[00:00:00] Bridget: Welcome to the Water Resources Podcast. I am Bridget Scanlon. In this podcast, we discuss water challenges with leading experts, including topics on extreme climate events, over exploitation, and potential solutions towards more sustainable management. I would like to welcome Aaron Wolfe to the podcast.
Aaron Wolf is a Professor of Geography in the College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. His research focuses on issues relating to transboundary water resources that are linked to political conflict and cooperation. And his training is really highly appropriate for this because he combines environmental science background with dispute resolution theory and practice.
Aaron has worked with many different international agencies on water conflict issues, including the United Nations, the World Bank, food and agricultural organizations (FAO), and many others. And he has published numerous papers and books, including his most recent on The Spirit of Dialogue, which was published in 2017, also Hydropolitics Along the Jordan River and contributed to others such as the United Nations Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Resolution. So Aaron, thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it.
[00:01:27] Aaron: Sure. Sure. It's a pleasure to be with you, Bridget.
[00:01:30] Bridget: So we chatted briefly before about different potential topics.
And I think on everybody's mind these days is the war in Ukraine and the Kakhova hydroelectric power plant depleting 70 percent of the resource and, and flooding large areas of land. And also the Israeli Gaza war w here Gaza traditionally relied on the coastal aquifers supplying 90 percent of their water, but now reduced to about 5 percent of what they have traditionally had access to.
And then destroying both some access to desal, desalinated water and destroying sewage treatment. So all of those issues are front and center. So maybe you would like to comment on some of those, Aaron.
[00:02:18] Aaron: Oh, sure. Yeah, thanks. I think what you touch on is a really important point about water. A couple of points.
One is that it ignores boundaries. So people who often have enmities, whether it's, as you mentioned, Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Gaza, India and Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Armenians, that they often share water resources. And so one of the charges of hydropolitics is to help people manage their water resources, even over, over tense borders.
But the other point that you note is that water is often a victim of war. And, and it's certainly in the conflicts going on today, whether it's again, Ukraine or Gaza or Syria or Sudan, that when people are engaged in battle or a violent conflict, that it's very hard to get water to people that just then exacerbates the destruction often primarily to, to civilians.
And I think that that's what we're seeing worldwide today.
[00:03:21] Bridget: Right. And I guess the Israeli Gaza conflict and the issues of wastewater treatment. So when they lose power, which they did shortly after the beginning of the war, then they lose their ability to treat wastewater and, and other things. So that linkage between water and energy too, maybe gets amplified during war.
So lots of issues there. So this year, March 22nd is the United Nations World Water Day. And the theme this year was Water for Peace. And they emphasized online and in many other fora, that transboundary waters account for 60 percent of the world's freshwater resources and impacts that about 150 countries have territory within at least one of the 310 transboundary river and lake basins that you have worked a lot on to catalog and inventory. And then also at overlap with maybe one of the more than one of the 468 transboundary aquifer systems that the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Center, IGRAC has maps of. So how do you, how successful do you think the theme was, or are people getting to understand these issues more and consider maybe water could be used more to create peace or those sorts of things?
[00:04:46] Aaron: Sure, so I think that we've gone through a couple of shifts in thinking, as it really is about half the land surface of the earth is covered in basins that are shared by two or more countries. And so, as we discussed, when countries are in conflict, it's very difficult to manage their water effectively or efficiently. And, but the converse is also true that the fact that they share water often, often gives entree to dialogue, a vehicle for dialogue, something to talk about. That's so critical to all aspects of a country's economy, culture, religion, that it often will induce people to talk, even if they won't talk about something else.
And so when I first got involved in the nineties, people were really focusing on this idea of water wars that this, all the numbers that you described, the resources that we share between tense countries would invariably lead to what was described as the wars of the 21st century would be about water.
Water is the new oil. And so I think there was a lot of that thinking. And then I and a number of other people actually started to count things, count how many times we actually fight over water versus how many times we dialogue over water, how many treaties there are versus how many wars. And it turns out that our record is actually much, much richer on the dialogue side, on the peace building side.
Two thirds of the time we do anything over shared water, it's cooperate. And these are precisely the people that were predicted to go to war. It's Israelis and Arabs and Indians and Pakistanis. And so there, I think slowly we've been kind of shifting the ship so that people now recognize the peace building components of water and a lot of people now are kind of helping to refine that thinking also that there's a group, the School of London, This is Mark Zeitun and Naho Mirumachi.
Well, they point out that that's true, but not all cooperation is necessarily good. Sometimes treaties solidify power imbalances, and not all conflict is bad. Sometimes if there are very inequitable or unjust situations, it requires a certain amount of recalibration.
[00:07:11] Bridget: Right. So it's certainly not a black and white situation and it's much more nuanced and so can have a lot of different impacts.
And I commend you, Aaron, for developing a database of these treaties and you, I think you have maybe about 400 water related treaties now and have these data available online and everything. And so that's a huge help to understand how many of these transboundary systems have treaties and it's I guess it's amazing how few there are really in the scheme of things or how many basins they cover or maybe, maybe you could describe when you started to collate these data and how you've developed it over time.
[00:07:54] Aaron: Well, as you mentioned in your kind introduction, Bridget, I started as a scientist and so when I, I started to get familiar with the literature on the water wars, they were making huge prognoses and projections based on no data whatsoever. Initially all I wanted was a lead sentence for an article that said there are X number of international basins. Nobody knew what X was. So that led to three years of pulling out World War II topo sheets and digitizing them and figuring them out. So the first number we, we did the first update, just how many basins there were. At the time, I think we said 214, now we're up to 313. So, so we keep finding, our borders keep shifting.
And so it was simple, let's find out what's actually going on. And then the second, as you mentioned, all the treaties, we're actually now up to about 800 treaties. So similarly, in international law, generally they focus on the theories. So there's a theory that you can't cause another country significant harm. Another theory says you can only use what's reasonable and equitable. And I thought, okay, that's nice in theory. What are people actually doing in practice? So I went to find the book of water treaties and it didn't exist. So again, it was just simply wanted to know what people actually do. So we started to Xerox, and we started to compile and we started to pull and then finally digitize and code them so that now when somebody wants to know how do we deal with instream flows? How do we deal with waste crossing an international boundary? Within seconds, they can scan all the world's treaties and find out how other people have done it.
[00:09:41] Bridget: Right. And it's great to have these data. And of course, if something isn't available online now, it may as well not exist because we're certainly not going to go to find paper copies of anything. Hardly. It has to be readily accessible. and I guess with all of these treaties, then you, you sort of suggest that maybe some of these are like apple pie, they are just kind of like generalities maybe or something. How much enforcement power is there behind some of these treaties and are they being tested in different regions?
Do you think they stand the test and work?
[00:10:16] Aaron: Yes. So some of the treaties are quite general as you point out, a lot of them are specific. And what is impressive about them is they do stand the test of time through decolonialization, through shifting governments, that they do, people do tend to honor their commitments, even if they're fighting over other issues.
The classic case is the Indus Basin Treaty between India and Pakistan. This was signed in 1960. They fought four wars, in that time between then and now, and every now and again, some politician will say, we're going to to withdraw from the treaty, and they just don't. And anytime there is a dispute in the treaty, they actually follow the conflict resolution mechanisms to the letter.
And so I think that is one of the impressive points about them. And, and the other is, again, I think because there are now so many and so accessible, it is increasing I think the rate of people willing to sign on to treaties is also increasing.
[00:11:22] Bridget: Wow. That is great. And I was very impressed with one of your recent papers, Aaron, that you were looking at the impact of the Taliban returning to Afghanistan and what its effect would be on water management, and you were talking about the transboundary Helmand River. I would really like to, if you could describe the results of this analysis and, and how you felt the role religion would play in this region. And I guess another example was the building of a large canal there, the Kosh Tepa canal or something that would divert 20 percent of water from Amu Darya and keep it in Afghanistan. Maybe you can describe those a little bit.
[00:12:04] Aaron: Sure, so I think there are a couple of points that come up in that basin, the Helmand that you mentioned, and it is also true in quite a number of basins. I think we in the West have kind of shied away from, or learned to shy away from, speaking about religion and its influence in policy and decision making.
This is kind of a post enlightenment ethic that we in the West have just kind of gotten accustomed to is that rationality and spirituality live in very, very different worlds. And you can have your spiritual life, but it's private on your Friday, your Saturday, your Sunday community and it should not influence policy.
Well, that, that is a very recent phenomenon in a very specific geography, and the rest of the world, they don't make that distinction. And so you're talking regularly, very comfortable talking about religion's influence on your life and in, in political decision making. And one of the interesting things, often, is that faith traditions are shared across the world, across boundaries. And that's true in Helmand. So the idea that both sides are Muslim and that these are ethics that can be referred to as a commonality. The idea that you do not charge for water, that water is a human right, that you should never deny somebody else water. These are all articles of faith in Islam.
And so the idea that the Taliban and the government of Iran subscribe to this is an entry place to dialogue. But this is true in lots of places, all of Latin America is Catholic and, and enjoy even different faiths. The Jordan river has brought together people of faith in Islam and Judaism and Christianity to tap into the holy nature of the river in an effort to induce dialogue and keep it cleaner. So this is one of the points that I think comes up in that part of the world.
And the other, you mentioned the Qosh Tepa Canal, which has a lot of people downstream in the city are concerned because the plans for the canal predate the Taliban and they've decided to dust it off and try to get the investment funds to build this thing.
And it could be huge for Afghanistan. Quite a lot of irrigation water would be available, but downstream countries are concerned already. I mean, there is a vast environmental degradation on in the Aral Sea and the countries of Central Asia are very concerned even without this. So that is the other thing I think that the example brings up is how often upstream developments are the trigger for downstream concerns and conflict.
[00:14:48] Bridget: Right, and I guess you are correct that we don't mention our religion, we hardly mention our politics. We just want to be robotic in some of those aspects and it's getting even more so that way. But I mean, here you're seeing the value of going back to religion and how that can help guide policies and stuff and in a good way because their religion emphasizes the importance of water.
And I think maybe similarly in Aboriginal people in Australia or the tribes here in the US, the spiritual nature of water and acknowledging and recognizing that it could maybe help us manage it a little bit more equitably or reasonably. So there are a lot of examples of conflict related to water, or maybe it's not conflict per se, but the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that's being built in Ethiopia and, and potential impacts on irrigation in Egypt, which has traditionally relied on the Nile.
I have also been reading about the Euphrates Tigris and the lack of any formal agreement between the countries there, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran. You mentioned the Indus Agreement, but also there's other, the Ganges Water Dispute between India and Bangladesh and the 1996 Treaty. And lastly, Mekong River, concern about the Chinese building a lot of hydropower and maybe Laos building hydropower upstream and this issue of upstream downstream, which seems to be prevalent in many of these regions.
Maybe you could describe some of those, Aaron, and what your thoughts are.
[00:16:34] Aaron: Sure. So I think that the common thread in each of those examples, Bridget, is somebody upstream build something or wants to build something. And there's no agreement in place with the downstream neighbors on how to deal with the impact of the project.
So a lot of people have been interested in that over the years and kind of indicators of water tensions, and they look to things like drought or climate change or development or water quality, and these tend not to be indicators. What you put your finger on is precisely the indicator. It is when somebody upstream wants to build something and has not consulted with their downstream neighbor, and then the downstream country will object.
And that is true in all of these cases. So this is Ethiopia's upstream building this huge dam has downstream Egypt concerned. Turkey is building dams. Iraq is concerned. Ganges had a diversion that, that got Bangladesh concerned and China's building dams that has all the downstream countries in South and Southeast Asia are concerned.
So, this really is the place to focus if we want to do things better. You have better conversations around development earlier, right? You do not wait till the thing's in place. And so, what we try and do, we try to do some early warning, monitoring. And so what we are, what we try and do is keep tabs on who wants to build things, who wants to build big things.
And fortunately, if somebody has the money in hand, they will put a tender out on the web to try and get engineering companies to bid. And so it is pretty easy to track when somebody wants to build something. And then we have our record of all the treaties. And so it is pretty easy to see if there's an agreement in place or whether they've made an agreement on this, on this project or not.
Oh, and so this is where we are. The the positive point, I think, again, is that when upstream and downstream neighbors are willing to talk about upstream development, they will notice a couple of things. One, along a river, it also often does make sense to build the hydropower project for as far upstream as you can, less environmental degradation, less impact on transportation and the topography often is better suited for it.
And the other thing is if they do it cooperatively, both sides really can benefit, right? So storage upstream often can reduce flooding downstream or can extend the growing season or can extend the navigation season. So having the conversations feels like there are natural inducements to both sides.
And then of course the downstream country may be interested enough, maybe to buy storage upstream or to help jointly own the project. And so these relations between upstream and downstream are ones that really can be finessed and there is a rich history of it.
[00:19:33] Bridget: Yeah, I mean, of course, oftentimes we just focus on the negative.
And that is all. If it is anything good, we just don't talk about it. And I guess you're describing some of the situations where there's a win win between upstream and downstream and the hydropower generated could provide energy for downstream users and, reduce flooding, as you mentioned, and other things, but the way we portray things, it's always doom and oftentimes doom and gloom, and, don't, talk about it, the holistic, picture and the comprehensive assessment.
So it's nice if people could describe that and with more and more data being more readily available now, I think it helps, with data access. But I mean, I think when I was reading about the Mekong River, the Mekong River Commission created and stuff and, but concerns that China was not sharing data on the reservoirs and operations and things like that.
So data access and knowledge and commissions where the countries can talk together, I think could advance things a lot. I think other examples that I was reading in some of your work or others is just at a more local scale would be in parts of Africa where the pastoralists or the herders are in conflict with the settled farming communities, particularly during drought. And, and one example I read was about Kenya and about almost 300 people killed in that. And other examples in Inner Niger Delta or in Mali and, and also cases in Ethiopia. Have you been involved in many of those, or have you had sort of analysis? Herders?
[00:21:13] Aaron: Sure. Yes. Fortunately, we partner a lot with our colleagues at IHE Delft in the Netherlands, and they've really been focusing on, on this scale, on the sub national scale.
And they have developed quite a, quite a nifty early warning system that do take into account the things that aren't indicators at the international scale. So as you point out, things like drought really do drive herders to clash with each other. And so the thing I think we are seeing is that as we drop in scale, the likelihood and intensity of violence over water goes up, that people won't necessarily cross a border to be violent with each other without quite a lot of impetus.
But at the sub national level, as you point out, it is very easy to get states on the Narmada River in India. There are two states that have been tense, and it is broken out in violence over the years. And then here in the Western U. S., we've had quite a lot of farmer to farmer, farmer to environmentalist, or small-scale violence here as well.
And so we will work, I think, the tools that we use, how to listen better, how to identify shared values. The tools that we use in dialogue are the same whether you are talking about international riparian or ranchers and environmentalists and tribes. So the conversations we've worked on, we have a program in water conflict management here at Oregon State University, and we've worked with, oh, with Bureau of Reclamation.
We did five years of capacity building there to just help everybody develop skills in conflict transformation. We worked with Dept. of Interior. They are adjudicating all their agreements with tribes in the West. And we worked with them similarly on different approaches, different worldviews around water.
So I think, I think you are right. I think as we drop in scale, tensions can go up, but, but we also have quite a lot of history of tools and experience in dialogue, even between, again, even between stakeholders that do not see eye to eye and across the political spectrum as well.
[00:23:22] Bridget: Yes. I mean, some of these, I would assume that your conflict resolution training can help in everyday life.
And especially these days, trying to de-escalate the things when people get pretty uptight about stuff. So I did enjoy listening to Cliff Voss's or Chris Voss's book on Don't Split the Difference, which is, he was always negotiating with, international hostages. He worked for the CIA and stuff. And it is fascinating.
So you have written many books and papers and stuff. And I, one of the ones that I was interested in hearing about was, the hydropolitics along the Jordan River. I think that is a, possibly a nice example of solar energy generated by Jordan and transmitted to Israel and then Israel returning with desalinated seawater.
Maybe you can describe that. And I guess what you were looking at originally in the book, maybe you can give more background.
[00:24:19] Aaron: Sure. So, so this was based on the PhD that I did at the University of Wisconsin that was basically asking what are the impacts of water on the Arab Israeli conflict, but then what are the opportunities for water to help induce dialogue between Arabs and Israelis?
And, and this was the mid-1990s. And it was interesting because I was dissuaded at the time, said do not, don't even bother because there's never going to be peace talks between them. And then sure enough, as I was writing my conclusions, they actually started the Oslo Accords. And so I had to keep rewriting my conclusions and actually got engaged as a consultant to the state department because they looked around and said, who, Who in the U.S. knows about the relationship between water and politics? And there were not that many at the time, so I got to be engaged as the talks were starting. But and, and there too, I think we have gone through some real shifts. So there were wonderful periods, the mid 1990s, where everything was possible.
Peace was breaking out, not just there, but everywhere. Apartheid was over and the walls were coming down and, and it was just a remarkable time of optimism. And, what happens as soon as borders open up to cooperation is the possibilities for creative solutions also open up. So even within water, Jordan's running out of water and Israel is on the coast. Israel can desalinate and then reallocate the upstream flows of the Jordan or the Yarmouk River to Jordan and so these kinds of trades suddenly become possible. And then, as you point out, that is evolved to move beyond water. That if you had, the UAE was interested in investing and there would be solar power generated in Jordan, which would help fund desalination in Israel, which would provide water for Israel, Palestinians, and Jordan. So with peace the possibilities are, are remarkable. And so there is a group called Eco Peace and the, they have offices in Palestine, Israel, and Jordan all, and they were really working on this. They called the blue, blue green peace is that project. And then unfortunately, the, the attacks of October 7th and the subsequent war, all of these, all of these projects are now deeply on hold.
And I think for, for the next little while, as soon as there is finally a ceasefire, will be the emphasis will be on rebuilding. And of course, water infrastructure will have to be an integral part, because this period of conflict reminds us of how integrated we are also in times of discord.
So as you pointed out, Palestinians now do not have the capacity to treat their sewage, which is just going into the Mediterranean, which because of the currents end up in Israel, clogging Israeli desalination plants. So we are, that region is integrally connected for good or in times of conflict.
[00:27:27] Bridget: Right. And I guess building on the UN this year on their World Water Day and peace, there is a lot of emphasis and institutes and other groups working on water for peace. I think Stockholm International Water Institute has a Peace Research Institute and Water Conflict working with the Pacific Institute in California and others.
I did take the quiz and because I had read some of your papers that I did better than I anticipated. But some of those questions it's difficult for us to understand. So that is a nice example where there could be cooperation, Israel and Jordan. And are there other examples, and you mentioned the Indus Commission between India and Pakistan, even though they have been subjected to several wars over that time, the treaty has held and, and they have abided by it.
And are there other examples that you would like to mention or?
[00:28:23] Aaron: I think anywhere you find conflict and shared waters, you'll find whenever there's a possibility, the pool of shared waters will prevail. And so it is the examples that you gave. It is any of the big rivers have countries that don't like each other very much on them.
And somehow, they're all at various levels of negotiations or of treaties, Tigris, Euphrates, people focus on Turkey's building dams and downstream countries are concerned, which is true. What you will not read about in the press is Turkish delegations traveling to Iraq and vice versa, that people really are talking about these.
And even Azerbaijan and Armenia, they just fought a war within the last six months. And they too, whenever they can, even unofficially, will continue to dialogue and try and figure out how to resolve their water quality issues. The five countries of Central Asia, it is the same thing. I think anywhere you look. Whenever there is even the smallest crack of opportunity, people will try and have dialogue around water, even when they won't talk about anything else.
[00:29:31] Bridget: Right. And that is very hopeful. And you mentioned walls breaking down and stuff in the 90s being a period of optimism. I guess that's another thing that can alter the picture is when, USSR, you have a lot of other countries, coming into play now.
So, things can change and, and, then they need to develop new approaches to manage the system. So upstream, downstream or Sudan, North and South Sudan, and things like that country splitting apart, then it can create challenges also, I guess. You wrote one of your early books is Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Resolution, and I guess developed some tools to resolve disputes and stuff like that.
And, and I am sure you've been building on that since you published it over time. Would you like to comment on this and what you have learned over time on these tools and stuff, how to advance resolution?
[00:30:29] Aaron: Oh, sure. Thank you for the opportunity. So I think, I think two bookends or two bookend kind of my thinking on it.
The one that you mentioned, which I wrote with a, a good friend and colleague, Jerry Deli Priscoli, who was at the Corps of Engineers at the time, lays out, I think if we're thinking about water conflict, resolution. The temptation in the West is to think it is all a technical issue. All you must do is figure out the benefits of cooperation, optimize.
And I, I used to think that I started my career as a groundwater, flow modeler, and I was working for the U S Geological Survey and there would be a room full of angry people. And I'd say, hey, people don't be angry. I have figured out what the answer is. And of course, it just made them angrier. And so that is what sent me back to try and understand something about the process of conflict resolution and, and how these conversations can be structured in a way that is more productive. But then that too, the way I was trained was also a very Western kind of rational approach to conflict resolution that focused on benefits. And then when I got in the room, it was, I do not know how else to describe it. It really was about the energy in the room. How people are sitting.
If they are facing each other, it feels tenser. If they are sitting side by side, it can be calmer, how they listen, what their mannerisms are. Are they listening with an open heart? Are they listening in a coldly calculated way? And so it turns out that those kinds of skills also are taught quite regularly, but not in Western universities.
And so this kind of sent me off on a multi decade quest to learn from faith traditions and from Indigenous peoples and how, within different communities, how do they structure or understand conflict or anger and what are the tools that they use for calming and for dialogue and within those communities.
And so that's how I've kind of moved along the spectrum from the Western rational approach to now some kind of a synthesis between yes, we need the science. We need the models. We need to understand what's there, and we need to understand empathy and honor and the importance of history and one's faith to be able to bring all of these aspects of incentives into a room to have the kinds of conversations we need.
And fortunately, water touches on all of these aspects. And so it is, it's once we acknowledge it and, and name it, it becomes quite easy to engage in a more holistic dialogue.
[00:33:10] Bridget: But so you must be aware then when you are in meetings and stuff, how clueless many of us are. We can't read body language, we, we barge on with our technical stuff and regardless of the feedback we should be receiving, I mean, it can probably be quite comical for you too, because thinking of where you've come from and how you have learned a lot of these things. I mean, we work on, we're looking at the Colorado at the moment, and there's going to be a lot of issues between rural irrigated agriculture and urban demands like Phoenix and Tucson and stuff like that. So it may not be really a technical thing. It may be more socioeconomic issue than a technical thing. And how are they going to manage those resources and stuff and distribute them. So, and so I think we're coming along on this path to recognizing these are not just technical issues that we can run a model and get a number, but we need to consider the other effects and stuff and try to come to some sort of resolution.
so I was visiting University of Alabama recently and the Global Water Security Institute, and they mentioned that you are working with them on forecasting water conflict. And maybe you can describe the data that you're using to forecast potential water conflicts in the future.
[00:34:38] Aaron: Sure. It's a lovely group and I really enjoy working with them.
I taught at the Uuniversity of Alabama for five years, so I always am very comfortable. Anyway, going back, but I am, I'm delighted that DoD is investing in this, in this direction because I think they're recognizing too, especially with, climate change that all of our concepts about our relationship to, to conflict and to natural resources. They are going to be exacerbated for all kinds of reasons. And so I I'm really delighted that they're looking forward and the team there was really quite delightful. So, as I mentioned, I mean, from my experience, most early warning can be done by looking at where people are planning to build dams and whether there is an agreement in place.
And what they bring to the table is access to AI, to all kinds of things that did not exist when I got started. They can look at who is tweeting what to whom and, and just kind of this, this what's happening on the ground. What are people talking about? If they are talking about water at all in different communities, how are, how are they talking about it?
And so bring in this very, first, real time, but also much, much broader assessment of conversations at different scales. I think we'll have the opportunity, the first opportunity really to think in much more detail about decision making on the ground and how kind of citizens broadly are, are inputting into the, those decisions, but also the relationship between the two scales, the international scale that I'm kind of used to looking at, but also the relationship between that.
And the subnational scale because the two influence each other, right? People on the ground will not do more than their governments allow them to do at the international scale, but at the local scale, they can push their governments in certain directions. And so that is what we're very hopeful is kind of bringing the, the, the big kind of satellite scanning for, for tenders or scanning for dams.
Along with looking at tweets and, and what AI and whatever else we can find on the internet and see if we cannot sharpen our assessment techniques.
[00:36:58] Bridget: It is interesting when you mentioned that you spent five years at University of Alabama, because that was my entree to the U. S. Because Phil Lamoureux brought me to this country and I did my master’s in Tuscaloosa.
So, that's pretty cool. And I agree. I mean, it is one thing to have the technical data, but being able to access tweets and all these other things, newspaper articles, unsupervised machine learning, and make sense to incorporate that software. The information into where they might move forward and how they might move forward, where their heads are.
artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches now are really opening up a lot of data that we could not really synthesize or harmonize in, in an easy way before. So, and this can feed into decision making and, and policy and stuff. So I think this is great. And, and Kate Brauman and others.
They have so many data analysts on their team. I think this will be a huge resource and should help a lot. So we have talked a lot about how things have been evolving in the current status and stuff. What are you optimistic about the future, in terms of transboundary water issues and how they might be able to help with conflict resolution or create peaceful solutions or how water should be used, can be used as a to generate peace in different regions.
[00:38:23] Aaron: Yeah, I go back and forth to be honest with you, Bridget. I, by nature, I am an optimist. I've been involved in a lot of discussions where people who had really good reason to dislike or suspect each other would end up having a healthy conversation that resulted in some kind of tangible benefits for both sides. So, so that, that always gives one faith. and so, and, and even here within the U S. I'm involved with the, with a small basin here, the Chewaucan Basin and Lake Abert here in South Central Oregon, where there's a drought on a lake, dried up a lake, the Pacific Flyway, the birds rely on, and initially it started to transpire like they do here in the U.S. A group of environmentalists went to the state legislature and said, lake dried up, it's probably the rancher's fault, you gotta start, Oh, you have to start enforcing the law. And then the ranchers organized. And then interestingly, instead of organizing and lawyering up and going to court, they kind of reached out and said, can we talk? I mean, if we understand each other and we have conversations, maybe instead of spending 10 or 20 years in court and having a decision enforced, we can come up with some creative solutions ourselves. And so this has now been going on, they've crafted a joint committee, they've just developed a joint fact finding, text, where they were able to collectively tell the story of the basin. And so you, you do enough of that and you feel really good about the future. You, you're convinced, I, I am often convinced that all of the yuck is just online. I almost nobody ever says to me the stuff that people say to me online. I mean, in person, people are delightful. People are lovely. People are genuine, generous and, and kind and empathetic.
But then I do not know, at the macro scale, I honestly don't know. All of these things, there's one scenario where all these conflicts lead to lots of peace breaking out. And the pendulum swings again, and we rebuild, and we re-energize, and we reorganize, or not. And we're in World War III, and I honestly, it depends on the day of the week that, which of those scenarios is prevalent in my mind.
[00:40:45] Bridget: Right. And I guess we are seeing increasing extremes, longer term droughts and, and in more intense flooding and stuff. So, so that could amplify some of these issues in different regions, but hopefully we are learning. And of course, we are really not talking face to face as much as we ever did. And so I think we're going to be missing out on that also because I often think it's hard for somebody to be angry with me if I'm facing them and trying, and so I try to have face to face meetings a lot of times to learn more and, and to create an environment where you can discuss things more reasonably.
So, our guest today is Aaron Wolfe, and he is a professor at Oregon State University, and he works on transboundary water resources with a unique, fairly unique background, including environmental science and conflict resolution. Thank you so much, Aaron, for your time today. I really appreciate it and keep; hope you keep doing what you're doing in helping us understand these issues.
[00:41:46] Aaron: Well, thanks to you, Bridget, for all you, all you add to the water world. Much appreciated.
