Damming Disputes: Conflict Prevention in Water Management

This is an open-access article. This article belongs to the Special Issue Water Conflict Prevention.

Water has a unique combination of qualities that contributes to the many conflicts with respect to its control and use. Water is necessary for the basic survival of all life forms. It is also utilized on a large scale across a wide range of economic sectors, and its use has to be coordinated with the provision of many other basic services, such as energy and food. Unlike many other natural resources, water also has economic and ecological value when left in situ, i.e., when it is not extracted for human use, as it sustains ecosystems and provides humanity with ecosystem services. In addition, its supply is stochastic, meaning that users have to deal with significant uncertainty regarding not only the quantity of the resource but also its quality and the location and timing of its supply