Potential for cooperation rather than conflict in the face of water degradation: The cases of the Nile River and Okavango River basins

Abstract

Although the notion of environmental security is a relatively new dimension of international relations, and of politics in general, it would be inane to assume that problems of environmental change are in any way novel. Environmental security is a phenomenon that is distinctively associated with the end of the Cold War. Much attention has been paid in both the scholarly literature and the policy community to the potential for conflict to arise as a result of environmental degradation. The aim of this article is to examine the nexus between environmental degradation and the potential for violent conflict by specifically referring to the potential for conflict to arise out of fresh water disputes by utilising the Nile River and Okavango River Basins as case studies.