Understanding Patterns of Water Conflicts: Social and Political Variables Punam Pandey Abstract The article underlines the importance of water as a resource which is very unevenly distributed on Earth. Asia is a water deficit region in which 36 per cent of Earth’s water is available for 60 per cent of the world’s population. The disturbing aspect is how water’s unequal distribution, spatially as well as temporally, engenders different kinds of conflicts in the region. In some cases, water becomes a latent factor in causing other conflicts. The conflicts over resources, particularly over water, are couched in different dimensions of politics. The article discusses various types of water conflicts and argues about the limitations of the managerial approach to the understanding of water con- flicts. There is a need to deconstruct the social dimension of water usage and the politics behind its sharing at all levels. Keywords Water conflicts, South Asia, Indus Water Treaty, Kalabagh dam, Baglihar dam, Kosi/Gandak agreements A safe and clean environment plays a catalytic role in ensuring a good quality of life. Water occupies an important position because it is fast becoming a scarce resource and has thus increasingly become a source of conflict at the national and international level. In 2000, the concept of ‘water security’ was introduced in the Ministerial Declaration of the Second World Water Forum (WWF) at The Hague and developed further at the Third WWF at Kyoto in 2003 and at the fourth WWF in Mexico City in 2006. The meeting in The Hague launched the African Water Vision which sought to address the water paradox of the continent, intertwined with floods and under-exploited water resources on the one hand and droughts and water scarcity and on the other hand. Similar strategies were envisaged for Latin American and Asian countries. Since 2000, the concept of water security has been widely used by water specialists in the natural and social sciences, by policymakers and international organisations. Article South Asian Survey 18(1) 157–171 © 2011 JNU SAGE Publications Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore, Washington DC DOI: 10.1177/0971523112469531 http://sas.sagepub.com Punam Pandey is an independent researcher based in Bielefeld, Germany.