ABSTRACT
From nation-states to small communities, all are increasingly sharing a global consciousness about keeping control over their dwindling water resources. It is becoming evident that availability of water may soon dictate the sustainability of development activities of human societies (Falkenmark & Lindh 1993). The illusion of 'plenty' of water in the blue planet has been well exposed by Postel (1992) while the problems associated with the sharing of international water resources have been analyzed at length by Biswas (1993). Water is a resource which is regenerated in a highly decentralized manner on the surface of the Earth. Challenges in water resource management have to be understood at all levels, from the local or the micro, to the macro. River basins are well-identified geographical areas for developing these understandings at macro levels. This paper is an attempt to understand these challenges in the Ganges-Brahmaputra river basin (GBB) in Asia.
