Water Resources Management - Practices of Irrigation and On-farm Water Management - page 183

national boundaries. These river basins comprise about half of the total land area of
the world, which includes more than 60% of the area on the continents of Africa,
Asia, and South America. Most of the river basins are areas of potential conflict,
especially in the large river basins and those shared by several countries.
Box 5.4 Examples of Water Conflicts on the Regional Scale
Indian Subcontinent
Since the partition of the Indian subcontinent between India and Pakistan in
1947, longstanding conflicts over the Indus River became an international
issue between the two countries overnight. With the help from the World
Bank, negotiation over water issues between the two countries began in 1952.
The Indus was divided between the two countries, with India receiving the
three eastern and Pakistan the three western tributaries. The division deprived
Pakistan of the original source of water for its irrigation system. In compen-
sation, India paid for new canals to bring water from the rivers allocated to
Pakistan and a consortium of countries financed the construction of storage
dams to ensure Pakistan a reliable supply. At a price, the treaty defused a
major source of potential conflict and allowed each country to develop its
share of the basin's water.
Bangladesh, which gained its independence from Pakistan in 1971 with
the aid of Indian army, was threatening to cancel its Treaty of friendship
with its former liberator because of conflicts over water. Most of the rivers
in Bangladesh flow from India. A major diversion from the Ganges river just
a few miles from the Bangladesh border reduce water supply and increased
salinity levels, threatening the livelihood of millions of Bangladesh. In 1996,
a treaty between governments of India and Bangladesh was signed on sharing
of the Ganges water at Farakka. This treaty provides a firm foundation for
long-term development cooperation between the two countries.
The Middle East
Throughout the Middle East, the natural facts of water control, consumption
and demand interact to form a complex hydro-political web. The allocation
of the region's three major river basins, the Nile, the Euphrates-Tigris and the
Jordan, nascent sources of tension and potential sources of conflict. Turkish
relations with both Iraq and Syria are strained over Turkey's South East
Anatolia Project. Egypt was concerned about the water development activ-
ities of the upstream users of the Nile. Of all the Middle East river basins,
however, it is the Jordan River that hosts the most fraught and inflammable