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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 imagine 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 thing in my 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

I would say the simple ways. We say that there are only three types of systems. And our first job is to identify that problem. And that's the diagnosis and characterization. So simple problems but this causal relationships are well understood. Complicated is often ambiguous but not easily identified but you can see identify this. Then you have complex problems not easily identifiable only perceivable in retrospect. So a good example of this would be like flushing your toilet. You can go and buy a basically a toilet system from Home Depot for $100. It will work out very nicely. No problem. Bringing water to your home from Kauban like about 50 miles away and taking the water on the 16th floor if you room and you get out you get warm water, that's a complicated system. I need lots of pumps and pipes and then chlorination and heating and so on. Complex problem is the one then when we created this Kauvan Reservoir we have also eliminated four villages from Kaua because we wanted to create a large reservoir. A lot of people has lost their homes and they had to be bought out so was this the to do? Because you are basically removing human beings from four towns for 200 years because Boston has to grow. Boston needed more water

they needed to create a co-op undesirp in 1920s. So they created these by eliminating four villages. And there are still people complaining that that was not the right thing to do. So that's a complex problem where you have basically coupled a natural system with human systems. Now the system is in this case is knowable and predictable. The flashing at all is predictable. This is complicated but it's still more or less predictable. Not always but this one is most of the time unpredictable and emergent meaning that things will just emerge that you had no idea really it was going to come and from your arsenic problem you have seen some of this emergence we'll talk about a little bit more. If you have to intervene in these systems, this will work with best practices. And this is where I think most of the people got it wrong and I think we want you to be very careful. What we are saying here is that your best practices will apply very well for simple systems. If you go into complicated system you need some expert knowledge now and some contextual knowledge. If you go into complex system now you need something totally different. You need a synthesis of scientific facts and social facts. You simply cannot use best practices because there is no best practices for complex systems. And although you will hear this time often, that give me a road map

no I cannot give you a road map. Roadmap assumes that I know the road. So how do I know the road? I know the road because I've seen it in the past. So that means I'm assuming the past will essentially be similar in the future as well. If the future is a little bit different than the past, my past knowledge is not going to be very useful. I cannot have a roadmap. So to hope for a roadmap, to hope for a best practices is in illusion, we must abandon to deal with complex problems. Is that making sense? This is very important because we need to make a distinction between these three class of problems. Your first job would be to essentially decide which one is simple, which one is complicated, which is complex. And then you cannot use the tool, those will be applicable for simple system when the problem is actually complex or vice versa. So, to assume that everybody's working on very complex problems. Each of the cases you heard about the beginning that people describe, they're all complex. They may have simple components within them, but basically the conflicts and what's at the heart of the conflicts are complex. It sounds from your description like it's not really possible to be usefully prescriptive in a situation in which the problems you're dealing with are highly complex. Do you think that's right or? No, I think no, that we're in trouble. At some level it is, but at some level it is not. So let me see what I can explain. So the story that what has to happen then is when you are confronted with a problem like

so let's say that we are confronted with the problem of Ganges Water Treaty. So let's take this as an example. Then we have to decide really when we talk about Ganges Water Treaty what are we talking about? So if you ask me right now I will say Ganges Water Treaty should primarily focus on the dry season flow. So now I'm trying to make the problem a little bit sharper. Why dry season flow? In the wet season I have about 70 to 80,000 cubic meter per second of water flow. That is a flood season. Flood season lasts for a few weeks but it creates a problem but that is a recurring phenomenon. Then in the dry season is almost about eight to nine months. That creates significant problem both from water availability for ecosystems to irrigation to navigability so many many things so I will focus on that part. Then my question would be the okay so given that dry season flow is only 4,000 as opposed to 80,000 now what can I do? How do I basically resolve this complexity of the problem? Now we have to come up with India and sit down and see really what are the options can I have? What are the options those are possible so that we both can come up with some options where we know we're not going to get 80,000 we need it clearly to the 20

000 we only have four. How do I solve this problem? It's not easily resolvable then where essentially this whole idea of mutual value creation negotiation and discussion has to come in rooted in scientific facts. That's basically where I think you can think of really how to get around this mess because otherwise it becomes such a complex problem that nothing can be done. So are you saying that when you face a complex problem, try to only work on part of it? No. What I would say that the approach should be problem driven, meaning that you have to define a particular problem that you want to solve. So here I have defined the problem and that I want to resolve the dry season flow in the Ganges. That is my problem. Right, but isn't that really a part of the larger problem of managing the Ganges? It is. It is no question about it. No question about it. And I don't think there is any way to disentangle this. Can you take it all separately? No, you cannot. So then what do you do? So at one extreme then you can think of really that everything is interconnected with everything else. If that is the case, then you are in a mass. That mess simply cannot be untangled. And you can argue that no, no, you are essentially being reductionist because you are trying to reduce the problem to something that is simpler. To some extent, yes. But what we want to be careful really when I'm defining the problem for the dry season

I don't want it to be a reductionist problem that basically it will not get affected by flood. So I need to be careful really. The lesser that dry season is eight months. These eight months will affected by other four months too. How that is the question. If they're cleanly separable, then it's easy, but they are not cleanly separable. They will not be. So this is where the complexity will come. I don't think how hard we try you will be able to go in. That's the reason scientific method is important because you need to keep this idea of experimentation valid. So you observe, you ask questions, you hypothesize, you experiment, analyze, analyze, you analyze, and keep doing this. Then you go here. So I think that this, I don't think we need to go this because this is more into. Recognize that basically there is no penasi here. See if there is no penasi, then what is there? What I am saying that we need to be precise in diagnosing the problem. So here the whole approach that we are trying to take is that it is a problem-driven approach. It is not a theory-driven approach. So I have a problem. That problem is to solve dry season water problem in Bangladesh or in India. Now to do this then I say that is my diagnosis of the problem. Now what are the facets of the diagnosis? What are the aspects of the diagnosis? What are the aspects do I need to do? Is it really to keep Calcutta port navigable or is it really to stop salt water in Tucson, or both are important? If both are important

then how do I try to see really given the limited amount of water that I have, can I do both? If I cannot then do I have other options? What if I use groundwater? Can I use groundwater in a year and next year basically I have more rain it gets filled? With ground water also I cannot use it forever because it will get depleted. So those are the type of discussion that has to happen. So precisely the point with complex system is that complex systems will not allow you to give a solution that is static. It will give you a solution given that particular problem, given that time and space scale. Then what we need to be careful is that we monitor and we keep adapting to the changing situations. So that brings us, you say we have to embrace complexity with humility there. That is not that basically I'm going to give a solution that you have it. There is no prescription that is universal. I cannot do it. I'm just being very honest and blunt. But at the same time I'm giving you a framework. That framework will allow you to do things in certain ways. Then you think in a systematic way. What does that mean? That means that you try to define what your system boundary is. What are the notes and links in that system? So that when you get this spaghetti diagram, what are the notes and links that create this spaghetti diagram and that is understandable and systematically manageable? Then you say, okay, I diagnose and prescribe. So I'm saying you need to prescribe. So what do you

how do you prescribe then? The way you prescribe by understanding the capacity of the system, as well as the constraints that system imposes on you. What that means really, the capacity and constant for the Ganges between Bangladesh, India, will be quite different if you are trying to do it for the Nile between Egypt and Ethiopia. So the challenge here is that you have diagnosed the problem. Now you have to give you to give some prescription. That prescription must be consistent with the capacity that your system has. And that capacity can involve basically from human capital to basically actual assets of money to cultural values and everything else. But not all of them are important at a given time. The challenge for us is water diplomat is to find out what those are and try to define that subset. Otherwise, this set is very large. You can go to the Ganges and assume that the Ganges water is probably one of the most polluted water in the world but it is the most holy water for Hindus in India. So I cannot basically start questioning the cultural value. That has to be taken into account. So that is the capacity and constant. The system is imposing on me. Then I say that there is no penancia. So let's be clear about this, that there is no simple, generalizable best practices. Then I said, okay, Pete. Excuse me, Shafi, when you say diagnosed and prescribed using capacity and constraints, you don't mean that you can't enhance the capacity with resources from outside the system, right? No

right? No, I don't. I think very good point. No question. So I think we have to be exactly, I think we need to bring in other, capacity is not fixed. Capacity can be enhanced, capacity can be reinforced, even I think can be built and even can be taken as an outside energy. So World Bank can create more basically can put in money. Absolutely. I think I need to be a little bit more careful there. It's not that, so no, let's not assume that the system capacity and constants are fixed. So the question basically, do we need anything else? Because I'm also teaching this similar class at top. So I think we did pose this question. So, and I'm asking maybe you guys also also that okay. So is this a more or less general abstract level of things that we need to do to start addressing the problem? Then we'll get into very quickly our arsenic problem, how this can be applied in real time. So I don't know how much time do we have on image? We have about 10 or 15 minutes. Okay. Yeah. All right. So let's do the I think maybe I'll just go into this. Could you could you just go back one for a minute to the diagram to the list you had you said is you know the question marks at the end is that is that is that sufficient is that do we need anything else like one question you raise I think I need to use my uneasiness with that list is that if you're going to act adapt, adaptively, if you're going to continue to review and change what you're doing

you need to have the institutional capacity to do that. Sure. To build the institutional capacity to think and act systematically, to build the capacity to adapt, adapt, act adaptively. And so the person who's talking about taking action, I think, needs to think about the institutional design could the process that makes this list possible and that itself becomes an item on the list. Sure, good point. Any other thoughts? All right, let's see whether we can. So essentially that what we are arguing, so I hope I convince you that there is no established methodology exists to resolve complex problem because these problems are not deterministic not random. So that means you cannot use classical physics or you cannot use statistical mechanics to do this. Then at the same time these problems can neither be fully explored by the positive is meaning this hypothesis testing type of framework that I was arguing that with five senses so you cannot just use scientific methods nor can you use just interpretations. So it's not that basically you can use either or methods really. So you cannot use purely scientific method, you cannot use purely subjective ethnographic matters to address these problems. What then you have to do really is some way to basically combine your scientific facts and social facts. So that's what is all about. And if you look at the paper that I sent you to read the arsenic contamination problem essentially tries to do this is to explain the problem. So

to explain the problem. So let's explain from a scientific facts perspective. Then use the understanding, meaning the social facts, to actually address the problem. So what that means today is so let's this, you've seen before you will not go here. So I go here. So I use an illustrative case. The illustrative case is that it can support a theory. So the arsenic contamination problem is used here as an illustrative case, meaning that it illustrates that it's a complex problem. But it does not really provide any validation of the theory. But we've also used it as an extended case, meaning that if I take this case and I look at all the features, what I see really here is this is a coupled natural and human system problem. In this coupled natural and human system problem when I intervene it gives rise to emergent properties and then it becomes a complex problem so that means I can use this to show really when you have this type of coupling you will expect these type of things to happen. So now if you take actually what happened then there is so you have basically Bangladesh has decided that they would promote groundwater use as a case study that we are using it here. There were two policy goals. They want to increase agricultural productivity and reduce infant mortality. So these were the policy goals they wanted to do. A very sharp, very well defined, easily measurable. And then you go and then you see this. So this is where essentially now if you try to link all this different component, different variables processes

now you see this is a mess. And this is not new. And this is not even our mess. I think many people have created this type of mess. They call the system diagram and interaction diagram, whatever. And we are saying that this is really so old. Basically, it doesn't allow me to do anything. I just totally get paralyzed. So it's not going to work because things are interconnected. We understand that part. The question then is becomes how do you diagnose or sharply define the problem that not all of these links and notes are equally important. Only some are. The question is which are. So in the case of like diocesan flow, we get you an example relief. That is what we want to do. So that's a much simpler definition of the problem with the interconnections and interdependency those will be needed. Once you have that, then you can go here. So if you look at what Bangladesh has done, they wanted to have two policy goals and these were achieved really with tremendous success. It has increased agricultural productivity, decreased infant mortality. Agricultural productivity has gone up by almost 100%. Infant mortality was the lowest in South Asia. So in those terms, it was very good really, very basically successful story from 1960s to almost 1980s. Then what you started seeing the arsenic contamination emerges now. In 1960 they did not expect that arsenic contamination will come. The difficulty they have created, they have not measured so they were not following it. So they were not really monitoring the progress, they are not being adaptive

they did not care. So as a result it emerges. Even that emergence did not really lead to any action. It took another 15 years before the day first the arsenic was detected in water then to actually create something at the government level. It took 15 years. Why did it that long? So that's what basically the system failed. Then you have taken interventions which left even more unintended emergence. If you remember really you looked at this basically they put red and green wells. Now the villages that had read wells now have problems with basically girls getting married because they have a stigma. So you have created a social stigma by creating a solution that you wanted to do because you wanted to let people know that there is this well is red, meaning it has high arsenic concentration. So where did that come from? What I argue that basically this was also really, what we learned from this, this was a theory-driven causality-based reasoning. Where did that come from? So that really came from if you know the story of cholera in London in 1854. In John Snow found out that he was an epidemiologist, he found out that there is a cholera outbreak in London and they cannot find out what is going on. So he did a very systematic way of finding out who has cholera, where they get drinking water is coming from, and he found out a well. And he went and basically shut that well down, cholera went away. So that is basically my theory or by basically scientific knowledge that I used in Bangladesh also

without understanding anything else. So I basically went and started painting everything red. Because it's not in it, and it stopped cholera. So if I do this, arsenic will be stopped. Yes, it will be. The only difficulty there is that this is rural Bangladesh, number one. I have over 10 million wealth right now and not one. So as a result, really, my theory doesn't go with actually what is happening on the ground. So we got into serious mess and that took another 20 years to unfold. So what would happen really in a principle of pragmatic approach really you want to do really you want to find out a problem different question. So the question was that really okay so I have infant mortality problem in Bangladesh. So to solve that infant mortality problem I found out the quickest solution. What was the quickest solution? They dig some shallow wells. It's cheaper, it's quicker, fine. And we've done that. And that is perfectly fine. What was missing there is that they did not monitor really the progression of this. They just assumed that it's a simple solution it will stay forever. If they have monitored this, they would have found out long ago. That's where basically this problem-driven question with hypothesis consistent with observed signals. I need to keep observing the system as it evolves. If I can do this, then I have an approach that is more or less functional. So to summarize, then basically what we need to do really

we need to first find out a very sharp definition of the problem that you want to address. Then find out whether is this a simple problem, complicated problem or a complex problem. Then find out if it is a complex problem that what is the complexity coming from? Is the complexity coming from the scientific unknown or is it coming from the social fact those are alternatives? Then try to synthesize these two, then design an intervention with some basically targeted metric that this is what I want to do and then monitor this as you go along. Then you could be adaptive and find out a solution that will basically be resilient and change also over time. There is no universal solution. See if you want to take I think that would be that there is no universal generalizable solution for complex systems. Complex systems will bring even more problems once you try to solve them. By the time you have solved them

you have given rise to another set of problems. And this is also nothing new really. This has been done in with ladies department for many years from like Sean to other people. They have talked about these problems almost 50 years ago. That the idea of really when you're trying to do these social problems really by the time you solve the problem you have given rise to another set of problems. So the challenge is to essentially be very aware of that problem nature will change and if it does really how do I detect them early on so that I can be adaptive and act accordingly. We'll stop here. So do you have any final question to Shophic? What are your thoughts about the enabling conditions between India and Pakistan on the on taking up the revisions and then it's what a pretty? Enabling conditions should be those will remain three. What you want to do really hopefully I think is that what are the main issues of contentions right now? That needs to be discussed. Because I have not following recently about the industry. So what would be good, I think, if you can identify one or two things that both countries are in disagreement with. What is that really? So I can give you one example, for example, for Brahma Putra is that what I followed recently is, say for example, India is claiming that China is holding all the water and then it will create problem. Physically that is not true because the amount of water that is coming from Bromaputu for China, even if China, we did this study with domination with another Chinese student we had

even if they decide to keep all the water in China, it will have no impact in India, although they are making that claim. So this is essentially a social myth they want to create. That China is creating a problem. But these are not based on facts. So what you want to do really with India is it possible to find some very sharp scientific facts those are observable. Like one example I use with Bangladesh and India for the Ganges even if I give all the water to India in the dry season India will still not be able to basically make their Calcutta for Navigov during the dry season. So that means this is a non-starter. Why we start fighting with this? Try to find something else then. Although of course it is a serious problem if India keeps all the water in the dry season. But even if Bangladesh decided I'll give you everything, still will not solve the problem. So that means you need alternative sources now. That part has not been explored. Before we finish, I just want to thank Shaftiq again. We I work together a long time on this, and I'm always learning something new each time I hear him present this material. So thank you for taking the time, Shafi, to meet with the class and for sharing your ideas. And thank you for having such good ideas. Yeah. No, thank you very much. No, this I think no, I don't want to embarrass Larry. Larry has been an inspirational mentor. So because many of the things that I discussed today I did not know about maybe 15 years ago and I started talk so we have been talking for a long time now. So yeah

if you look at this guy, you say that you need 10,000 hours to develop any sort of expertise. So between both of us, we probably spend more than 10,000 hours now. Hopefully we have some level of at least understanding expertise. Yeah, also, yeah, from our side. Yeah. For everybody in the class, right? The other people in this class are potentially the person you'll find yourself coming back to and working with. When Chaffeak and I, we did not know each other when we first encountered some overlap in our interests and we just kept creating opportunities to exchange our thoughts and that's sort of animish then gets added to the mix and now extends both of our ideas and our work and his own work. So everybody in the class should imagine that you, it's through these interactions with your colleagues that you shape and sharpen your ideas. So I think, thank you. Yeah. So for the class I think I have a challenge for you. So since you did not share much of your thoughts, maybe you're too shy. So think about the arsenic paper that you read. I want you to find out at least one whole. One thing that you found that this is really outrageously stupid. It's not going to work. I gave the same challenge to my students also. So there are few things that I have issues. I did not share those with you, but I will not tell you right now. But I want you to see really what, like Larry raised something very interesting here that if the institutional mechanism is not there, if the capacity is constant

it's not going to work. So we need to refine that. But are there anything else you see really in terms of making it operational? What we are saying that, see at one point I said the complex systems, you don't have generalizable solutions, you don't have any prescription, but then we are giving you prescription too. So the line is very subtle here, but at the same time I don't see a way around it. So the question is basically how do I bring in these ideas of principles of scientific methods which are more replicable, more reproducible with the social effects which are going to be continuously subjective, continuously contentious. But at the same time, this has to be made. So that's where basically where are the hiccups or where are the binding constant that will essentially let it fail. If you can think of one or two ideas that will be good or maybe an example that you have seen in your real life where you try to apply this and see did not work. He wants you to be a white hat hacker of his work. Yep, that'll be good. Find programming problems. Exactly. So find you find your hole and then the,that will be very nice. That's the way ideas get shorthy. Otherwise, because you are stagnate. Yeah, and also apart from that, even if you have your one specific issue regarding auto diplomacy that can be related to the theory that Shophic mentioned. You can also write him and email so that, yeah. Sure, please, please feel free. All right, I'm going to disappear

but thank you so much. Thank you very much. I look forward to the presentation starting next week. Okay. Bye bye. All right right. Bye-bye. Yeah. Thank you. 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 Hort to currently meet 40% of its water demand so 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 sun 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 order 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.

So hi everyone, today I'm new talking about the ongoing efforts to modernize the Columbia River Treaty, sort of the agenda. The Columbia River Treaty was originally signed in 1961, so I'm going to go through the historical context that led to that signature, talk about the 1961 treaty negotiations and outcomes. And then I'm also going to talk about the ongoing case for modernization and the ongoing treaty negotiation process, so covering a lot of time periods here. So a little bit of sort of a geographical overview. The Columbia River Basin is over 250,000 square miles, which is larger than the entire area of France. The basin includes more than half of Washington and Oregon, almost all of Idaho and parts of Montana, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. And approximately 15% of the basin is in the Canadian province of British Columbia, where the Columbia River, which you can see here on this map in purple, originates. And then in southeastern Washington, the Columbia River meets the Snake River and together that feeds into the Pacific Ocean. So, the United States and Canada have a long history of bilateral cooperation. They share the longest international border between two countries and they're sort of bilateral negotiations date back for centuries. As far as water diplomacy goes, the origin of this is the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty

which was signed to kind of come up with an approach for preventing and resolving disputes over the use of shared waters. It was it established an international joint commission to help the two countries carry out its provisions. And at the time disputes over water, most notably on the Niagara River and the East Coast, were already creating tension along the border. So the treaty provided this framework to deal with these disputes. It held its first meeting in 1912 and it has worked over the last century plus to resolve more than 100 matters raised by the two federal governments. So the Columbia River Treaty more specifically came about during this era of hydropower expansion in the United States and Canada, which is sort of symbolized in the 1930s with the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington. And during about a 20 year period, more than a dozen large dams were built in the Columbia River Basin, mostly for hydroelectric power purposes. They also benefited flood control, navigation, and other irrigation projects. The construction of these dams had and continues to have a negative impact on the ecosystems of the Bayeson. For example, the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam eliminated salmon runs from the mainstream Columbia River and tributaries in British Columbia. So the specific impetus for the Columbia River Treaty was a major flood in 1948. The river was abnormally high due to deep snowfall and large rainstorms and it breached a dike in Randport, Oregon

Oregon, which is an industrial suburb outside of Portland and the town was completely submerged. 18,000 residents were displaced, 51 people will killed and the estimated property damage was over $100 million. So you can see here on the right picture of the town right after the flood. So the original treaty emerged in response to these two sort of one trend of hydropower development and then the specific flood control needs that were raised by the Vanport flood. So agreeing to agree. In 1944, Canada and the US had requested that the IJC determine whether a greater use than is now being made of the waters of the Columbia Rivers system would be feasible and advantageous, and then four years later after the Vanport flood detailed studies began. And what followed was 11 years of discussions and analysis, two requests by the US for approval of the Libby Dam in Montana, which is pictured behind me in my virtual background. Two proposals by Columbia River companies to build Canadian dams, committee hearings in the US Senate and the Canadian Parliament, and a gradual acceptance by the US of the idea of sharing downstream US hydroelectric benefits. So 11 years of negotiations, and then another round of formal negotiations begin in February of 1960. And then ultimately the Columbia River Treaty is signed by President Eisenhower and Prime Minister Defen Baker in January 17, 1961. The US Senate approved it almost immediately, but ratification took an additional three years in Canada

largely due to British Columbia needing to negotiate with the Canadian federal government to clarify issues of authority and responsibility. So that was sort of the original round of negotiation processes. And the treaty as it emerged has two primary focuses, hydroelectric power and flood control. The terms of the tree specified that Canada would provide about 15 million acre feet of storage usable for improving the flow of the Columbia River. This is really for flood control purposes to minimize downstream flood damages in both theS. and Canada. And as compensation, the U.S. made three lump sum payments totaling $64.4 million to Canada when the dams were completed. And that amount was based on an estimate of half of the present value of future U.S US flood damages prevented. So the operation of the Columbia Retreaty storage creates hydropower benefits in both countries. And the CRT requires that the downstream power benefits in the US due to the operation of the Canadian storage be shared equally between the two countries. This is known as the Canadian entitlement and under the terms of the treaty, Canada can opt to sell the entitlement back to buyers in the US. And actually to pay for construction of the dams. British Columbia sold the Canadian entitlement to a consortium of utilities in the US for 30 years beginning in 1964. So the treaty really is sort of premised on this idea of mutual gains to both countries both in terms of flood control and hydroelectricity. However, there were also sort of losses created. Most notably

the treaty made no explicit provision for other values such as water flow benefits for salmon and steelheads, continuing to exacerbate these ecosystem problems created by this era of hydropower expansion. So these are the three. Here you can see a map of all of the dams in this in the system. The three dams in Canada up here. Can you see my mouse in purple and the Libby Dam in Montana. So those were the four dam that were built as a result of the Columbia River Treaty, but the consequences of the treaty affect the entire hydroelectric power generation across the entire base. So it's like, very involved, even though there were only three dams actually generated as a result of the treaty. So the treaty has been sort of widely regarded as an example of successful cooperation and successful transbound renegotiations really built on this foundation of mutual gains. In 2011 when the renegotiation process began, the British Columbia government came out with a statement saying that the Columbia River is known it throughout the world is sort of the most successful models of a transboundary water treaty. Other countries see the agreement as a benchmark on cooperation to create and share benefits. So I thought that was sort of an interesting statement. And while the treaty did authorize this equal sharing of additional hydropower results from additional water storage and coordinated water releases

there were also negative impacts of the dams weren't necessarily equally shared by the two countries. So the United States had fairly significant adverse impacts on fish and salmon habitat and some losses of land. But in Canada, as a result of the three dams that were constructed, there was major flooding and dislocation of entire communities. So Canada, although they were ultimately compensated for it, did have sort of more significant negative impacts as a result of the treaties. So the case for modernization, the Columbia River Treaty has no expiration date, but 2024 is significant because it is the earliest of the terms of the treaty can be terminated. And so without renegotiation, also in addition to the termination provision without renegotiation, the flood control provisions will shift. So this presents an opportunity for the United States and Canada as well as other stakeholders on both sides of the border to reconsider the scope of the treaty and evaluate its effectiveness. And I think within a water diplomacy framework, the fact that this renegotiation process is baked into the initial agreement as a strength. We can talk about whether like the 60 year timeline is too long, but I think it is interesting that none of the original negotiators expected that the original agreement would last forever. But at the same time, this has also introduced some measure of conflict, I guess, because everyone wants the treaty to be updated in a way that reflects their priorities and values. So thinking about modernization

which is the word being used by the negotiators, there's sort of five main issues that have been raised during these ongoing conversations. This is not an exhaustive list, lots of other things that have been brought up as well. But I think it sort of summarizes the most significant arguments. So I'm going to walk through each of these five. So first, as I mentioned, issue number one is that 2024, the current flood risk management provisions change to a less defined approach. And instead of Canada providing a set amount of flood control every year, it will be as an on call basis, and the US will pay on an annual basis based on how much flood risk has been assessed. So this is sort of the core part of the original treaty and it will expire unless measures are taken to renew or modify it. And in addition, it is the earliest date at which the treaty can be terminated provided that either Canada or the United States provides 10 years written notice. No one has provided this, so the treaty will not be determined or be terminated in 2024. But it sort of catalyzed this era of renegotiations beginning around 2011, 2012. That's issue one. Issue number two is that since the original treaty negotiation process in the 1960s, stakeholders outside of the main negotiating parties have argued that the treaty neglects ecosystem needs. So the renegotiation process has opened the door for a variety of environmental advocates. In particular

the dams built as a result of the treaty have altered the river's ecology and contributed to the decline of salmon fisheries. So in a 1995 opinion on the impacts of the entire Columbia River power system on salmon. Noah, the National Oceanographic Association, had set flow objectives at each of the Columbia River basin dams. In the last 20 years, the spring target has been missed roughly 27% of the time. So 27% of the time, there's not adequate flow at these dams for salmon to pass. And in the initial studies about renegotiation, the US and Canadian entities didn't address any of these ecosystem needs. They only addressed updating the power and flood control agreements, although subsequent documents have addressed incorporating more ecosystem-based function requirements. So you can see here on this map on the right, where there are salmon passages and where the dams have prevented any kind of fish migration. So everything north, almost everything north of the Canadian border, the salmon habitat has been completely destroyed. And in particular, groups that have been harmed by the original treaty and who have advocated consistently for considering salmon habitats are the Canadian First Nations and United States Native American tribes. And you can see here on the right