WATER POLITICS.

Water politics is politics affected by water and water resources.

The

UN World Water Development Report.

Organizations concerned with water protection.

Water is one of the most important things on earth.

Uses of water.

Value of water.

A water sector in the "mature" phase is characterized by rising marginal costs of providing water and increasing interdependencies among users.

Developing effective water sector policies is troublesome for a number of reasons.

First, water has unique physical properties.

Second, water resource management is administratively complicated.

Economic policy-makers tend to confront policy issues one at a time, stating policy objectives in single dimensional terms. Improving water resource management requires recognizing how the overall water sector is linked to the national economy. Macroeconomic policies and sectoral policies.

Water provides four types of important economic benefits: commodity benefits; waste assimilation benefits; aesthetic and recreational benefits; and fish and wildlife habitats.

The second and increasingly important economic benefit of water is waste disposal.

Most countries rely on a mix of market policies and direct government interventions to manage water resources. A competitive market has the potential to allocate resources (water supplies) efficiently among competing demands. The private market has the potential to produce the maximum private-valued bundle of goods and services, the public sector also plays an important role.

Externalities. Public goods. Natural monopoly.

"Products" are hard to define.

Private goals of public agents. Inequitable distribution of power.

For Middle Eastern nations, many already treading the razors edge of conflict, water is becoming a catalyst for confrontation an issue of national security and foreign policy as well as domestic stability.

Depleted by expanding populations, rising birthrates and growing agricultural initiatives, water is redrawing the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East. This deadlock has eloquently illustrated waters integral role in the larger balance of power equation in the Middle East, where waterplanning issues have become a function of the security and stability of regional regimes.

Despite decades of attention given, the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India remains one of the most persistent and heated conflicts in international relations, one whose history is well known.

The demand for water is rapidly overtaking the existing supply. Both countries were facing water crisis.

Indus water treaty.

The UNs International Law Commission is developing guidelines to help settle waterrelated conflicts.

Integrated water cooperation and sharing between Pakistan and India is important enough in its own right, but perhaps finding a new way to navigate Kashmirs waters will provide the path to peace that the people of Jammu Kashmir, its parent countries, and the wider international community seek.