Historical and Physical International Boundaries in Borderlands Water Conflicts : A Commentary

This commentary places in the context of boundaries a historical discussion of nineteenth century Native American/Hispanic conflict over water in southern California, a potential conflict between adjoining Mexican and U.S. municipalities along a shared international border, and a threatened Mexican wetland at the downstream end of a highly regulated and engineered U.S. river. The temporal boundary created by the U.S. adjudication of land and water rights inherited from Spain and Mexico and the geographical boundary created by the physical partition of watersheds between sovereigns have left similar problems in managing shared resources. Some unacknowledged values incidentally have survived existing joint management. But as pressure on the common resource increases and water supplies dwindle, the unintentional benefits of current arrangements must become intentional in a new round of negotiation