Statistical analysis agrees.

Cooperation rather than violent conflict Research on this subject has contributed significantly to bringing such assertions back to reality. Statistical analyses of international and civil wars show that water scarcity is not a relevant variable for predicting this extreme form of conflict. Several research groups, including my own, have also examined the scale of conflict and cooperation over water resources on an international and national level. Studies such as these analyze a vast number of worldwide media reports. The single most important conclusion is that social and political interactions around water resources adhere to a kind of normal distribution. Water conflicts that are fought out violently are extremely rare. No international or domestic water wars were observed in the available data dating back to the 1940s. On the other hand, water conflicts in the form of verbal disputes are relatively common. More common, however, are interactions of a cooperative nature. In other words, water scarcity more often leads to cooperation than to conflict.