Bassin at Risk: Conflict and Cooperation over International Freshwater Ressources

Today, I want to talk about the The Basins at Risk project (BAR) developed by Wolf (2001). He talked about the link between freshwater resources and conflict-in essence for all countries from1948-1999. His work represents a unique resource that allow the evaluation of historical incidents of water conflict, cooperation and exploration for relationships. The research has three goals: 

• To identify historical indicators of international freshwater conflict and cooperation,
• To use these indicators to create a framework to identify and evaluate international river basins at potential risk for future freshwater conflict,
• To enhance understanding of the driving forces that may cause water to become a focus of conflict or cooperation.

Extreme Cooperative Event by area, Aaron T. Wolf (2001).

Extreme Conflictive Event by area, Aaron T. Wolf (2001).

Those figures show international freshwater treaties. These treaties cover a wide range of issues areas, with emphasis on water quality and quantity, hydropower, joint management and economic development. The most extremely conflictive events are exclusively related to water quantity. 

 (Wolf, 2001)

The African region reveals the lowest level of cooperation, while Western Europe shows the highest. In terms of number, the majority of international relations over freshwater resources are cooperative.

If you look at the cooperation involving several countries it seems that the quality of the water and the economical development are more predominant than water quantity and infrastructures. This fact could be explained due to high difficulties in getting transnational agreements on the quantity of water. It seems that economic development ensures more mutual benefits.

According to Wolf (2001) “Such differences point to areas where one approach, multiple vs. bilateral, may be more appropriate than the other, in attempting to develop institutional mechanisms to facilitate negotiation and management of international freshwater resources.”

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Wolf, 2001, click here