IGRAC publishes cooperation report

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The Centre has published the cooperation report 'Factors Enabling Transboundary Aquifer Cooperation: A Global Analysis'. This report, written by PhD Researcher Kirstin Conti, is a result of the research project initiated by IGRAC for the 2013 United Nations International Year Water Cooperation. IGRAC hopes that this initial attempt to capture the state of cooperation as of 2013 will be a starting point for future projects and research concerning this subject. 

From potential conflict to cooperation potential

The focus of current water diplomacy and conflict resolution research is methodologies for and "best practices" in dismantling existing water conflict. Yet, conflict over groundwater has rarely risen to the international scale. In light of this, managing potential conflict may not be the appropriate goal for groundwater resources. Instead, focusing on enabling cooperation could prove more fruitful given that most aquifer states (states sharing a transboundary aquifer) are not yet interacting about transboundary aquifers. Therefore, the purpose of this report is to link theory and observations about real occurrences of transboundary aquifer cooperation and answer the question: What factors enable and facilitate cooperation over transboundary aquifers? 

Where reality and theory meet

To respond to this question, the report outlines current theories about why international water cooperation occurs and subsequently matches these theories with the identified factors that lead to cooperative events. In other words, it will describe where reality and theory meet. 

Available online

'Factors Enabling Transboundary Aquifer Cooperation: A Global Analysis' is now available online. In addition, this report is licensed under the CC-BY-NC-SA Creative Commons license and can therefore be copied, redistributed and adapted by everyone as long as IGRAC is credited and it's not being used for commercial purposes.