As the world's population continues to grow apace and an increasing number of countries aspire to a twenty-first century lifestyle so the question of access to water resources becomes ever more critical. This timely volume shows how the struggle to control water is an issue of growing geopolitical importance. Drawing on a wealth of examples, and revealing how current problems are not necessarily new as often suggested, the international contributors provide a deeper theroetical analysis of the issues, enabling a clearer understanding to be obtained of how experience in one region can properly be related to that of other regions.