Governance & Policy
Transboundary Water
Rivers, lakes and aquifers crossing national borders — shared by 153 countries and governed, patchily, by treaty.
Definition
Transboundary waters are surface and groundwater bodies that mark, cross or lie on boundaries between states: nearly half of the world's river flow and hundreds of aquifer systems, shared by 153 countries and home to over 40% of the world's population. Governance rests on the UN Watercourses Convention (1997, in force 2014) and the UNECE Water Convention, both built on equitable and reasonable use and the no-harm rule, alongside over 400 basin treaties — though many shared basins still lack cooperative arrangements (SDG 6.5.2 tracks this).
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