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Exploring Transboundary Water Conflict and Cooperation

[1] The special section on Transboundary Water Conflict and Cooperation demonstrates the use of various economic, statistical and game-theoretical approaches to the analysis of conflict and cooperation over transboundary water. They also, and perhaps more importantly, provide actual application of methodologies and their potential extrapolation to actual conflicts over transboundary water issues. Two papers, addressing the Mountain Aquifer and the Flathead Basin, demonstrate ways for dealing with a conflict situation and its possible resolution. Three other papers focus on database of signed water treaties in order to find an answer to the question on likelihood for treaty formation and factors affecting the likelihood for a conflict among riparians in a basin. [2] The interest in international water conflict and cooperation has gradually increased over the last decade. There are two possible explanations for that trend. One, water has become a subject of increased conflict and cooperation among nations. The second, communication channels have made dialogue and posting of information faster and easier. The number of books (see a review of the literature by Dinar and Dinar [2003]) and journal articles on international water conflict and cooperation have also increased and expanded in coverage. However, many of the publications [e.g., Meijerink, 1999; Kibaroglu, 2002; Beach et al., 2000; Beaumont, 1997; Huisman et al., 2000; Haddadin, 2000; Nishat and Faisal, 2000] are descriptive in nature, focusing in most cases on one river basin, explaining the nature of the conflict and the possible ways it can be solved, or has been solved, using the case study approach. [3] While there is a wealth of information on many case specific conflicts and cooperation over international water in the world, less analyses are available that attempt at generalizing and allowing for extrapolation from one case to another. Fewer publications address the generic nature of conflicts over water and their resolution, such as Barrett [2003], who developed an analytical framework to explaining international environmental treaty formation (that include also references to some water-related treaties) and existence. The special section on International Water Conflict and Cooperation aims at narrowing the gap between available information and the nature of published analysis, by giving rise to work focusing on quantitative methodological aspects of conflict resolution and cooperation and demonstrating its use in transboundary water by applying it either to an existing conflict-cooperation case or to a bigger data set of cooperative agreements. [4] The special section consists of five papers. Two papers offer conceptual frameworks for understanding conflicts among riparians to an international water body and exploring possible cooperative agreements among them. Three papers apply statistical methods to international data sets on conflict and cooperation and draw some generic lessons on the nature of conflict and cooperation among riparians, the variables affecting the formation of coalitions and the likelihood for treaty formation among these riparians. Of the five papers, two introduce the position of the riparians in the basin as a factor in reaching agreements. The geography of transboundary waters has become a subject for investigation [see Dinar, 2004] and it is reflected, using several approaches, in this special section. [5] Just and Netanyahu [2004] develop a conceptual game-theoretic framework, which helps explore potential bilateral agreements on sharing common pool resources under conditions of unequal access. The framework combines the ‘‘linking’’ with the ‘‘victim pays’’ principles and has been suggested in the past for situations where linking negotiations to other issues with reciprocal benefits may achieve international cooperation since it can avoid outcomes that are politically unacceptable due to the victim pays principle. While the introduction of the victim pays principle has been used in previous gametheoretic framework, Just and Netanyahu demonstrate how game structure and benefits, suggested by linked game theory, are altered when victim pays strategies are removed from the feasibility set. In this context, linking games is shown to have greater advantages than when the structural implications of eliminating victim pays strategies are not considered. As a result, the self-enforcing characteristics of a linked agreement are enhanced. A stylized example of sharing of the Israeli-Palestinian Mountain Aquifer is developed to illustrate how the victim pays principle may prevent sharing arrangements and optimal management when negotiated in isolation. Such an analytical framework could be considered in riparian situations where rivers cross boundaries and there is a strict upstream-downstream geography, or when terrain creates relative advantage to one riparian over the others. [6] Li et al. [2004] demonstrate the application of a status quo analysis using a dynamic graph model in a multiparty, single issue conflict within a river basin, and how the Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union. 0043-1397/04/2003WR002598