Shared Waters: Catalyst for Cooperation

Water is a unique resource. It is critical to the functioningof human society and ecosystems, and there are nosubstitutes. As the demand for water has begun tooutstrip the available supply, competition for this limitedresource has intensified. When faced with scarcity,nations experience real limits to their growth, declines intheir human health, and degradation of their resource base- all destabilizing factors in international relations. Thissituation can become particularly acute, and has thepotential to become explosive when nations compete forwater resources. Meanwhile, some countries have begunto realize the benefits of cooperatively developing theirshared transboundary water resources. Even in highlycontentious areas, cooperation on water issues can lay thefoundation for broader based peace, security, andprosperity. This paper provides a review of the waterresources as a security issue and discusses the elementscritical to the development of a unifying framework formanagement of water resources