Beneath the diplomatic glad-handing, however, serious international issues are being discussed, perhaps none more so and more intractable of a quick fix than the issue of trans-boundary rivers. Certainly none is more contentious, as upriver and downstream users use the forum to explain their positions even as the forum provides a further impetus to a slowly evolving international consensus. The titles of a number of the sessions give an idea of the range of discussions: "Crossing Borders/Seas," "Boundless Basins: What Are the Successes and Failures of Hydro-solidarity?" and "How Can Stakeholders Be Involved in Basin Management and Transboundary Water Cooperation?"

The issue is particularly acute in the Middle East and former Soviet Central Asia, both water-deprived regions with rapidly growing populations along with rising agricultural, industrial and energy requirements. Three basins dominate the region. The first is that of the Nile River, which passes through nine nations before flowing into the Mediterranean through Egypt.

The second important Middle Eastern shared river basin is formed by the Tigris and Euphrates, which originate in Turkey before flowing through Syria and Iraq to join as the Shatt al-Arab before debouching into the Persian Gulf.

Central Asia's Amu Darya and Syr Darya originate in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and flow westward through Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan before emptying into the desiccated Aral Sea, global poster child for water mismanagement since the 1960s.

While all three basins share common problems, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya water flows are unique in that, until 1991, they were part of a single country, the Soviet Union, with water management policy directed by Moscow.

While the problems of trans-boundary rivers are particularly acute in water-stressed nations, difficulties exist on every continent, as the streams shared by neighboring countries provide an estimated 60 percent of the world's freshwater. Worldwide there are 260 international river basins, covering nearly half of the Earth's surface, along which 40 percent of the world's population lives. With water demand rising in every nation, so are tensions over the limited resource.

The traditional focus in negotiations over shared rivers has been the apportioning of water, with each country attempting to optimize management of its portion within its frontiers rather than across the shared basin. Specialists are increasingly advocating that the emphasis should shift from water parceled out between competing nation consumers to basin-wide benefit sharing.

This shift will prove difficult in the five former Soviet "Stans" of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, as all put their water to different uses. In the first two nations, the highest priority is generating hydroelectricity. In Uzbekistan, which overall consumes more than 50 percent of the two rivers' flow, the emphasis shifts to agriculture, particularly cotton cultivation. In Turkmenistan, the Amu Darya's waters are used exclusively for agriculture as it flows onward through Uzbekistan to the Aral Sea. When asked if Turkmenistan was interested in hydropower, Global Water Partnership Central Asia and Caucasus representative in Ashgabat Arslan Berdiyev replied: "Absolutely not. There is not a sustainable flow of the Amu Darya, as the landscape is steppe and desert. Furthermore, Turkmenistan has huge reserves of natural gas and oil."

According to Berdiyev, Turkmenistan has no new plans for hydroelectric construction, and its experience on joint projects has not been a particularly happy one. Citing Turkmenistan's joint $168 million Dostlyk ("friendship" in Turkmen) hydroelectric project with Iran on the Hariroud (Tejen in Turkmen) River on the Iran-Turkmen border, which opened in early 2005, Berdiyev noted that the initial agreements, signed for the project before construction began in 2000, stipulated an equal sharing of both the water and electricity, "but when the facility opened, Iran wanted 100 percent of the electricity."

Farther east, in water-rich but power-poor Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, hydropower is increasingly becoming an element of political influence. Many Russian and European analysts believe the Kyrgyz government's decision last month to expel the United States from its Manas airbase was heavily influenced by Moscow's decision to grant Kyrgyzstan more than $2 billion in loans, nearly 75 percent of which was earmarked for completing the Karambara-1 hydroelectric cascade, for which Kyrgyzstan for years unsuccessfully sought funding on the international market.

Nor are Russia and the United States the sole outside players in Central Asia. Iran has agreed to assist Tajikistan in the construction of its 670-megawatt Sangtuda-2 hydropower plant on the Vakhsh River, which is scheduled for completion later this year.

The Stans have long realized the need for a coordinated approach to the issue of the Syr Darya and Amu Darya waters even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. In September 1991, three months before the Soviet Union's dissolution, the five republics signed a protocol establishing the Interstate Commission for Water Coordination, which in essence attempted to preserve the Soviet model of water management. Despite the ICWC holding more than 50 meetings since its founding, time and growing economic and political divergences between the five new nations have overwhelmed efforts to fashion a new regional approach.

Accordingly, the only certainty is that, as demand inexorably rises from growing population, agrarian and energy pressures, the ICWC's efforts are more needed than ever. As water flow is unlikely to increase, the Stans must look elsewhere for their solutions, including increased efficiency in irrigation techniques, agricultural diversification away from water-thirsty plants, and new technology to reduce water use. As the Aral Sea, which has lost more than 75 percent of is volume since the early 1960s due to the increasing siphoning off of its water for agricultural use, is an endorheic closed drainage basin with no outflow, nationalist policies pursued in lieu of the ultimate benefits of basin-wide sharing eventually may result in thirst, famine and darkness for all.

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