The Issue Of Water Resources And International Conflict Research

Water, the essence of life, is one of the most important strategic resources. As one ofthe serious environment problems, the water resource issues have become the focal pointwhich the international society pays attention to together, for the reasons of globalwarmer climate, more serious environmental pollution, the population growth, quickenedindustrialization and urbanization. The flaws of water resources both in the nature and inthe quantity not only affect seriously the global ecosystem maintenance and humansociety's sustainable development, but also have extremely profound influence to thecontemporary international relations. Up to now, the international water conflicts havetaken place unceasingly, which, to a certain extent, poses the threat to the nationalsecurity and the world peace.This paper, in the first chapter, illustrates present water resource problems, andanalyzes its causes and characteristics, as well as its influence to the internationalrelations which it produces. In the second chapter, based on the elementary theory of theinternational conflict, and on the analysis of the typical water conflict events separatelycaused by the water scarcity, the water pollution, the unreasonable water resourcedevelopment and the environment immigration, the paper summarizes the maincharacteristics of the international water resource conflicts, namely the broad scope, thediversity, the frequency of water conflicts proportional to the dependency to waterresources and the amount of water sharing countries, and the water resources taken as thetool in the international conflicts from time to time. In the third chapter, some solutionsare proposed, such as through international cooperation, international water law, andinternational organizations, etc.