Hydro-transparency and transboundary water governance: Addressing information deficits and asymmetries in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin

This paper introduces hydro-transparency as an analytical concept that refers to how and why water data/information is disclosed, who transfers and receives such data/information, and the political-economic structures shaping information flows. Informed by a synthesis of critical transparency studies with hydropolitical analysis, it invites examination of the political conditions shaping differential availability of information about the movement, storage and management of water. Such an approach challenges three common assumptions about transparency in transboundary water governance: that it is a positive-sum attribute of cooperation, that it operates as a simple binary of openness versus secrecy, and that it is a fixed condition. It is argued instead that transparency is a dynamic, political process where disclosure and concealment of water data can coexist based on strategic interests rather than technical considerations. These claims are unpacked through an examination of hydro-transparency in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin (ETB), testing empirically the proposition that, within a transboundary basin, there is an inverse relationship between water securitisation and hydro-transparency . While, for the ETB, there is little evidence of concerted reductions in hydro-transparency during heightened periods of water securitisation, the desecuritisation of shared water resources tends to be associated with increased disclosure and sharing by states of water data. At the same time, the riparian states tend to engage in selective disclosure or concealment of water data based on geopolitical interests rather than cooperative norms. Turkey's upstream position and governance capacity allows it to maintain information advantages regardless of shifts in the intensity of water securitisation.