From South Asia to the Middle East, from Australia to California, rivers and aquifers that cross boundaries have become potent sources of friction.

Farmers squabble with city dwellers over irrigation rights while countries in river basins complain about pollution or water theft from upstream, as their neighbours build dams to siphon off flow from the watershed, reports AFP.

"Conflicts about water can occur at all scales," the UN warned ahead of the World Water Forum (WWF), which winds up in Istanbul tomorrow.

Bangladesh Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen told the Forum that the cooperation among co-riparian countries is a must for integrated management of water resources from common rivers in South Asia, reports BSS.

"We look forward for integrated water resources from the international rivers during monsoon and dry season," he said at a special session of the WWF.

"Local-level conflicts are commonplace in irrigation systems, where farmers vie for limited resources," it said in a massive document, the third World Water Development Report.

"Conflicts also occur at the scale of large national river basins -- multistate Indian rivers such as the Cauvery and the Krishna -- or transnational river basins, such as the Jordan and the Nile."

"Water wars" for the time belong in the realm of conjecture.

In more than half a century, there have been only 37 cross-border disputes about water that have led to some form of violence, while some 200 treaties on water-sharing have been negotiated and signed.

Some of these initiatives have worked well.

They include the 1960 Indo-Pakistani treaty on sharing the water of the Indus, which has survived two wars between the two neighbours; the Mekong Committee, which has functioned since 1957 and swapped data throughout the Vietnam War; and the Nile Basin Initiative, launched in 1999 gathering all 10 riparian, or river-bank, states along the world's longest river.

But there are also treaties that remain a dead letter, especially in Africa, which has nearly a quarter of the world's cross-border river basins.

The risk of bloodshed over the stuff of life is a scenario taken seriously by many specialists.

Global warming may already be causing changes in rainfall and snowfall patterns, affecting river flow and groundwater recharge, and amplifying water shortages in countries that are already under stress, say scientists.

One of the feared trigger points is the Middle East, where Israel's policies of drawing water from the River Jordan and coastal aquifers are bitterly resented in the West Bank and Gaza.

In a message to the World Water Forum on Thursday, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmud Abbas accused Israel of flouting international law.

Palestinians had four times less water per capita than Israelis living in Israel, a consumption level that fell far below the World Health Organisation's guidelines for minimum daily access to water, he said.

"Palestinians should not be forced to wait until a peace agreement is reached before (they are) allowed (their) rightful share of the transboundary water resources," he said.

BANGLADESH CALLS FOR COOPERATION

Water Resources Minister Ramesh Chandra Sen yesterday said that the cooperation among co-riparian countries is a must for integrated management of water resources from common rivers in South Asia, reports BSS.

"We look forward for integrated water resources from the international rivers during monsoon and dry season," he said at a special session of the World Water Forum (WWF) in Istanbul here.

World Water Council organises the WWF after every three years to keep the world informed about the plight of nearly one billion people who have no access to water and more than 2.5 billion having non-access to sanitation across the globe.

Senior government officials of different ministries, water experts, NGO representatives and other delegations from Bangladesh were present on the session styled 'Asia-Pacific Regional session'.

Ramesh, who arrived here Thursday, said almost all of Bangladesh's 57 trans-boundary rivers are originated in India, but agreements on water sharing from these rivers are not existent. Bangladesh and India have signed only one agreement on Ganges water sharing for 30 years of time.

Steps have been taken to negotiate water from other rivers with special focus on the Teesta river, the minister said adding that benefit-sharing from common rivers could solve the major problems like electricity, food and disasters, especially floods and droughts in the region.

Ramesh said the heavy flow from the upstream causes floods in downstream Bangladesh during monsoon, while water flow in the lean period in these rivers comes down to almost nil which put Bangladesh to almost disastrous situation round the year.

He said the flow during monsoon causes massive river erosion along the banks, forcing thousands each year to get internally displaced and migrate to urban areas, where almost a third live in slums in poor sanitation and water-sully conditions.

The river erosion has made Bangladesh densely populated due to loss of lands, the minister said.

"We seek technical and financial support from the international community to train our rivers so that the environmental flow in the rivers could be maintained and new lands can be reclaimed to accommodate growing population," he said referring to country's population size which is likely to cross 18 crore by 2025.

Source: The Daily Star