This article examines two of the major water legal regimes in the Americas - that of Brazil and the United States. Both countries have extensive wet and dry regions and both hydro-regimes face a significant threat from global warming. Brazil, for instance, is home to between eight and fifteen...

The legislative framework for controlling stormwater runoff emanates from two federal acts; the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Coastal Zone Management Act. Under the Clean Water Act, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) subjects point sources to direct, uniform and effective federal...

This chapter in an upcoming book on Climate Justice initially discusses the status of American and Canadian indigenous communities and focuses on specific tribes in North America. Following a brief introduction of Canadian and American indigenous peoples, this chapter addresses the threats faced...

Watershed development in India has gained momentum with a variety of agencies trying approaches to technology, costs and subsidies, and institutional arrangements. The Watershed Development Programme has three important features: Unprecedented devolution of decision-making power backed up by...

Internationally the benefit sharing approach is promoted to encourage cooperation in transboundarywater governance. Costs of cooperation are so far under researched. Attention of few international studies is limited to benefit and cost sharing practices for dam projects. Here, the case study...

The paper focuses on analysis of Central Asian hydro- energetic system and water usage in Tian Shan region. Tian Shan system is an important water resource in Central Asia: river waters are intensely taken for hydropower energy, urban systems, irrigation. But geopolitics in Tian Shan is...

Agricultural water stress is a critical problem undermining socioeconomic development and environmental sustainability of water and land resources in many agriculture-based economies. Uzbekistan is an example of such case, where for coping with the problem, water reforms such as creation of...

Water policy experts contend that the United States is heading toward a water scarcity crisis in the coming years. Global climate change is likely to make water scarcity much worse in the long run. This article argues that demands of current and projected water management challenges can best be...

By means of a two-jurisdictional model, this paper analyses the optimal division of environmental policymaking functions among the different government levels, identifying the most appropriate level of decentralization in each case. The paper focuses on water resources policies, with an...

The Supreme Court's new federalism has struck its strongest blows so far on the Clean Water Act. In 2007, a sharply divided Court nearly struck down a large chunk of the Act's protection of wetlands and other small waterways – five years after an earlier decision had narrowed the reach of the...