Water Conflicts Analysis for Transformation

Water Conflicts applies cutting-edge thinking to identify pathways that can transform complex water conflicts. It challenges existing power-blind and politics-lite analysis that is very deeply-held and recurring in debates that suggest causal links between scarcity and violence-or peace. This book presents a much needed revision of transboundary water analysis, leading to a rethink on the way water is used and contested, with a focus on harm experienced both by the most vulnerable water users and the environment.

Recognizing that conflicts are never static, Mark Zeitoun, Naho Mirumachi, and Jeroen Warner's "transformative analysis" provides multi-disciplinary tools and perspectives to understand and address the complexities involved. The approach is stress-tested through dozens of examples around the globe, and it incorporates collective evidence and knowledge of the London Water Research Group.

The insights on water diplomacy will be most welcome by analysts, activists, diplomats, and all others tackling water conflicts. Seeking to motivate improvement of transboundary water arrangements towards further equity and sustainability as a practical agenda, the book is a fresh antidote to the detached role that researchers and policymakers often play.

Dr. Mark Zeitoun is co-founder of the Water Security Research Centre, and Professor of Water Security and Policy at the School of International Development, University of East Anglia. His research follows three streams: a) development of theory and case-based research on international transboundary water management; b) examination of the influence of armed conflict on water and other essential urban services, and c) water security and management in development, post-conflict, and conflict contexts. This stems from his work as a humanitarian-aid water engineer, and advisor on water security policy and transboundary water negotiations throughout the Middle East and Africa. He has a B.Eng in civil engineering and an MSc in environmental engineering from McGill University, and a PhD in human geography from King's College London.

Dr. Naho Mirumachi is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Geography, King's College London, UK and convenes King's Water, an interdisciplinary research hub on water, environment and development. Her research focuses on the politics and governance of water resources, particularly in developing country contexts. She has a keen interest in the power dynamics and discourses that shape and reshape water allocation and use with equity implications. Her work thus explores the interface of natural resources, development and security. She has wide-ranging fieldwork experience in south and southeast Asia, southern and eastern Africa. She has published extensively and is the author of Transboundary Water Politics in the Developing World and served as lead author on freshwater policy for the 2019 UN Environment GEO-6 report.

Dr. Jeroen Warner is Associate Professor of Disaster Studies and Research Coordinator with the Sociology of Development and Change group. His background is in International Relations, notably security studies, reflected in his work on transboundary water conflict and governance, hydrological disaster risk and its politics, and an engagement with security framing to invoke exceptional measures (securitisation, catastrophisation). He led a 2-year European Horizon 2020 project on urban disasters and cultures, EDUCEN, and a Brazilian CAPES scholarship on cultures of disaster, in which capacity he was Special Visiting Professor at the University of Sao Paulo. More recently, Jeroen has been working on mobilities in related to environmental and sociopolitical change, especially in Bangladesh. Jeroen published and co-published several books, including The Politics of Water (with Kai Wegerich), Flood Planning, Multi-Stakeholder Platforms for Integrated Water Management

1. Transformative Analysis
1.1 Failed diplomacy on the Nile and Jordan
1.2 Some lessons we've learned
1.3 How critical research is helpful
1.4 What is transformative analysis?

2. Starting Points
2.1 Sustainable arrangements will not come through conflict management
2.2 Water flows and cycles
2.3 Water is altered by human activity more than by nature
2.4 Thirst can be satiated, or created
2.5 Water flows through political borders...
2.6 ... yet remain subordinate to politics and power
2.7 There's a lot more going on than meets the eye

3. The Pathways to Conflict Transformation
3.1 Mapping the pathways
3.2 Researching hegemonic arrangements
3.3 Knowledge(s) matter
3.4 Scales matter
3.5 History matters as much as the future does

4. Transformative Concepts and Tools
4.1 Conflict and cooperation co-exist
4.2 Power matters
4.3 Hegemony
4.4 Counter hegemony

5. Understandnig Transboundary Institutions
5.1 Model agreements and treaties
5.2 Sharing benefits and spotting opportunities
5.3 International Water Law

6. Examples of Transformative Analysis
6.1 How transformative analysis may be useful
6.2 Trends toward destructive cooperation on the Mekong
6.3 Challenging narratives on the Yarmouk tributary to the Jordan River
6.4 Destructive cooperation in the Plata River basin

7. Final Thoughts
7.1 Innovating analysis is the foundation for conflict transformation
7.2 Some useful heuristics
7.3 Room for improvement

References