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It's interesting to me how the problem of "who owns what parts of this river?" is playing out in so many parts of the world. Off the top of my head we have the
by majos 8y ago
It's interesting to me how the problem of "who owns what parts of this river?" is playing out in so many parts of the world. Off the top of my head we have the Nile with Egypt and Ethiopia, the Yangtze (edit: this should be Mekong) with China and much of southeast Asia, the Murray river in southwest Australia (bickering states rather than countries, but still) . . . and this is just what I've read in the Economist this year.
Is this really that new? Has damming technology only recently made these issues relevant?
- houshuang 8y agoWhat's the issue with the Yangtze? It only flows within China?
- notahacker 8y agoI imagine the OP means the Mekong
- mrec 8y agoDepends what you count as China; the Yangtze, Yellow River and Mekong all originate in Tibet. They're probably the primary reason why China is so absolutely adamant that Tibet is and has always been part of China; losing that water would represent an existential threat.
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoAnd why China sees global warming as such a huge problem.
- pjc50 8y agohttp://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/transboundary_waters.shtml http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/transboundary_waters.sh... According to the UN, this is very old, citing a water treaty from 2500BC on the Tigris.
- facetube 8y agoExponential population increase would certainly drive increased demand for water.
- icebraining 8y agoPortugal and Spain too. Conditions change (e.g. there was a drought in these two countries), needs change, etc; there's probably always a conflict somewhere.
- javier2 8y agoIran/Iraq/Syria has an on-going conflict about dams and use of their vital river. Can't for the life of me remember the name of the river though.
- gascan 8y agoThis same story played out a hundred years ago in the USA, see the Colorado River Compact. I would initially guess it's a problem now for the rivers you mention because only now do these places have the capital & use for a dam. And, really, fights over water never end. It's a difficult good- vital to life, inexpensive to divert, and yet both limited & temporal in supply, & difficult to relocate. Additionally, the source is frequently within another state or country. No one has been terribly successful yet in implementing water markets, and no one has conjured a perfect way to apportion water rights- with right of first use & riparian rights both having obvious flaws. Crazy things happen with water. For example, where I live I am not allowed to capture the water that falls on my own property. It's owned by someone else, and I can be prosecuted for capturing it (with a loophole for garden rainbarrels)