The other thing that has to be noted is that Jehor is a state in Malaysia. But Malaysia has two parts. It's the peninsula part that you talked about is in one place. And the other two states, it's like Hawaii and Alaska for Americans. The other two states are on top of Borneo. On top of another country, as far away as Hawaii is from San Francisco, and those two states are amongst the most important income generating states because that's where all the natural resources are. And so the water policy in Malaysia doesn't really focus on the two states that are separate because there's very few people there. And I mean, comparatively, and there's plenty of water. So the water issues are in the peninsula of Malaysia and my sense is that there's plenty of water. I'm a little less negative I think for than you are about their pollution improvements over the last decade. They took, in all of their cities where the rivers run through the city

they got the idea from San Antonio instead of covering over the river and just dumping everything in it, they uncovered the river and they made it a attraction of the city which meant they had to do the pollution cleanup. And the level of pollution cleanup, I mean I've been working in Malaysia for a decade and even from year one to year seven, the difference in pollution levels in rivers is really dramatic. And the coordination, which I understand, you know, when you look and do research on this, the coordination between the federal level and the state levels is dramatically enhanced in the last five years. Now, they had this crazy change of governments and now they're back to a normal kind of government that has qualified people in senior positions. It was a period a few years ago where the transition happened where the people running stuff were political appointees with zero professional background and capabilities. But now things are back in order. So I think there's a chance of the negotiations since a friend of mine is the head of the commission and will be doing the negotiations, I think there's a chance that they will find all of these mutual benefits that you point out. I mean, Jehor, it has all these facilities being built by Singapore. The national government is saving the money and Jehor is saving the money. And if Singapore is willing to build all these facilities, and if Singapore continues to increase its own water resources, it doesn't

it won't be so scary about its long-term need for all of Joyce's water. Two other things that have happened maybe since the maturedly you were looking at was published. One is that the Chinese developer has built a new city floating in the straits of Johor right between Johor, Malaysia, and Singapore. And it's Malaysian. So Singapore is quite distressed about it, especially because and this is the other thing you had it on the slide, but you need to explain it. Malaysia is a democracy, but it also is a monarchy. And so, you know, we're used to thinking about how the British government operates. Well, the sultans, there are six sultanates within Malaysia, and each year one of them is the sultan of sult and the Sultan is in is in the Constitution and has a variety of things that it controls and the Sultan of Jehor is a is a player in the conversation even though it's country to country, because the Sultan has real say within which what Malaysia does. Malaysia is a Muslim country, even though Chinese and Indian populations are growing. It's basically a Muslim country and all of the original settlers came from Indonesia. And so there are implicit connections to Indonesia, but Indonesia is a long way away. How are you going to get water? Not going to have a pipe from Indonesia to Johor. That's nuts. So my sense is that you're exactly on target that they need to do something about these negotiations quickly. And there are plenty of joint gains to be had

butthe negotiation will include Johor even though it's a state I think they ought to encourage the involvement of Malacca which is another state which isn't assault in it in the same way and would benefit by part of being part of the deal. And I think we should expect that that solar-powered dissal will be very important in producing maybe 40 or 50 percent of everything that they need into the future. And that recycling and this huge construction of all of these reservoirs. It's amazing, a tiny little island, built 11 big reservoirs to capture rainwater because they saw this problem coming. So, I mean, they're not in terrible shape. Malaysia's not in terrible shape. There are advantages to be had. Yes, the pricing's going to have to change. But there's so much shared interest in other things that the last thing I would expect is a water war. I mean, they don't have an army. So that would make a difference. I mean, Malaysia does, but my sense is that these two nations and Johor will be able to figure this out. But you do a beautiful job of describing the history, of identifying why these negotiations are important. The older negotiations were in a different time before you have such powerful economic countries. These were developing countries. Now they are developed nations with lots of money. And they should be able to deal with each other. So I think your emphasis is just right. The only two things I would point out

which I think the threat of doing something with Indonesia is nuts just because of distance and because Indonesia has its own problems to worry about. And I think, so I think, and I think that this floating city, forest city, that's what they called it, forest city, 700,000 people on floor, floating platforms in wetland, in an internationally protected wetland. It's a disaster. And so that's what led to the new joint effort on environment and sustainability, which is Malaysia never should have allowed it to happen. But the national government defers on land use issues to the state. And the Sultan of Jehor is one of the major investors in this ridiculous gigantic new city. And he was in it for the money. And it was his land. And because it was, he owned this speck of island, he didn't need to get any permissions to build. And the Chinese developer was happy to fill. And so they filled everything. And it killed all the fishing industry up and down the strait. And they went, oh, this is a mistake. And they had to dig it out. And they had to re-go back and they did this through court action because Singapore brought suit against Malaysia. And the Malaysian government sheepishly said, well, it was the state. We didn't know what they were doing. And this project is the largest planned community by a Chinese developer outside of China. And it's a gated community for Chinese. But it's going to use all the water and all the services and everything else from Johor. I mean, there's so many things around it, which is

which is, but it's created the need for Malaysia national government and Singapore national government to work together on, they are alleging it's climate change, it's on sustainable development and the protection of wetlands and the protection of other resources. Sorry to go on. It's just, I think you did a beautiful job. I delighted you chose the subject and we'll be able to put this in the collection because it's an important example of nations where states within nations really are players. So this nation-to-nation treaty thing, the agreement isn't going to happen without Johorian involvement and it involves all kinds of technology. Anyway, I think you did a great job for her. Thanks so much. Yeah, so thanks for you. It was a wonderful presentation and I think in terms of improvement, in terms of exploration, you did excellent. As I read your draft paper and I already made comments, I already sent to you. But in the presentation, you incorporated the water diplomacy framework very well, but in the paper, it was not. So maybe work on that and so maybe for the water implementing water diplomacy framework if you just focus on the conflict in my view this conflict now they stuck is that the Malaysia is demanding price increasing and Singapore is not willing to provide that much amount for the raw water. So in that point, how you can, yeah, so how this stock can be, this positional things can be improved via this joint fact finding things

the issue that you already mentioned. If you just describe in a way that can provide a systematic explanation of the things, I think that then the paper could be fantastic. It's already nice, but it can be further improved in that part. So, yeah. Do you think, Flora, your tone about the relationship between these two countries and its historical roots is very, very, very true and very, very important. And one of the reasons is that this really simple water money, recycled water treaty isn't getting fixed is Singapore doesn't want to admit any need for anything from Malaysia. It's just it goes back to when they pulled apart and Singapore felt it developed itself as a as a developed nation and you know Malaysia took so much longer and didn't know how to do what they did. And they don't want to be beholden. I mean, I have the advantage of talking with the person who's doing the negotiations from Malaysia, who's a scientist. And he thinks the whole thing is ridiculous. And he just doesn't understand, well, what do you want? What's that the price? Come on. Let's ask some independent folks what the value of the water is and the recycled water, and you've got a huge amount of money. And what's not about the money? And I think by involving more of the states, it will be easier for Singapore to say, well

well, we did this because we're helping those states. Because they just can't swallow the idea of doing anything for or needing Malaysia. And I think you captured that tone very appropriately in your paper from the history. I think that's one of the interesting parts of reading so many very partisan articles. It's like very clear, like it makes it even more clear like where the gaps in communication and like pride and things like that play in because it's just so obvious like as someone impartial you feel like the parent like watching your kids bicker you're like you can both like have water like you don't need to like just say the other person's ugly like you can just take the water and then we call it a day. So yeah it was very interesting. There is not much literature but there's a lot of coverage. There's a lot of things.. Well, people have been discouraged. Scholars have been discouraged from writing about it quite explicitly at university in Singapore and in University of Technology Malaysia that I work with. They've been told, don't do it. It's you, you're killing your career. If you write anything scholarly about this, because this isn't really a scholarly issue and nobody doesn't come bite me later. Yeah, so, but I mean for us studying one of diplomacy to understand that the root issue is this historical not not just lack of trust, but really almost hatred of two parties that were part of the same country. I mean

it's difficult. And I think there's also partly this is about the fact that the Muslim majority in Malaysia is in some ways losing control. I mean, it still gets who it wants elected, but and it's still 51% Muslim and Chinese though are really controlling industry in Malaysia. They're controlling wealth in Malaysia, whereas the Muslim majority, their majority is controlling government in Malaysia and certain a few industries. And it's Singapore not interested in acknowledging the power of a Malaysian partner who is Muslim. They're much more focused on Chinese and the Muslim majority in Malaysia thinks that the Chinese minority is using its connections to Singapore to build more of its strength and power in Malaysia and wants to take over the government, which has always been the domain of the Muslim majority. So all of these pieces and parts, these are part of water diplomacy. And I think your case is important because it brings out these are not just, you know, about natural resource management or territory. It's about these lack of trust and this difficult relationship between the two countries, which you do a really nice job of racing.

All right, so what we're calling this, enabling conditions hypothesis. I did send you an op-ed that was published, I think, about two years ago in a newspaper in Bangladesh, neither necessary, not sufficient. So this is what the idea was, neither necessary not sufficient. Three enabling conditions for effective transboundary water management. So I started with this idea that does life cause death, does oxygen cause fire, does rain cause flood? What it means essentially then if you look at these three questions going from very philosophical point of view that life caused death. Of course you need life before you can die. Just because if you are not alive you cannot die. So basically but does it cause it? Same thing with oxygen really. Oxygen does it cause fire? Why is this important? Because right now I'm sitting in my room, I have oxygen, but there's no fire. But think about a situation really about maybe 5,000 years ago when we did not know about all of this. And we had a lot of fire in many different places. Then you are a scientifically minded individual. You went and measured everywhere and you find that in every place there is a fire there is oxygen. So then you have a theory now. That theory tells you oxygen cause fire. It's a good theory because I don't think basically think about it 5,000 years ago I did not know any of this chemistry, I did not know oxygen, but I found out certain things are present in all situations when there is fire. So now I am basically very brilliant. I came up with a theory

oxygen caused fire. So this is the fundamental problem of causal effect or observing certain things by observing certain other things and trying to link them. So what I arguethat this is really fundamentally what scientific methods are all about. You take observations, then you formulate a hypothesis, and then you test it, and then you refine it. So now if you were 5,000 years ago, then how do you know that oxygen is not causing the fire? What do you have to do? This is where this idea of necessary sufficient conditions become extremely problematic. In this particular case, now you know that, like for example, in my room right time I'm sitting here there is oxygen but there is no fire so that means why is not there so you may see oxygen is necessary but not sufficient what is sufficient then you need to have some trigger. If you have a trigger, then it will start fire. See, you know, start basically put some fire here with a maybe with a candle or something that makes me, my house may get into fire. So there's the distinction we need to make say but this is right now may seem very obvious but when you get into the messiness of say transboundary water management or other complex problems there are many many causes can create an outcome. Many many causes can create something that you see. So fire, there's what you see. Then you try to attribute some cause. And then you get into this idea of necessary and sufficient conditions. What we are arguing really in complexity that no, in complexity problems or the problems which are complex where many

many variables and actors and institutions are interacting with each other, you simply cannot isolate cause and effect very cleanly. There are causes, of course, but those are not easily identifiable. As a result, you get into trouble. What happens really, you may identify something as cause, then very quickly you find out that is not the case. And you are seeing this with COVID-19 over last 14 months. We have attributed to many, many things as a causal condition. Then later on we found out that may not be. And we even found out there are all kinds of solutions starting from using bleach from our president. But these are all essentially just trying to relate some arbitrarily linked things and in a simplest case people would say that there are some correlation maybe. And you know it, the correlation is not causation, but that's, we say this is very cliche, we're not interested. We are fundamentally challenging this idea of cause and effect that you simply cannot identify cause and effect very cleanly as you can in some other cases. Even in the simplest case does rain cause flood. And one of you said yes yes does. In some in most cases it does but in many cases it will not. So think of really in Boston it was not raining for last several days. Now if it rains one inch there will be no flood because most of the water will essentially infiltrate and go to the ground. Now if it rains for three days in a row

yes that basically soil will get saturated you'll get flood. So that means you need some conditions. So here rain is a necessary condition but it's not a sufficient condition. The problem of this type of analysis really came if you go back now where is this idea of necessary and sufficient cane. So I did dig basically deeper into this. It came from geometry. In geometry it is very precise because I need to have four sides to have a rectangle and with 90 degree angle. I need to have three sides to have a triangle. There is no way around it. So I can explicitly say what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be considered a triangle. That is not the case. For many physical systems, more importantly many coupled systems like where you have natural systems and human systems like our transboundary water problem. Where you have natural systems so water is getting coupled with the human systems of managing it and governing it. When they're coupled, the systems become complex. This notion of necessary and sufficient conditions are not good enough. So I'll stop here just to give you pause, see what you think about this distinction between necessary sufficient conditions, then we'll go into enabling conditions. I presume we don't have to wait 5,000 years to make judgments about such things. And I'm interested in how you think we know enough to say, that's only correlation, that's not causation. And is it really

could it be a function of time and perspective and experience and that there's not really a method to know that quickly? Yes, so we'll get into something basically. I did not have a chance to discuss this with you. So we are basically making distinctions now between two types of facts and this is part of the discussion that we'll have today. So one thing that over time that we have learned this idea of scientific method and scientific facts. Another thing that basically we are coining and it has been used in social science for quite some time called social facts. And we are making a sharper distinction between these two right now. So what I argue really in this particular case that scientific facts are basically a particular type of facts. Those facts are verifiable, reproducible, replicable. Those will not depend on really perspective or notion. They may depend on methods over time but there is a way to get around this. That's the whole idea of scientific methods. We'll talk about that. Social fact, on the other hand, does not have to be true. Does not even have to be verifiable. It's just we believe. It's just that we accept it as reality. And that is fine too, and we have done many of this. For example, this whole idea of currency is a social fact. We give tremendous amount of value now to this something green called dollar. And whether I'm in Bangladesh or in Boston, doesn't matter everybody accepts it. Whether they believe in me

whether I am an atheist or I am agnostic or I am Muslim does not matter. You accept it that this is something that everybody thinks is good. And now think about what is happening with Iranian currency. It has been significantly devalued because of all this embargo that we have created. So that is really a paper. And that paper has certain value because everybody in the world thinks a dollar is very valuable. It's a social fact and there is no way to justify whether this is true or not. It is true right now. I can use it anywhere I want, but I do not know what will happen to these really 10 years from now. So those are the distinctions we need to make and we will make those distinction when we're talking about scientific effect and social fact. In this particular case of your fire can be basically determined by scientific method. Because what can we do really even 5,000 years we didn't have to go that far? We can find out really that although oxygen is necessary it does not create fire everywhere. So that means something else has to happen. So that is a systematic way of doing experiments and then to find that out. But I have seen few places that where there is fire

there is oxygen. So my immediate conclusion could be that oxygen causes fire. Then that has to be questioned and refined over time. So let's go with this enabling. So what we are saying here that we need three enabling conditions. And I was carefully not to use this idea of necessary and sufficient anymore. So three enabling conditions are needed for any boundary crossing complex water agreement to be initiated, implemented and sustained. So this is a very big claim we're making here. So whether you're working with Indus Treaty or you're working with Ganges, what we are saying that Mastrop, if you want to be basically writing your Ganges treaty for 2026, yeah, we want to do it. We need to be very careful about these three conditions. You may say no no I need something else and then we'll talk about this. But what I am saying that at least these three are needed. So what are these three? The first one is this there has to be an active recognition of interdependencies. Meaning that if you need to sign a Gangesh treaty between India and Bangladesh, they have to actively recognize interdependencies. India has to recognize that Bangladesh exists and they need them. Just saying that because India is upstream, Bangladesh is downstream, of course there is already interdependency there, but that's not good enough. What is happening right now if you think about it like animation, we worked on a little bit with Bramobothro. Bramobothro is creating serious problem between China and India. But there is no active recognition right now. China, India

India, although they are independently saying that yeah you are using our water and we are in a serious trouble, but they have never so far actively recognized this. As a result really what we argued that no I don't think they're going to go to any treaty, and they are not right now. Although there is a lot of noise, a lot of discussion, a lot of international forum, international funding agency trying to find out what is going on in Bromophtra. What I am arguing that I'm yet to see anything that is tangible happening in the Bromopothro. So if you have to ask me, although these are dangerous games to play, in terms of prediction, there would not be a Bromopotho Treaty signed unless this recognition is active between China and India. And that is exactly what happened really. If you look at Indus Water Treaty, Indus Water Treaty was signed in 1960 between Pakistan and India, because they actively recognized that this is important. About the same time, President Johnson from the US sent another envoy to Israel and Palestine to have Jordan Treaty. Jordan Treaty was not signed until 1994. So why one was signed in 1960, another was in 1994. In both cases, US was basically a significant player. So you need to think about those three. Then I say, yeah, look, at that time

they did not recognize. Jordan did not recognize Israel is important or vice versa. So as a result it took a long time. In 1994 they came and basically they signed the peace treaty part of that was a water treaty too. So you just think about those two cases between Indus and Jordan then you get some to really what this enabling condition one means. Second one is that I'm sure you have talked about this mutual value creation. So just because you have recognized a problem and you have a conflict is not good enough. Now you have to see really can you create some mutual value through negotiation that both parties will benefit. Because otherwise you have limited amount of water and you have no way to divide this and your actual need is much more than what is actually available, then how to get around this? So only whether you can get around this even creates a mutual value and then you can do it many different ways. I'm sure Ladi and animation has given you ideas of really how to create mutual values, how do you connect different type of sectors and different resources and so on. It doesn't, you don't have to talk about water only. You can bring in food, you can bring it energy, you could bring in security, you can bring in military power, all kinds of things can be done. So to discuss these things, if we consider this Ganges example, we already had the Ganges treaty, but in my view, this mutual value creation didn't happen until now. So, but already the treaty has been signed. So what do you say about that? This

although this enabling condition didn't meet, but there is a treaty or negotiation. No, no, see, here we say the initially depleted and sustained. Yeah. So yes, you can have it because you have it for a there were some basically all the mutual value fully was not done but it was done partly. There were certain things done. For example, Bangladesh could have told India that look if we want to have this treaty now we want you want transit we'll give you transit. India wanted transit really from basically to go through Bangladesh Sochipora see if they want to do this then let's do this the Bangladesh trying to do this Ganges Barrage now so for Ganges Barrage India may get flooded a little bit can they be brought into the picture? So the issue is basically you have to bring in other issues those are now basically being discussed in Bangladesh right now. If you think about like what is the particular problem with the Ganges. Ganges is not a problem for the flood season. The problem is really the dry season. So in the dry season the flow goes down so low that we have a serious basically issues of water shortage. So take a hypothetical example if you take the entire water basically during the dry season it's about 4,000 QMAC., it will not be good enough to keep the Calcutta port navigable. One of the primary reason that India wanted to build the Farakha barrage was to keep Calcutta port navigable. But in the dry season, the flow was so low, it still cannot

even they have taken all all the water so that means they have to come up with alternative sources can they use groundwater can this basically store water during the flat season over extended period of the river that is what Bangladesh proposed in the Ganges bar So this is like a over 50 mile river that will be using as a storage device because Bangladesh is a very flat country we cannot create another dam. So that's another mutual value creation option can be explored. Can I ask a question, Professor? Please. So you said something very interesting that creating mutual values and from from where I understood, I might be wrong, that anything goes. So one of the one of the tension between Bangladesh and India is Bangladesh being used as a, as a vessel to create trouble in its seven sisters. So which is why like it is of India's interest to maintain the security in Bangladesh. So I'm wondering like if that sort of value can be created even

I mean can this be used as a bargaining chip? So that is what I want to understand. Definitely yes I'll tell you something that is I think you hit it exactly right. So about three years ago when we have our water diplomacy workshop and they may remember we have four individuals from Bangladesh foreign ministry came from foreign ministry to really to learn about water diplomacy in our workshop and their primary concern was that they want to work on the water treaty what will they do? So we discussed this seven sisters issue. And we discussed that this is an issue that this is a security problem for India. Can that be used? That Bangladesh will create opportunity for that so that this insurgencies cannot go, cannot create a problem for India. Yes, this is open for discussion. Wow. You can link that with basically water. No, in that case, so I can actually bring security where I work. Yes, you can. You can and definitely, and this is a relevant problem. For India to basically keep taking care of those seven sisters and this insurgency is a serious security problem and Bangladesh can help and also Bangladesh can be used as a transit but then Bangladesh has to find us something else in return that is where the discussion must go on. This is a discussion I had with the foreign ministry and even after that so I went to Bangladesh and we did have a workshop on water diplomacy within the foreign basically ministry and then pandemic started of course then we got stuck. The difficulty I'll t you

this is just not to be shared with Bangladesh government. So I think the difficulty that we have in Bangladesh, many of these ministries are extremely, I think I would say progressive, but there is no system memory. Meaning that water security is water security right now, suddenly he gets transferred to transportation, that memory doesn't exist. That basically he initiated certain things and that does not continue to the next secretary. As a result, really, you reinvent everything every time. And that's a problem. I mean lack of the social memory is like it's a serious issue in developing countries like Bangladesh. I completely agree. I work for the government so I understand. So that's a different problem so that's why we'll go later baby. So the third one that we are saying this adaptive regime of governance and that is also very important because you need to anticipate I think Hussein you are saying that yes in industry there was no climate change because in 1960 we did not know even climate existed that around climate change so we have no idea about this so but they did not put any provision but they did put some other provision though. If you look at the industry, they had a technical provision that they said that if there is a technical problem that Pakistan and India cannot resolve, somebody else should come into the picture. You know what that somebody else was? I have mentioned it already. Oh, you did. Okay. All right. So

so that was brilliant. That was brilliant. The question is basically why MIT president has to be a basically somebody has to come in and then appoint a body? Because they thought MIT is a good technical institution. They may still exist for 50, 60 years from now, and they will have no interest in Indian Pakistan. So this was brilliant. So when you are trying to design this treaty for Indas or for the Ganges, you need to be also thinking forward. Basically you don't know what will happen, whether climate change will come, what will happen is another COVID-22 comes in, who knows? But there has to be some provisions so that this can be used. What we are arguing in this enabling condition hypothesis is this. Does these three, if they are not in place, your treaty is not going to be basically implemented well, it cannot be sustained very well. That's a big claim. So I want to hear or maybe you can do it later as well that find out a treaty that was initiated, implemented and sustained for a long period of time but one of these conditions were missing. That would be good exercise. I could not find one yet. But are this going to guarantee success? No. They're not going to guarantee success but they will be, you can see these are minimum subset. So one example I usually give to make it simpler is that if you want to get a PhD what are are the enabling conditions? Number one is obvious, I think, you have to be alive

otherwise you cannot do it. So fine. Number two is that you need to have a bachelor's. Unless you're getting an honorary degree. We're not talking about honorary degree. If you said, aren't PhD, you need to have a bachelor's. So which bachelor's? I do not know. It could be in political science. It could be in hydrology, it could be in computer science, does not matter. But you need to have a bachelor, you need to have funding, you need to have a topic, all kinds of things will be needed. And then of course you have to pass the qualifying exam, a department has different requirements, you have to take these scores, that course. Those are I'll call those situational conditions. If first to enabling conditions are not there, you'll not get it. But just because you have those first two doesn't, will that mean that you'll get PhD? No. So that's what the difference is. So when you're thinking about this till you think along those lines, so these are not necessary and sufficient conditions. I'm not telling you what will be necessary to get a PhD. What will be sufficient to get a PhD? What I'm just telling you is that you need these to enabling conditions, then you need many, many situational conditions and those situational conditions are context dependent. It will depend whether it is at MIT or TAPSs or somewhere else or you're in engineering versus in urban planning. They have different requirements. But then what is the difference between a necessary condition and enabling condition? Oh no

necessary conditions does necessary conditions could be many. I'm telling you that you don't need more than these three. I can come up with many necessary conditions. It may not still satisfy all. And see, there's the reason I think, see, which one is the reason I think I want to get away from this necessary and sufficient, as we mentioned, this really came from a very structure discipline called geometry. So I'm trying to solve a geometric problem. Now I want to apply to my messy transboundary water management problem. That's the reason I want to make the distinction because here if you look at the news and look at writings you see that yeah this was not a necessary condition. We did not satisfy necessary condition. Then you ask them okay so what are the necessary conditions? So to give you a simple example, I tell you that I want to go from here to New York. So what are the necessary and sufficient conditions? Can you exhaustively write this? No, there would be thousands

so it is not possible to cover the mall. You got it. So this is basically a very large space. I may decide to walk. I may decide to take a plane. I'll take a bike. I'll take a bike and then I will take a boat or I have a donkey. So I essentially cannot exhaustively write down all the conditions. That's what the difficulty is. So that brings us to something else really that I want to start maybe or talk that so let's start legal language sometimes sometimes like try to I mean make conditions that are exhaustive for example if the copyright of a chocolate is asked by a lawyer then he would write that thisthat this chocolate has to be from this particular, this particular tree and it cannot be consumed by any other party without paying the money to the original company in any form. So in this way they can probably, I mean

I mean, minimize minimize I don't know whether I could make sense or not but legal language sometimes tries to I mean cover all those all those conditions that you say that there are so many conditions. Sure. So this is where essentially now I think you got it exactly right so this is where basically although we don't want to talk about our previous president so now if you come into the problem really if you want to define really what the presidency should entail does president have to really file taxes and make it clear this was not explicit it was not explicitly he has to file taxes and make it clear. This was not explicit. It was not explicitly he has to file taxes and make it public. So he decided not to do it. Now the question is how many things can you write down explicitly the president has to do? Then I have to even tell you when he goes to the bathroom, this is what he has to use. Just to make it. So the problem is, so this is exactly the point. So for the presidents of the United States

how many things you can explicitly write what he or she do or does really as a president. We cannot do this. So we are assuming that certain things they will do because they are morally responsible individuals. I cannot be explicit about them because if I make it explicit then it becomes essentially routine as you said that yeah you can write it down this particular chocolate came from this particular tree and this can be eaten by only this particular individual but then how many of them you write that is where essentially necessary sufficient conditions miserably fail particularly in the system when those are coupled. It can be fine. Right now we say, like if you have asked me, the best law that we have is Newton's laws of gravity. What is it that basically Apple fall? And Apple was falling before Newton. We just did not understand this. He was brilliant to find out a particular law that applies everywhere right now. Whether I'm in Bangladesh or in Boston, Apple falls and I know that I can explain it by gravity. So that's a law which is, I would say, the physical law that is replicableicable verifiable everywhere you go. Now to take an example for water that I use is that water flows usually downhill because of the energy gradient. That's the physical law but water also flows uphill. For example water flows uphill in the American West to money in my home on the second floor because I put a pump. Otherwise, water cannot go to my second floor. By gravity should go down. How come

how could I get water in my second floor bathroom? I get it because the water is pressurized. So I can create conditions that really the things can also violate the physical laws. Now when those physical laws are violated by human intentions, then you have a problem. Like for example, Ganges was flowing fine. India decided to build a barrage. Barrage was not there. Now they can control it. So that's a physical control of water really which is violating the physical principles. And that's when now your natural systems and human systems are coupled and then it becomes a complex problem. Is the making sense? Yes, sir. All right. So here I think I'll give you a quiz and then we'll continue. So how many colors do you see here? What are diplomacy, a principal, pragmatic approach to govern, manage, complex societal problems? How many colors? Three. Three, good. So remember three, three is important here. Then I'll tell you something else. So, so what are diplomacy, a principle, pragmatic, govern, complex problems? So put all kinds of words and I'm sure you have heard many of these words many, many times in this class. So how many colors are here? Seven. Seven. So you have three and then you have seven. So I'll just give you one basically clue and then we'll discuss this at the end of the class. So if you really want to be very scientific about this, there are only three colors, RBG, red, blue and green. Then everywhere you go really

this seven color comes in. There are seven colors of rainbow. There are seven heavens. There are all kinds of seven came into the picture. What is this three and seven then came from? I have only three color. Why do I have seven? Why do people say that there are seven colors in rainbow? In reality, if you go to the fundamental color there are only three. Now if you go to your computer really and if you have a base it a 24-bit machine you probably have about on the order of 8 million colors based on these three combination of RBG. So I can go from 3 to 8 million. And now if you just give you a color palette and I tell you that find it out what color is this, there is simply new you can find it out unless I tell you what those are. So what is my point yet? The point is that you can take three things and put it in different ways and you can get millions of millions of combinations. Same thing is true for this necessary and sufficient conditions. I can take three variables or three situations in a particular water conflict and arrange it in different ways. I can get many, many combinations. So in this particular from three to seven to millions, that is the case. That means my necessary and sufficient conditions will never be able to be exhaustive. I cannot do it. Although fundamentally they are related maybe to only three. But I cannot come to that three level. If I come to that three level is too abstract. So that's why I put this basically mumbo-jumbo stuff here. That basically you have only 26 letters

but you can create a Shakespeare to what are diplomacy book and everything else in between by different combinations of letters. That is exactly the point really with these interconnected systems. Your building blocks may be very few, but the way those building blocks are interconnected and interdependent may create a different situations and that has serious implications really in what the way we think about water. So let's go think about water. So let's go there here. So I'll start with this many phases of water crisis. If you think about it really what is water crisis? What is crisis really if you think about you and they will tell you that if you have 20 liters of water per person per day from an improved source, you have access to water. That's the standard definition and that definition is used globally. Based on that definition, there are about 760 million people who does not have access to water. So this is what we're trying to do with this. These are our SDG. Now if you think about this

this is really not true. The 760 million is not true. Why is not true? There are about 2 billion people lives in slums across the globe. From Dhaka slum to Bombay sl Islam to Nairobi Islam and from Brazil and these people are not even counted. Why are not they counted? Because most of them are in illegal government land. So government does not provide them water so they are not even counted they don't have access to water or access to doesn't matter. So who are the 760 million people? These people are essentially people in rural villages in Africa and Asia. So these are one problem with water access to water definition of water prices. On the other hand, really when they talk about water scarcity they were different definition. What is it is? This is fewer than thousand cubic meter of water per person per year. So if you're in the US, if you have thousand cubic meter of water per person per year, you are not water scarce. So Boston, for example, is not water scarce. But Nevada is. But as a whole, US is not. That translate to 2,740 liter per person per day. Look at the difference between 20 and 2,740. Huge difference. Do you have access to water versus are you water scares? These are two different things. And we often then get confusedly, which one are you trying to address? If you go to SDG, it's not clear what they want to do. They have their things, goal seven I think is related to water. And they have all kinds of things there. But it's so, I would say

nebulous that it's not clear exactly how they're going to measure this and how they're going to implement this. So access to water is not necessarily constant by availability to water really. It is something else. So when you want to talk about water crisis and your objective is to provide water to Islam in Bangladesh is a very different problem than saying that I want to have water for agriculture production in Bangladesh. These are two different problems and oftentimes we confuse them. Let's go to the next one. So what are the scientific facts versus societal problem here? Many more people die from unsafe water than from all forms of violence including war. So these are statistical facts. There are also economic analysis. Every dollar invested in safe water and sanitation yields anywhere between five to $27 in economic benefits. You don't have to agree with that $5 or $27. It's more than $1. We'll not go into the economic argument here for now. But at least there are many, many studies that has done this. That if I invest $1 right now, I can get $5 to $27. So that means I can make more money. Instead, I'm not doing it. So what is the problem? And then I say, OK, $768 million people lack access to water. Two billion people are living in high water scarcity region. So how come we're not doing anything about this? And this is the statistics I had when I was a graduate student many

many years ago. How could you have a crisis then you are not resolving this crisis? So that means it's not a crisis. So why it's not? Let's say that I am generous. I want to make 50 liters, not 20. 50 per person per day. Give me 120 billion dollar. I can do it for everyone in the globe. Look at the global GDP, 85 trillion dollars. Only 0.14% of global GDP. So how come this is a global community where so much, basically, benevolent, so much generous, you cannot spend even 0.14% of our GDP to give water to everyone? So the problem is not economic. The Problem is not that we don't have that technology. So how do I go then? So this is where I think maybe we can be a little bit more creative as water diplomats. That these are not really the argument that people are making. We need to make it different types of arguments. So then it comes really basically this is the cover page of our book. So we are saying that look

I think when you have to look at this problem really you need to look at this. There are natural domain problem there are societal domain problem these have been studied forever but they also happen in a politically real world so one in water diplomacy what we are arguing for last several years that look you need to understand the natural problem you need to understand the natural problem you need to also understand that this is happening in a politically real world. So how do I combine this scientific knowledge and social knowledge in a politically real world where things will have some way to at least have some traction? I don't have to discuss this idea of really look. I only need 0.14% of GDP still people do not have access to water 768 million people do not have access to water these are all known problems go to any water literature right now any water crisis you'll see this status is given everywhere so come nothing is being done then those are the type of questions we want to raise and hopefully you guys will have some clue really when you are in your organization to have some impact. So the reason I think what we argue that is happening that there are differences in political boundaries, knowledge, know-how, management, these are all basically happening at multiple scales. And these choices are particularly problematic because they cross boundaries, they have uncertainty

they have multiplicity of values. So these are not basically unknown. What we are basically hoping to do with our order diplomacy framework is that we want to explicitly recognize this and see really how to at least adjust some of it so that we can go or we can be little bit better than what we were yesterday. See, I may not be here for another 30 years, so I could not see this changing very much in 30 years. In 30 years really, we still had the same number of people dying out of this lack of sanitation and water across the globe. So are we basically dumb or we are just too insensitive? So this is where essentially we are standing here and in a present deal we came from past but we don't know exactly where we came because past is, although came, happened once, the interpretation of past could be quite different, really, because for example, if you think about really how I came where I am right now, if you ask my mother or my wife or my daughter, they will have different stories. And some of these stories will be probably similar but it will not be exactly the same. So that means our understanding of the past is also really colored by our own experience, our own perspectives and the way we have seen it. The problem even is that future could be even more unknown

because we have no clue how it will happen. But only thing we have seen it. The problem even is that future could be even more unknown because we have no clue how it will happen. But only thing we have is past. So how do I create water management situations really by looking at the past knowing that future is unknown? So this is the fundamental puzzle. It's a scientific puzzle as well as social puzzle. This is where you need to basically the question you are raising, okay in 1960 they didn't know about climate change. I don't know what will happen next 50 years. We did not know that COVID-19 will come really in 2020. It did and it changed the life significantly. So those are unknown and then we need to have some way to essentially deal with it. What is the next COVID going to come? We don't know. So what does that tell you? What tells you really the most of our understanding really from science is from physics. What physics tells us really that with classical physics I can essentially describe the world in a very interesting and very predictable way. But the problem with complex system is that they are not easily describable by classical physics or quantum mechanics. Say world is not deterministic

world is also not random. It is somewhere in between. That's where the complex system is. Complex systems argue that this is not a purely predictable system. At the same time it is not a random system either. So everything that you've learned in school now is really not becoming very useful because everything you learned is essentially either based on some classical physics which is deterministic equations or statistics. But we're arguing that for complex system neither will work. You need a combination of these two. Then you come with this. This basically two scientists in 1973, they were telling you the search for scientific basis for confronting problems of social policy is bound to fail. And this is a very classical paper really written in 1973 cited over 10,000 times now. So, is this wicked problem? Yeah, they were very brilliant, two young assistant professor from Berkeley in 1973. So what they were telling me that when you are confronted with complex problems, we don't talk wicked because wicked I don't like this word, but they use wicked. But wicked essentially in that term is very similar to what we call complex. And these are interconnected problems. These are interdependent problems. There is simply no way to do cause and effect, and particularly when they are a social policy. Then came this lady really from here Wellesley, she was an economics professor and a chair, she said you can't take politics out of this analysis. Now you have three things. You have physical systems, you have social system

you have political systems. And what we argue that in what are diplomacy we try to mix them up and we say that all three are important and you need to be careful about all three you just cannot take one or the other and then your solution is not going to be very sustainable. So here how's the difference between the social system and the political system sometimes? So okay so yeah so then you have to go yeah that is a good point you have to go then to our diagram here let me see you can go back so so I did not use society. I say societal. So societal we are saying that there are only three things because we want to make life simpler. We said we put governance, assets, and norms and values as societal. We're keeping political as a different entity. So this separation in many places you may find to be not really that key. You can put politics also in societal domain. That would be fine. But then you need to be explicit. But here we are explicit. We are saying that for us, when we talk about natural systems, we are talking about quality, quantity, and ecosystems, measurable, more or less. When we talk about societal systems, we talk about governance and we're keeping it broad. Governance could be your NGO to your government to basically your water board in Pakistan or Bangladesh. Norms and values could be also quite broad. It could be your cultural values, it could be religious values of waters, we are keeping them broad. Assets is not only money, it could be human assets too. So we are being very careful when we coined these terms

we spent a lot of time thinking about those. So we kept them in a way that we don't need any more than this sex. And we have asked this question to many of these water diplomacy workshop attendees that, look, do I need anything else? Have we missed anything? Tell us something that we missed. So maybe we'll ask you the same question. Have we missed any variables that you need to include to talk about what are conflicts? Those are not there in this particular figure. Think of a variable or an actor or an institution. We are saying everything is included here. Maybe think about it and maybe before the end of the semester you can let or you may just know. Because these are big claims we're making. Look, I think you don't need anything. These six are good enough because we have defined this sufficiently broad so that you can go and dig deeper into this. All right. So those essentially six now we are saying that we can basically even write it down in a little bit more systematic way. We were talking about variables and processes. Death will come from the natural domain. Actors and institutions will come from societal domain. And then you have values, interests and tools and tools and we go in that particular order. So values really, so these you need to be very, very careful because what ends up happening in most cases since I came from a totally different domain, when I was doing my engineering stuff

we were particularly interested in tools. And then we basically started working with Larry and we found out and that there is something called interest and positions and then we basically started working with Larry and we found out that there is something called interest and positions and then we need to talk about values. Now we get into really entangled mass. Then you have problems, policies and politics. What we argue that these things have to come into place. You have a problem, you have a politics, you have a politics, unless these three are aligned properly, you're not going to get a solution. This will be basically resilient and sustainable. Just think about what happened really. Between January 20 and then today's April 27th, just three months. In three months, we've already vaccinated about 200 million people. That was not the case in December, January. What happened? Nothing much changed in the US. Few people changed in White House. Other than that most of the actors and institutions are the same. So some of the problems politicians and politicians to align properly. If it does, things can explore or things can get totally basically out of control. So that's what the big time thinking about is basically that's the difference between January 20th and say April 27th. So this multiplicity of choices then what it does really this essentially fundamentally challenge this idea of finding optimal solutions. This is where basically Ritter and Weber found in 1973. They were talking about that when you have a social problem

when this is couple, we are calling the now couple natural human system problem, to look for optimal solution is impossible. So that's a recognition we must have because this is a recognition at least oftentimes we do not have when we are coming from a technical domain. From a technical domain we want to find an optimal solution very quickly. And optimal solutions are possible for a well-structured systems. I can find out the optimal temperature for my room. There is no problem because I can put enough basically heating and air conditioning and thermometer to get it done. But if I want to do optimal temperature for city of Boston, it cannot be done because city of Boston is open. Now things are coming back and forth from all kinds of from maybe from Connecticut or from Maine or from Canada, cold air is coming in, so I cannot make this. But on the other room I can do it because room is bounded. So basically it has boundaries, it can be insulated, it can be done. So if the system is bounded, system is well structured, system is well defined, optimal solutions are okay. But in most natural systems, they are not, in almost all coupled systems is impossible. When the natural system and human systems are coupled, then you cannot find it, then you need to be contingent and context. Then you say, fine

fine, then what did I learn? If everything depends on the context and everything is contingent and context. Then you say fine then what did I learn if everything depend on the context and everything is contingent why come to school just go and do it. That's where I think we'll give you some clue really with maybe with what are diplomacy and principle pragmatism how that can be done although they're contingent although they're contextual. So what are diplomacy then? What is this? So scientific method, I will say then in general is subjective. So we'll talk about a little bit more closely. Policy and decision making is subjective. Whether you like it or not, that's what it is. So whether your political bias is Biden versus Trump administration, you're seeing that policymaking and decision making. So this is going to be subjective whether we like it or not. Then we're saying the scientific facts are objective and this will be maybe I think there are nuances that we don't want to get into right now. Social facts are subjective. So I'm making a sharp distinction between these two things. So there is a scientific fact and there is a social fact. When we talked about this idea of alternative fact, what people got confused is that they were mixing it up. Social facts are basically there are alternative facts. Scientific fact there is no alternative facts. If I take my temperature if you can find it to be 98.4 it is 98.4 maybe with another thermometer you can get 98.5, it cannot be 200 degrees. So that's a scientific fact. I said this is objective

replicable, reproducible. Social fact would be how I feel about the temperature. I may feel perfectly fine and lady may feel perfectly hot with the same temperature. Although the thermometer is measuring same temperature, how both of us feels is quite different. That's a social fact that simply cannot be objectively defined and you don't have to. But in decision-making both are important really. I just cannot use scientific fact to make decisions which will affect human beings. I can do this really for machines, but when I bring in human beings when they have emotion they have a agencies they have temptations I cannot use just scientific facts and assume that it will work. So as a result now water diplomacy is both subjective and objective so that is essentially very problematic in terms of implementation but this is also very good because this is the way you'll keep your job for next 50 years because not anybody can do it that work. So that's the reason I think say Larry is doing for 50 years I hope I can do it too. For another 20 years I'll tell you really what to do. And that is exactly where I think the brilliance and the engineer will come in. That this is not easily separable. I cannot just take objective facts and claim that I will be able to do water management very well. Neither can I do subjectively either. So if I can combine these two in some creative ways, you'll have credibility and you'll be able to do it. Professor Shafik. Yeah

please. Can you repeat again the example of the temperature with this to illustrate the difference between the subjective and objective? Okay, so just one second here. So objective facts would be, I would say, we'll go this into a little bit more detail also. So objective fact, I am defining it very sharply. So in my definition, objective fact is based on scientific methods which are observable. It has to be observable. If it is not observable, so observable by how. So then basically if you really want to be very short, you say we have five senses. If these are not sensed by your five senses, it doesn't exist. So I'll tell you, although I don't want to basically make our friend Pinker in other school on the red line, he's a cognitive psychologist at Harvard, really, so he would tell you really, everything else that you cannot sense or can observe doesn't exist. So trust is no, it doesn't exist. A trust is simply can, it's not measurable. He has a whole book called Enlightenment, 700 pages with hundreds of thousands of graphs and he is showing that with enlightenment we have basically done remarkably well because in all measures that he shows, of course he's very selective, he's showing that everything has improved like our infant mortality has improved, our war has gone down, people dying from war has gone down, people dying out of hunger has gone down

so we are doing well but in that book trust was not even mentioned once because he doesn't care really about trust so for him it's a scientific fact unless it is observable it's not scientific social fact in now I feel bad and we have too many people suffering from mental disease right now. Mental disease will become the most pandemic really in next 20 years. He doesn't want to talk about this. So for him those are subjective judgment you figure it out. So that's the difference really. Things those are not observable doesn't exist. So that's a very sharp, I would say very crude definition but that's the way I'll try to do this also. So I say the subjective is meaning that these are not easily verifiable. But I do disagree with him that no they exist. I may not be able to measure them, but they're real. And you may not be, he will say that they're not even real. They're just a fiction of your imagination. Thank you very much. Thank you. So that bug brings us to this, I think this you like now. So here I want you to look at these two pictures and I thought it was very nice. So there is a difference between myth and fact. Look at this first figure and then remember what this individual is doing. This individual now remembers myth, although you have given him 12 facts. So what is the problem? The problem is that our cognitive ability to process information is not really very good. So if you give me a lot of information, it's happening with COVID. If you think about COVID really

people are so confused. It's not the people are confused. People just simply cannot separate it out. Because you are giving so many facts and so many conflicting facts, so ultimately you remember the myth. Then most likely I'll die. Although the probability of your dying is extremely low, even if you get it. On the other hand, if you can give myth with some carefully constructed facts, you do remember the fact. So the argument that I will make here is that our challenge is to essentially, when I'm trying to debunking some of this myth or some of the social facts, to create scientific facts, those are easily digestible to the audience that I'm giving it to. That's very, very powerful because otherwise I can keep talking about this climate change. A general public does not understand what I'm talking about. As a result, they think it's a hoax. So what does that mean really is this. When you're trying to replace a myth from somebody's mind, you need to replace it by some facts. Otherwise, it will get replaced by another myth. So the question is basically, and the politicians are extremely powerful really basically replacing myths and myths are not really easily discounted. I don't believe that myth can be easily taken out. They will be there. The challenge is to create myth, those are little bit more scientifically valid. If you can do this, then I think you have an alternative narrative. Otherwise

you don't have an alternative narrative. You have no way to make any influence in the policymaking and the decision making. So that brings us to something that I like is that you remember when you talk about what a diplomacy framework we did not say that is model. It is not even a theory right now. So what is a framework? Framework is something that is some general ideas and general relationships that gives you to address a particular problem in a particular way. So that is the framework. When the framework get tested over time, so we are doing it for many, many years right now, the gradually it will become a theory, eventually it will become a model and predictable. So right now we'll put our water diplomacy principle pragmatism as framework. This framework allows us to explain those things in certain ways. It allows us to intervene in certain ways. When it becomes really a theory then you guess basically like evolution. Evolution is a theory. Newton's law is a law. Newton's law is not a theory. It's not a framework. So there is a distinction between framework, theory and model. So model is at the level that you are at the Newton's law. So things are doesn't matter really whether I'm in Boston or I'm in Brazil. Newton's law applies. So that is where the difference is. So if you can develop certain law, those are context independent, then you have a law. So do I have a law for water? No, I don't. I don't have a water diplomacy law. We have a water diplomacy framework. And that framework with time will probably get tested

refined and get into theory and hopefully into model someday. So what are the principles? The principle that we are trying to use here in principle pragmatic framework is this objective scientific method. So we'll say that there is an objective scientific method, these five senses, it allows me to do certain things in certain ways. Those will be independent of context. Giving our example of taking temperature. So temperature with a thermometer is a measurable thing. I can easily validate this. There is no ambiguity there. Pragmatism comes in this subjective interpretation now because the example that I was giving that how I feel about temperature is a subjective interpretation. That interpretation should not be confused with scientific methods, but I need both. I need scientific method. I need also subjective interpretation. This is exactly where water diplomacy comes in, that we just not need scientific methods. We also need subjective interpretation of the local values, local context. Then if I can combine these two, we get principal pragmatism, that is subjective and objective. The same thing that we talked about about our diplomacy. Then we said that, okay, like I think I don't know you have talked about this. We look at world in very