There have always been a shortage of water in some place on earth at some time. Whenever this happened there was competition for water and sometimes conflict. However man has always learned to adapt or cope. In the past one hundred years our population has mushroomed and large cities and mega-cities have developed. Water consumption has risen to feed us, quench our thirst and supply the industries that nourish our economic growth. Locally and regionally competition for water is increasing. To this must be added the threats to regional and global ecosystems caused by man-made and natural climate change. Inequities are increasing between the rich who can afford to cope and the poor who cannot. The earth may have neared a point of discontinuity in human civilisation.

This has led some to claim that water wars are inevitable. A counter-movement claims that learning to co-operate in sharing water will build peace. UNESCO and Green Cross International, two institutions devoted to peace, have undertaken a program of activities to determine how serious is the problem, whether conflict can be avoided, and assuming that it can, how to build the capacity to ensure this will happen. This report, compiled by Bill Cosgrove, is based on a number of thematic and basin studies prepared under the Potential for Conflict to Cooperation Potential (PC•CP) - Water for Peace Programme. These are being published as UNESCO-IHP technical documents, as part of a PC•CP series to be available from UNESCO and Green Cross from autumn 2003.

Subjects covered in the Water Security and Peace report, and the thematic and basin studies prepared under the PC,CP - Water for Peace Programme, include:

• The history and future of water resources.
• International water law.
• The protection of water facilities during armed conflicts.
• Techniques of negotiation, mediation and facilitation.
• Systems analysis, models and decision support systems.
• Case studies: Mekong, Aral Sea, Jordan, Nile, Incomati, Danube, Rhine, Columbia, Trifinio, Volga, Volta, Okavango and La Plata.
• Participation, consensus building and conflict management.
• Conflict resolution course modules.
• Indicators of water conflicts.
• Ethics - the ideal and only long-term solution.
• Building river basin organisations.
• Education and training.
• Emerging trends: Public participation and the role of civil society.