Hydropolitical conflict across Africa

As the course and therefore my blog comes to an end, I just wanted to reflect and summarise on this past term, in particular what I have learnt from whilst doing this blog. When I initially heard that one of the course requirements was to blog, I was cautious as to what blogging would entail and whether it would truly challenge me academically. I found that in reality, blogging has been such an interesting and revolutionary way to both learn myself but also educate others. The range of topics and locations that I have been able to encompass in my blog focusing on hydro political conflict in mostly Southern Africa, have been numerous. I've been able to fit so much more knowledge and research into one blogging site, rather than just a few essays. Even the knowledge and information I've gained that didn't end up making it into the blogs themselves, has been multifaceted and eye opening. I hope that by using case studies as the primary basis and structure of my blogs, I'v

Hydro political conflict is often the part of hydro politics that gains the most publicity and attention, due to the potential controversy that can ensure and subsequent injuries and fatalities due to violent progression. Conflict also has the potential to incur 'water wars', whereby states will fight, through soft or hard power, over the supply, demand or distribution of water resources, due to water being of the utmost importance to human survival (Wolf, 1998) . What is not as highly publicised is cooperation over water, water can be 'a catalyst for peace' and more often than not, is the chosen solution to hydro political problems (Asmal, 2001) . There has been a substantial history of violence in Southern Africa, not only over water due to ongoing civil conflicts, often which are exacerbated by discrepancies natural resource distribution, due to the extreme climate of the region (Swatuk, 2015) . South African states share 15 river basins and with the recurring vi