Dilemmas in and Pathways to Transboundary Water Cooperation between China and India on the Yaluzangbu-Brahmaputra River
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for the manuscript. This version is much improved from previous ones.
In the introduction you write that the river joins 5 tributaries.... please correct as it is the opposite...
Section 4.2 would benefit from inclusion of what Mattia Grandi calls “consideration of the broader political context to understand trans boundary water governance” in https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10784-017-9364-y
once included, I feel the quality would improve to be of publishable level.
Author Response
Thanks for the manuscript. This version is much improved from previous ones.
1.In the introduction you write that the river joins 5 tributaries.... please correct as it is the opposite...
Response 1: Changed into " gets five tributaries from Bhutan", Line 33
2.Section 4.2 would benefit from inclusion of what Mattia Grandi calls “consideration of the broader political context to understand trans boundary water governance” in https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10784-017-9364-y once included, I feel the quality would improve to be of publishable level.
Response 2: Authors agree the “a broader assessment over the specific context in which water disputes occur could shed light upon subtle and hidden dynamics that affect TWM” that is why authors try to put the TWM of BRB in the context of the border dispute issue.While analyzing the power asymmetries between China and India, the power matrix start to getting complicated , we are considering to draft the second article to apply the multidimensional power concept to focus on the pillar of power and on the different dimensions of power.
Reviewer 2 Report
The topic is very important, and the manuscript is written very well. I think currently the major conflict is the ongoing/planned dams construction as discussed in the paper Line 374-379.
And the conflict is likely to erupt. I doubt the impact of the suggested pathways, but I do not have better suggestions, neither. I have some minor questions as follows:
Line 32-35, for the completeness of the paper, add a geography figure of these tributaries.
Line 36, give more details on how global change, severe water scarcity and rising demands from population increase the pressure of these countries.
Do authors think the potential natural hazard events such as extreme weather and earth quakes could bring new bridge for more dialogs and collaborations between China and India?
Author Response
The topic is very important, and the manuscript is written very well. I think currently the major conflict is the ongoing/planned dams construction as discussed in the paper Line 374-379.
And the conflict is likely to erupt. I doubt the impact of the suggested pathways, but I do not have better suggestions, neither. I have some minor questions as follows:
1.Line 32-35, for the completeness of the paper, add a geography figure of these tributaries.
Response 1: The China-India dispute zone is very political sensitive issue in China, as Chinese authors, we would love to contribute some insights within the range of political rules. Add a map required many other processes to have consent, and this article is more focused on the broader water issue between China and India, even we all see the importance to have a map here, it is quite hard to add one, in order to help reader to have better idea, we chose reference 5 which has a map as well as quite detailed characteristics of the Brahmaputra river basin.
2.Line 36, give more details on how global change, severe water scarcity and rising demands from population increase the pressure of these countries.
Response 2: Section 4.1. The BR’s water issues concerned by people in different fields ,line 336-366 has detailed information on how climate change increase water vulnerability in the basin, as well as severe water scarcity and rising demands from population increase the pressure of these countries.
3. Do authors think the potential natural hazard events such as extreme weather and earth quakes could bring new bridge for more dialogs and collaborations between China and India?
Response 3： Yes, we do. natural hazard events potentially would bring China to work together with India ,as the Prime Minister of China Li Keqiang said. “ in the larger interest of China-India relations as well as the humanitarian spirit, we have been providing assistance to the Indian side in terms of sharing flood-season hydrological information and managing emergency.” then during the co-work process, the interaction would bridge certain gaps between two countries in specific work group, which could deepen the understanding for both countries.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Interesting paper. However, it still needs work to be uplifted to good quality and improve the relevance of this contribution to the academic literature. Here are some suggestions:
- what is the original contribution of this paper? What is the guiding research question? These answers should appear clearly in the introduction.
- Linked to the previous comment, there is a lack of literature review. This is linked to the previous comment as it is not clear to what literature this paper aims at contributing. I would strongly suggest including in the introduction or in a section right after it, a sub-section on “Critical Hydropolitics: a literature review”, in which the authors would review the literature of critical hydropolitics, and to which this paper aims at contributing and in which this paper would be situated. In particular, the section would benefit from covering:
1) what is hydropolitics and critical hydropolitics (definition of Elhance for hydropolitics, and for critical hydropolitics cover the London Water Research Group)
- Elhance, A. P. (1999). Hydropolitics in the Third World: Conflict and cooperation in international river basins. US Institute of Peace Press.
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/wat2.1242
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kimberly_Eynon/publication/313399829_Powerful_Water_A_Literature_Review_of_Transboundary_Water_Interaction_in_the_Nile_Basin/links/589974b192851c8bb680cf19/Powerful-Water-A-Literature-Review-of-Transboundary-Water-Interaction-in-the-Nile-Basin.pdf
2) framework of hydro-hegemony
https://iwaponline.com/wp/article-abstract/8/5/435/20292
3) TWINS analysis of Zeitoun and Mirumachi
https://www.soas.ac.uk/water/publications/papers/file39696.pdf
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10784-008-9083-5
4) Lukes three dimensions of power
5) importance of considering narratives and discourses in transboundary water governance of the LWRG, see:
https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/handle/123456789/4981
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1462901118303137
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629806000400
https://books.google.de/books?hl=en&lr=&id=G-wgujkjzZkC&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&dq=lyla+mehta&ots=ysAso88_XZ&sig=OjZlP77vscrZw18-mQaEJN6LZww#v=onepage&q=lyla%20mehta&f=false
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/20581831.2017.1379493
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X01000870
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00267-010-9498-y
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00958964.2017.1373620
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/a45442
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146290111830090X
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/d1106
6) SDG 6.5.2 calls for transboundary water cooperation; mention this, referencing the following relevant literature:
Ortigara, A., Kay, M., & Uhlenbrook, S. (2018). A review of the SDG 6 synthesis report 2018 from an education, training, and research perspective. Water, 10(10), 1353.
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/10/10/1353
Hussein, H., Menga, F., & Greco, F. (2018). Monitoring transboundary water cooperation in SDG 6.5. 2: How a critical hydropolitics approach can spot inequitable outcomes. Sustainability, 10(10), 3640.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/10/3640
McCracken, M., & Meyer, C. (2018). Monitoring of transboundary water cooperation: Review of Sustainable Development Goal Indicator 6.5. 2 methodology. Journal of hydrology, 563, 1-12.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022169418303366
Onencan, A. M., Enserink, B., & Walle, B. V. D. (2019). Sustainability indicators: Monitoring cross-county water cooperation in the Nzoia river basin, Kenya. Sustainability, 11(3), 560.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/3/560
- the discussion and conclusion need to be rewritten in light of the new section on critical hydropolitics, and the analysis needs to be therefore better linked to this new section
- avoid unsubstiated claims, such as the first two in the first two sentences of the introduction (water conflicts in the next 15-30 years? Even if someone may have said it, it is not realistic.. also, one of the richest basins? Of what? Freshwater? Is it really?)
I hope these suggestions will help, while revising the paper.
Author Response
Point 1: what is the original contribution of this paper? What is the guiding research question? These answers should appear clearly in the introduction.
Response 1: We re-write the introduction to make more clearly on the guiding points and the original contribution of this article, which is to find the facing problems, the possible ways on China-India water cooperation, and contributes to relieving water vulnerability in the BR, and to maintain water security in South Asia, from the present situation and the developing process of Sino-Indian water cooperation.
Point 2: Linked to the previous comment, there is a lack of literature review. This is linked to the previous comment as it is not clear to what literature this paper aims at contributing. I would strongly suggest including in the introduction or in a section right after it, a sub-section on “Critical Hydropolitics: a literature review”, in which the authors would review the literature of critical hydropolitics, and to which this paper aims at contributing and in which this paper would be situated. In particular, the section would benefit from covering: 1) what is hydropolitics and critical hydropolitics; 2) framework of hydro-hegemony; 3) TWINS analysis of Zeitoun and Mirumachi; 4) Lukes three dimensions of power; 5) importance of considering narratives and discourses in transboundary water governance of the LWRG; 6) SDG 6.5.2 calls for transboundary water cooperation.
Response 2: we do not add a sub-section on “Hydropolitics: a literature review”, after we carefully concern the above comments, and review the literatures suggested by the reviewer. We response the comments as following: (1) Hydropolitics, Critical Hydropolitics, Hydro-hegemony, TWINS, etc., are analytical tools, to determine the outcome of cooperation and/or conflict. According to the purposes and topic of our article, the paper would provide the background results for the following analysis of “hydropolitics, hydro-hegemony, TWINS”, which needs to be done from a historical perspective. (2) In the suggested tools, “water” is the major factor, which can control the outcome of interactions among the countries. But in the BR, and between China and India, water cooperation is controlled by the bilateral diplomacy relation. The meaning is that it is difficult for us to apply the tools in our paper. (3) After the literature review on hydropoltics, “the dynamic transboundary water interaction framework” give us a new perspective to develop a deeply analysis on Sino-Indian water cooperation in the next step, after we collect enough available information.
Point 3: the discussion and conclusion need to be rewritten in light of the new section on critical hydropolitics, and the analysis needs to be therefore better linked to this new section.
Response 3: we rewrite the conclusion, to response the basic purposes and the analytical approach in the introduction.
Point 4: avoid unsubstiated claims, such as the first two in the first two sentences of the introduction (water conflicts in the next 15-30 years? Even if someone may have said it, it is not realistic. also, one of the richest basins? Of what? Freshwater? Is it really?)
Response 4: we revised the relative sentences in the introduction. ‘The GBR is one of the richest basins with freshwater and other natural resources,’ we think the result is correct, according to literature review, as the result of ‘the GBR is the 13th largest river basin in the world, and the 3rd largest freshwater outlet’ (Jain, Sharad K.; Agarwal, Pushpendra K.; Singh and Vijay P. 2007. Hydrology and water resources of India. Springer. p. 341. ISBN 978-1-4020-5179-1.Retrieved 26 April 2011).
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a helpful paper in giving an overview of South Asian water situation. It is however rather water-centric and the paper seems somewhat unbalanced in favour of China. It should not be very hard to remedy this, for example by incorporating some of the below omissions in the paper, which bring some contextual sociopolitical perspective. - The paper argues that the key reasons for the worsening vulnerability of water resources in the BRB are related to climate change and population growth. But what about the effects of dam building competitions between the countries in the region or other human activities? This is likely to be an important contributing factor. - The manuscript doesn't discuss China's water hegemony, fails to mention that there is no basin-wide approach in South Asia and there is nothing about this fact that China was one of three countries to vote against the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UNWC), which seeks to strike a balance between upstream and downstream interests. Despite a growing watercourse treaty practice stretching back some 60 years, China has fewer basin agreements in South Asia: there are no treaties with India or Bangladesh. China’s transboundary water treaties are primarily bilateral, despite the fact that some of the shared waterways cover more than one other state. Glitch: - Table, page 5: 'A Common Version for the 21st Century': I think you mean 'Common Vision:
Author Response
Point 1: The paper argues that the key reasons for the worsening vulnerability of water resources in the BRB are related to climate change and population growth. But what about the effects of dam building competitions between the countries in the region or other human activities? This is likely to be an important contributing factor.
Response 1: we agree and add more information on the reasons for water vulnerability in the first paragraph of Section 4. We also concern and add some information on the possible effects on water vulnerability by dams building in China, Bhutan and India, India’s River Linking Project and others in general in Section 4.1.
Point 2: The manuscript doesn't discuss China's water hegemony, fails to mention that there is no basin-wide approach in South Asia and there is nothing about this fact that China was one of three countries to vote against the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UNWC), which seeks to strike a balance between upstream and downstream interests. Despite a growing watercourse treaty practice stretching back some 60 years, China has fewer basin agreements in South Asia: there are no treaties with India or Bangladesh. China’s transboundary water treaties are primarily bilateral, despite the fact that some of the shared waterways cover more than one other state.
Response 2: We re-write the introduction to make more clearly on the purpose of this article, which is to discover the facing problems and to find the possible ways on China-India water cooperation, from the present situation and the developing process of Sino-Indian water cooperation. On another side, we disagree the existing of ‘China’s water hegemony’ within the studied watershed, according to the analytical tool of “Hydro-hegemony”, or from the situation of international water law: China was one of three countries to vote UNWC, while India and Bhutan voted abstention, and Bangladesh voted in favour of UNWC. Up to now, none of the four riparian countries is the parties to the UNWC. China has agreements on transboundary waters with India and Bangladesh at least on data sharing in Section 3.2.1.
Point 3: Table, page 5: 'A Common Version for the 21st Century': I think you mean 'Common Vision’
Response 3: ‘A Common Version for the 21st Century’ is right, which is the title of the official document between the two countries in 2008.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Sorry to say, but I I am not satisfied with how the comments were incorporated and with the overall quality of the paper, which still has serious flows.
In particular the revisions that have been done are only minor and and more of superficial changes. In fact, the following issues are still present:
- Introduction and throughout the paper there are several instances of claims with no substantiation. For example:
"The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin is one of the world’s richest basins with 31 freshwater and other natural resources [1,2]. But it is also identified as one of four future risk hotspots 32 for transboundary rivers and even for water conflict"
These sentences are then supported by references over 10 years old, and in the reply the authors say that it is the 13th world's richest basin. 13th to me is not one of the world's richest basins..
- Originality of the study: the novel contribution is key to make a paper acceptable to publication. I have raised this issue before, suggesting also ways on how to get around this and make the contribution explicit. Instead, the author wrote that there is a gap in the literature, without reviewing the literature and without including relevant references in the new sentences added. So this is not convincing at all.
- Relevant literature: "hydropolitics" is not an analytical tool, but rather a a literature; while the concept of power of Lukes is a concept, not an analytical tool. I would suggest the authors to read and review the relevant literature.
Hence, given that the literature has not been reviewed properly, sentences are not supported throughout the paper (the introduction is guided by a Neo-Malthusian approach... so do the author belie in environmental determinism? Please read some political ecology..), the gap in the literature (which literature?) is not substantiated by references, I believe the authors should seriously take the time they need to work on the foundations and basis of this paper before considering resubmitting a new version to an academic journal.
Author Response
Point 1: Introduction and throughout the paper there are several instances of claims with no substantiation. For example: "The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin is one of the world’s richest basins with freshwater and other natural resources [1,2]. But it is also identified as one of four future risk hotspots for transboundary rivers and even for water conflict" These sentences are then supported by references over 10 years old, and in the reply the authors say that it is the 13th world's richest basin. 13th to me is not one of the world's richest basins.
Response 1: We re-write the first sentence of the paper as “The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin is the most important rivers in South Asia, especially for its riparian countries, of where freshwater resources support the local peoples’ livelihood and social-economic development”, and hope our reviewer would agree. Our reviewer does not agree the river is one of richest basins with freshwater, because it is the 13th largest river basin (in area). But in the literature (No. 4 in the reference), there is another result: the river is the 3rd largest freshwater outlet, it’s why we deem the river has very plenty of water resources. At the same time, we add two more literatures to support the view on its importance.
Point 2: Originality of the study, I have raised this issue before, suggesting also ways on how to get around this and make the contribution explicit. Instead, the author wrote that there is a gap in the literature, without reviewing the literature and without including relevant references in the new sentences added. So this is not convincing at all. I would suggest the authors to read and review the relevant literature.
Response 2: According to our reviewer’s suggestions, under the re-considering of the comments in Round one, we accept both of them. We add a section just after the fist paragraph of the introduction, to give a brief introduction on the correlations between our research with the relative tools, and to use some of them into our study, on basis of the literature review on the theories, analytical tools and frameworks of hydropolitics, hydro-hegemony, three dimensions of powers and the uses. During the process, we add eleven literatures (from 11to 21 in the reference) to fill in the gap between our study with the previous researches of water conflict and water cooperation in transboundary rivers. Finally, in the conclusion, we re-organize the results of our research based on the usage of the theory of hydropolicts and the concept of water diplomacy. We hope our reviewer would accept the above revisions and additional information.
Reviewer 2 Report
I am satisfied with the revisions
Author Response
Thanks a lot. We will try our best to make the paper better at next step.
Round 3
Reviewer 1 Report
Thanks for this revised version of the manuscript. While it has attempted to acknowledge some of the gaps and lacks that were presented in earlier versions, it still needs work in order to up-lift it to good quality standards. In particular:
- Lines 40-41: “As a result, shared water resources exacerbated by climate change [8,9] are becoming more valuable and also serve as a potential source of conflict of national interests between China and India.” Please rephrase, as it is not clear and makes not much sense at the moment: what is your point? Water resources are a source of conflict of national interests?
- 45: “based on historical records and interstate agreements.” I would say not only based on those two aspects, but on the broader evolution of the political context, as Dr. Grandi would say (see “Dynamic political contexts in the Yermouk and Blue Nile Basin”), and on the overall relations rather than on the historical “records” and on the agreements.
- 46-47 “While interstate institutional arrangements and obligations can be one of the most important factors for ensuring water cooperation”: please re-read the work of Mirumachi and Zeitoun on the TWIN, and then re-read this sentence you wrote. It is actually quite the opposite of what you state. Agreements can be bad agreement, or no implemented, and therefore the reason for interstate conflictual relations. Linking it to this, please contextualize it within the SDG 6.5.2, as for instance called by Dr. Menga and colleagues in their work on “Monitoring transboundary water cooperation in SDG 6.5.2: how a critical hydropolitics approach can spot inequality outcomes”. This would help in contextualizing your paper and also in understanding how other experts in the field have addressed the issue of water cooperation and conflict from a water diplomacy perspective.
- 48: “but most of them do not provide more incentives for deepening cooperation”: ok, this sentence shows there is confusion on what is “cooperation”. Can you please clearly define how you understand this concept?
- 47-50: “We analyze water benefits sharing, stakeholder interaction and alternatives for international water disputes according to the concept of multi-track water diplomacy [16, 17], and based on interviews with various stakeholders”: we need a much stronger explanation of the methods and methodologies used, with details about how many methods have been used, which type of interviews have been done, the sample, how this sample was identified and selected, why was it the relevant one, etc.
- Section 2.2. says it only used secondary sources, while in my previous comment you say in the introduction you used interviews (which are primary sources...).
- 51-52 “While it might be also beneficial to evaluate the Sino- Indian relations according to various concepts of power [18-22], studying power asymmetries does not provide us clear explanation what are the triggers for water conflict and cooperation”: really? Consideration of power does not help in understanding and explaining what triggers water conflict and cooperation? I think one of the reasons here is that you have completely overlooked, also judging from the references you have included, the issue of soft power (ideational power), often used in track 2 water diplomacy: read closely the authors that in critical hydropolitics have included consideration of how discourses shape hydropolitics (see for instance the work on “Yarmouk, Jordan, and Disi basin: examining the impact of the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan on transboundary water governance”, or the work of Fillippo Menga on the cycle of hydro-hegemony.
- What is the research question? Clearly state it in the Introduction and justify why it matters
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
