Relative likelihood of hydro-political interactions

Although this index does not give information about the degree of cooperation or conflict associated with the specific interaction, it identifies the areas of possible hydro-political risk that would be best addressed through a cooperative action. No distinction was made between past episodes of cooperation and dispute over water. They were used collectively as water interactions, a measure of the magnitude of the associated water issue. This was motivated by the fact that water disputes had virtually never ended in violent conflicts, at least in the most recent historical eras, and by the consideration that the classification of positive (cooperative) and negative (conflictive) interactions in the event databases has often been arbitrary and ambiguous.