Sub-National / -Basin and Local

The closer one gets to the local level, the more prominent the conflicts will be intertwined with the social web and particular competing interests of local people, businesses, and other stakeholders. Sub-national / -basin and local level actors are both impacted by national or provincial level planning as well as triggering water conflict situations themselves through illegal abstraction, pollution, and regulating water courses or lakes. In many developing countries, there is not only a weak legal water management framework, but also a lack of water governance, control, and enforcement. Under such conditions, local conflicts will continue to thrive, even if individual stakeholders are interested in longer-term solutions and water use sustainability. In countries where both laws and institutional structures are robust, they can provide the ingredients for solutions like local water allocation plans or environmental flows arrangements.