Description
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 critical 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 necessary for 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 can coexist based on strategic interests rather than technical considerations. These claims are substantiated through an empirical examination of selected moves to hydro-transparency in the Euphrates-Tigris Basin (ETB), one of the most securitised river basins in the world. Turkey's upstream position and governance capacity allow it to maintain information advantages, yet downstream states (Iraq and Syria) have resisted basin-wide transparency mechanisms that would counteract information asymmetries because the proposed measures would not alter unequal relations of hydropolitical power. The securitisation of water in the ETB encourages states strategically to engage in selective disclosure or concealment of water data based on their geopolitical interests rather than cooperative norms. Open-source water data has potential to disrupt traditional state-centric approaches to information control, potentially empowering less powerful state and non-state actors to make accountability claims against dominant ones.
