Comprehensive Assessment of the Freshwater Resources of the World. InternationalFresh Water Resources: Conflict or Cooperation

摘要

The scarity of freshwater is now an important issue in many parts of the world.When multiple countries are jointly dependent on the same water body, one's withdrawal or pollution provides the ground for conflict as well as co-operation among the riparian countries to be the best use of the available resource. By making comparative analysis of the sharing of five international rivers, the study tries to determine under what conditions the conflict of co-operation takes place among nation-states over the freshwater issues. The river systems which are selected for close scrutiny are the Rhine in Europe, Colorado in North and Central America, Parana in South American, Nile in Africa and Ganges in Asia. The authors conclude: there is a large conflict potential in water quantity issues. Issues of river water pollution and regulation appear to have a record of finding solutions. Finally, the successful cases of handling river water disputes appeared to be those cases where an 'international regime' covered an entire river basin, not just major users of the river. The reason might be that this gives a chance of more relaxed discussion, more coalition building and, in essence, more third party activity. (Copyright (c) 1992 Stockholm Environment Institute.)