Identifying Patterns of Transboundary Water Conflict and Cooperation Dynamics Based on News Media Articles

Over 310 transboundary river basins span across 153 countries, covering 47.1% of the Earth's surface, including 52% of the world’s population, and accounting for almost 60% of the world’s freshwater flow. These river systems flow across political boundaries, creating a complex web of environmental, political, economic and security-related interdependencies. As riparian countries have their respective values, priorities and interests towards shared waters, managing transboundary water resources is a long-term and often challenging process. With the increasing hydrological variability due to climate change, accelerated population growth/urbanization, geopolitical instability, economic development, and global epidemics, the uncertainty in transboundary river water management has further intensified. Existing research offers a broad range of empirical studies based on detailed water event data but has not yielded universally applicable conclusions that can be generalized across all transboundary river basins. News media articles provide a full process understanding of the development of water events, recognized as a valid proxy to track societal values or public opinion on water issues, as well as reflect nuanced insights. This study, based on the constructed global transboundary river water conflict and cooperation news media articles dataset covering 105 out of over 310 transboundary rivers worldwide, with a time span from 1977 to 2022, employs text analysis methods to explore and identify patterns of transboundary river water conflict and cooperation dynamics. The findings will contribute to a deeper understanding of the dynamics on global transboundary river conflict and cooperation and provide insights for promoting water cooperation.