Transcript Water Conflict and Cooperation

Water Conflict and
Cooperation
State of the World
Worldwatch
Water Management
What are some of the competing interests
that confront water management?
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Domestic use
Agriculture
Hydropower generation
Recreational use
Ecosystems
International boundaries
Esthetic & spiritual
interests
© Digital Vision
© Digital Vision
Water and Disputes
Water is never the single--and hardly ever
the major--cause of conflict.
 But it can exacerbate existing
political, ethnic or religious tensions
 It can also provide a basis for
opening dialogue and negotiations
 Between 1945 and 1999 cooperative
events between nations outnumbered conflicts by more than two
to one
© Edwin Huffman/World Bank
Water and Dialogue
How can water negotiations serve as a
conflict-prevention strategy?
Negotiations provide productive pathways for:
 Building confidence
 Developing cooperation
 Preventing conflict
 Create openings for further dialogue
© morgueFile
Disputes
What are three key issues in water
disputes?
1. Quantity
2. Quality
© FAO
3. Timing
© FAO
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Quantity
1. Competing claims for a scare resource.
 Water allocation for different users and uses
such as ecosystem needs and individual
livelihoods can lead to disputes
© WHO
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Quality
2. Unclean water poses serious threats to
human and ecosystem health
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Pollution and excessive levels
of salt, nutrients or solids make
water inappropriate for
drinking, industry and even
agriculture.
Degradation becomes a
source of conflict between
those who cause it and those
affected by it.
© digital vision
© digital vision
Timing
3. Timing of water flow is often critical and
operational patterns of dams have
competing interests
 In winter dams may
release water
upstream for
hydropower
 In summer water is
needed downstream
for irrigation
© digital vision
Spatial Levels
Dynamics of conflict can vary depending on
the geographic scale
International Level: Transboundary waters
can cause pervasive tensions resulting in:
 degraded political
relations
 inefficient water
management
 ecosystem neglect
© Robert Simmon/NASA
Spatial Levels
National Level:
 Disputes between
provinces, ethnic or
religious groups, or
economic sectors
have a high potential
for violence
 National sovereignty
issues can inhibit
international
involvement
© NASA
Spatial Levels
Local Level:
 Likelihood and intensity of
violence increases as
geographic sale drops
 Loss of water-based
livelihoods (loss of
irrigation water or
freshwater ecosystems)
can lead to migrations to
cities or neighboring
countries
© UN
Spatial Levels
Local Level:
 Local core values held
for generations are
threatened by new
demands for cities and
hydropower
 Disputes over water
service management
arise between
communities and state
authorities
© USDA
Interdependence
Why are international basins so critical to
global security?
 Basins bounded by 2
or more countries
cover 45.3% of earth
 Host about 40% of the
world’s population
 Account for 60% of
global river flow
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International Basins
Database: Basins at Risk
Mollewide Projection
Oregan State University
October 2000
International Basins
1978
 214 international basins
Today
 263 international basins due
to breakup of the Soviet
Union and Balkan states, as
well as better digital mapping
technology
Examples
 Nile—shared by 10 countries
 Danube—shared by 17
countries
© NASA
Sharing the Basin
“Danube Basin Analysis (WFD Roof Report 2004)”
Cooperation
Does the rate of cooperation over
international resources outweigh the
incidence of acute conflicts?
 Acute Conflict: 42 acute disputes in last 50
years (30 involved Israel, violence which
ended in 1970)
 Treaties: 400 treaties negotiated and signed
 Conflict events: 507 conflict related events
 Cooperation: 1,228 cooperative agreements
Violence
Despite fiery rhetoric of politicians most
actions taken over water are mild.
 62% of all events are
only verbal and more
than two thirds of
these have no official
sanction
© IRIN
Good and Bad
Despite lack of violence, water acts as both
an irritant and a unifier.
 water can make good relations bad
and bad relations worse
 international waters can unify basins
with relatively strong institutions
Cooperation
Cooperative events cover a broad spectrum of
issues:
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water quantity
quality
economic development
hydropower
joint management
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Dispute Resolution
Negotiations often continue despite wars
over other issues
 Mekong Committee functioned
during Viet Nam War (Cambodia,
Laos, Thailand, Viet Nam)
 Israel and Jordan held secret talks about
the Jordan River during the 1950s that
lasted until a peace treaty was signed in
the 1990s
 Indus River Commission survived 2 major
wars between India and Pakistan
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African Negotiations
 All 10 Nile basin riparian
countries are
negotiating basin
development despite
fiery rhetoric
 Southern Africa river
basin agreements were
made even during
apartheid and civil wars
© GRID/UNEP
Conflict Resolution
Without institutions to resolve conflict,
unilateral action can heighten tensions and
regional instability, requiring decades to
resolve.
 Indus treaty took 10 years of negotiations
 the Ganges 30 years
 the Jordan 40 years
Management Mechanisms
How can cooperative management
mechanisms reduce conflict potential?
1. Provide forums for joint
negotiations, thus ensuring
that all existing and potentially
conflicting interests are taken
into account
2. Consider different perspectives
and interests to reveal new
management options and winwin solutions
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Management Mechanisms
3. Build trust and confidence
through collaboration and
joint fact-finding
4. Make decisions that are
much more likely to be
accepted by all
stakeholders, even if
consensus cannot be
reached
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Worldwatch Institute
Further information and
references for the material in this
presentation are available in the
Worldwatch Institute’s publication
“State of the World 2005”
This presentation is based on Chapter 5
“Managing Water Conflict and
Cooperation” authored by:
Aaron T. Wolf, Annika Kramer, Alexander
Carius, and Geoffrey D. Dabelko
www.worldwatch.org