New Paper on Transboundary Water Management in Central America

The Central America region is generously endowed with water resources, but concerns are growing about water scarcity in parts of the region. This can mean both a physical lack of water and a lack of mechanisms and actions for effectively managing, allocating, and developing water resources. A new GWP Technical Focus Paper focuses on these issues.

A strong feature of the region’s water resources is the way in which the countries are variously interconnected by 23 international watercourses and 18 transboundary aquifers. Thus, a key feature of water resources planning and management is about finding agreeable ways of sharing water resources, which both cross and form national boundaries.

Experience indicates that successful management of international watercourses and transboundary aquifers lies in recognising that developing and sharing water resources involves communities of interest. GWP supports the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a reasonable way to apply these principles.

The paper “IWRM in Central America: the over-riding challenge of managing transboundary waters” is available both in English and in Spanish.