4. Why does the water-war-thesis prevail?

There may be three reasons to explain this question.
First of all, concepts of non-traditional security.
Based on concepts of non-traditional and environmental security as well as on more general neorealist theories of international relations, the water war scholars have argued that the great importance of water for human life along with the socioeconomic development of societies, combined with the fact that water transcends the boundaries of nation states and therefore eludes the absolute sovereignty of the respective states, will lead to future conflict. Water war authors have pointed out that water scarcity makes states vulnerable, especially if they depend on water that originates from outside their national border, which can create dependencies that are perceived as threats.
Vulnerability then necessarily requires state action, that is, the defense of water resources and thus of the development potential of respective states. If all states sharing an international river act in this way, collective action problems would lead to conflict. Such conflict is then expected to lead to so-called water wars.
This water-war-thesis became particularly prominent in the early 1990’s, when the end of cold war led to the emergence of a new understanding of security that moved beyond purely military issues and was very much related to natural resources and the competition for them among nation states.
Secondly, national power considerations are behind the water-war-thesis.
Besides this influence, quotes from some international politicians have widened the scenario of the water war. Why are some international politicians inclined to vow that a “water war” will occur? Is there any particular reason behind this? After carefully reviewing the politicians who have propagandized the water war, we astonishingly found that nearly all of these high politicians’ nationalities belong to countries located downstream of an international river. Among them 3 are Egyptian: Sadat, Ghali, and Serageldin. and Egypt lies downstream of the Nile River. Israel (Sharon) lies downstream of the Jordan River, Gambia (Wally N’Dow) lies downstream of the Gambia River, while Ghana (Annan) lies downstream of the White Volta River.
Due to the insecurity of water resources partly or completely controlled by other countries, the water war propagandists may wish to express their ambitions in this way. This deterrent strategy even leaves the Nile basin with Egypt as downstream hegemony.
Furthermore, due to global trends towards enhancing environmental protection coupled with the non-traditional security concept, the water war theory has become increasingly popular.
The third reason that the water war thesis still occupies the minds of many might be the sample problem of water event statistical.
Although the database (TFDD) has covered nearly all international rivers in the world, and has searched nearly all water events, it is undeniable that the majority of rivers are unknown to most of us. The cooperation trend on these rivers likely can not overwhelming the impression of conflictive historical events in the most famous river like Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Jordan, Indus and Mekong etc.
Furthermore，the disparity of all those rivers is huge. The Amazon river basin covers up to 6,000,000km2, while the Bangau river between Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam 60km2, the length of the Nile may be 6,700 km, while the Bangau river maybe just several miles. The huge differences among these samples tear little down of the theory of water war.