Sustainable Governance of Transboundary Water Resources Using Social Choice Rules Concepts (Case Study: Harirud River Catchment)

 Conflicts over transboundary waters between neighboring countries is one of the most common challenges in the regional and international scale. Solving of these conflicts and getting agreements over transboundary waters has always faced many challenges that make it difficult to reach a consensus solution. Afghanistan, Iran and Turkmenistan Conflicts over Harirud river waters is among the transboundary river waters conflicts that have escalated  in recent years.

Assuming that the parties are willing to hold negotiation in order to reach an agreement over Harirud river waters, in this paper the probable options of each party were identified with respect to the prevailing international principles and theories on how to divide common border waters. After defining five options for negotiation, in order to identify social optimal situation, six common social choice rules including Condorcet Choice, Borda Scoring, Plurality Rule, Median Voting Rule, Majoritarian Compromise and Condorcet’s Practical Method were used. Finally, by using the aforementioned social choice rules, the most probable result was determined.

The results showed that water trading market option, based on all rules of social choice, exception of plurality rule, was chosen as optimal situation. Therefore, based on the social choice rules, it can be said that the water trading market option is the most likely solution which there is a possibility of an agreement between the three countries over Harirud river waters conflicts.