Facts and Figures
Water appears to provide reasons for transboundary cooperation
- There are more than 400 registered agreements over shared watersheds, most between two riparian countries.
- There is little historic evidence that water itself has led to international warfare or that a war over water would make strategic, hydrographic or economic sense.
- At the international level water appears to provide reasons for transboundary cooperation rather than war.
- Although transboundary water resources can be fodder for hostility, the record of cooperation is vastly superior to that of acute conflict, that is to say, water is much more a vector of cooperation than a source of conflict.
Related themes: Allocating Water; Institutions and Governance
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