The true value of water cooperation is far greater than the direct economic benefits that can be derived from better water management.

 

The development of overarching frameworks such as the 2000 European Union Water Framework Directive  demonstrates the increasing significance that is being placed on valuing water. Nonetheless, efforts to value water, especially in a transboundary context, remain limited in scope and often use different approaches. The discernible approaches to valuing water quantitatively in the transboundary context are more targeted on specific aspects of managing transboundary water resources, such as flood management, disaster risk reduction (DRR), early-warning systems (EWS) and ecosystem services. Investment in data collection systems is recognized as being of vital importance and while it comes at an additional cost, that cost can be compensated by the benefits of effective cooperation. The 2017 joint Adelphi and Regional Environmental Centre for Central Asia study noted that “it is important not to neglect the indirect costs of suboptimal water management because they demonstrate that the true value of water cooperation is far greater than the direct economic benefits that can be derived from better water management”.