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Lamari River and its precipitous valley is certainly an important one, particularly given that
the Fore believe people to be incapable of swimming.
Rivers have always demarcated such boundaries, both real and imagined. The River
Danube in Europe marked the northern frontier of the Roman Empire in the 1st century
AD because it was easily defended, hence also drawing a perceived line between the 'civ-
ilized' Empire and the barbarian tribes on the bank opposite. In Europe today, the Danube
marks the international border between Slovakia and Hungary, and stretches of Romania's
borders with Serbia, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. In southern Germany, the Danube is affection-
ately known to most Bavarians as the 'Weisswurst equator' (literally, the 'white sausage
equator', named after a favourite food from the south), the symbolic borderline between
themselves and the different cultures to the north.
The importance of rivers as natural barriers is reflected in the fact that no less than three-
quarters of the world's international boundaries follow rivers for at least part of their
course. However, rivers are also notoriously erratic boundaries thanks to their inherent
tendency to move, a propensity that can result in a multitude of legal, technical, and mana-
gerial challenges for rival states on opposing banks.
These are challenges both in terms of identifying a definitive line in a dynamic natural
feature and of managing a divided transboundary water resource. The two elements are of
course related: deciding where exactly the boundary runs affects legal rights to the water
itself and how it is used (e.g. for navigation) or abused (e.g. by pollution). Often, a river
boundary follows the 'thalweg', the deepest channel in the river, but other principles are
also used. Some boundaries follow the median line between the banks, or lines drawn
between turning points. Others follow one of the river banks. On occasion, two countries
may favour two different legal principles for determining the position of the border, often
for opportunistic reasons, and the resulting dispute frequently has to be resolved by interna-
tional adjudication. Even after the border has been agreed, erosion and sedimentation can
alter the banks, the median, or the thalweg, to the benefit of one country and the detriment
of the other.
The International Boundary and Water Commission between Mexico and the USA is a
long-standing example of the interrelationship between river boundary identification and
river management. The commission was created in 1884 to demarcate the border on the
ground and to identify its position in the Tijuana, Colorado, and Rio Grande Rivers, but in
1944 it was also given responsibility for allocating the water resources of the Rio Grande.
Today, the International Boundary and Water Commission spends most of its time on water
management and allocation, rather than on boundary definition. Not all river boundary dis-
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