| Abstract |
- In the policy literature and the popular press, the issues of water and conflict are
being raised together with increasing frequency. Geographic, international relations, and
environmental security theories speculate on the linkages between geographic features,
natural resources, spatial relationships, and war or acute conflict. Little quantitative or
global-scale research exists, however, to test these theories regarding the relationship of
water to international conflict. Moreover current literature often lacks consideration of
water cooperation or spatial variability. The Basins at Risk (BAR) project addressed this
gap by empirically identifying historical indicators of international freshwater conflict
and cooperation and creating a framework to identify and evaluate international river
basins at potential risk for future conflict. To accomplish this task, we created a database
of historical incidents of water-related cooperation and conflict across all international
river basins from 1948 to 1999, delineated an historical Geographic Information System
(GIS) of international river basins and associated countries, derived biophysical,
socioeconomic, and geopolitical variables at multiple spatial and temporal scales, and
tested these variables against our event data.
We found that international relations over shared freshwater resources were
overwhelmingly cooperative. Although conflicts over water occurred, violent conflict
was rare and far outweighed by the number of international water agreements.
International cooperation over water resources covered a wide range of concerns,
including quantity, quality, hydropower, and infrastructure development. Conflict,
especially acute conflict, centered on issues of quantity and infrastructure (e.g., dams,
reservoirs). The majority of commonly cited indicators (e.g., climate, water stress,
government type, relative power relationships) showed no statistically significant
association with international water conflict or cooperation. Rather, the tendency
towards conflict was associated with rapid or extreme changes in physical or institutional
systems (e.g., the building of large dams or the internationalization of a basin). The
propensity for such conflict was mitigated by the presence of institutional mechanisms,
such as freshwater treaties. From the results of our analyses, we identify three categories
of basins at risk and present a framework for further evaluation of the potential for
international water conflict in these basins.
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