Explore data from Asia.
Examine the extent to which national-level legal frameworks recognize the freshwater rights of Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities in Asia through distinct “community-based water tenure regimes” (CWTRs). To learn more about community-based tenure rights in Asia, see RRI’s Forest Tenure Data.
4 countries and 9 Community-based Water Tenure Regimes:
Two-thirds of the Asian CWTRs analyzed are characterized by a legislative land-water nexus. In 5 of these same 6 CWTRs (including all 3 CWTRs identified in Cambodia and the 2 CWTRs identified in India) the nexus stems from legal provisions recognizing the customary rights of Indigenous Peoples and local communities to both terrestrial and freshwater resources. The relationship between communities’ recognized land and water rights is particularly critical as the Asian countries studied all rank among the 20 countries with the greatest annual average population impacted by river floods.
When compared to the CWTRs analyzed across Africa and Latin America, Asian CWTRs provide the least consistent protection of communities’ exclusion and external enforcement rights.
Asia Performance (Threshold Questions & Legal Indicators)
For 4 countries in Asia, RRI maintains detailed qualitative data on the strength of Water Tenure rights legally held by Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendant Peoples, and local communities. Learn more about RRI’s Water Tenure Methodology.
These questions evaluate elements of legally recognized freshwater rights that impact all people within a given country and that strongly influence the strength and security of community-based freshwater rights.
CWTR-level threshold questions provide critical context within which the bundle of freshwater rights held by Indigenous Peoples, Afro-descendants, local communities, and women in those communities should be understood.
The methodology assesses five legal indicators—use, transferability, exclusion, governance, and domestic due process and compensation—along with associated sub-indicators for each identified CWTR.