Federal Rivers – Managing Water in Multi-Layered Political Systems by Dustin Garrick, George R. M. Anderson, Daniel Connell and Jamie Pittock. 2014, hardback, 384 pages, Edwin Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, UK. ISBN: 978-1-78195-504-8

As this book clearly illustrates, the regulation of rivers within federations presents a set of unique challenges. Federalism, with government power shared between the national government and provincial (sub-national) governments, potentially adds a layer of complexity to water resource management. Where rivers flow through more than one province, tensions can develop between the national and provincial governments, and also between two or more provincial governments, as to the way in which those waters are regulated.

This edited collection is the product of a workshop hosted at the University of Oxford in 2012, bringing together experts on water policy and reform from the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe and Australia. The chapters in this collection provide a series of case studies examining water resource management in ten countries, which provides breadth to this collection. Each chapter then provides great depth and detail of the water policy and political...