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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University is expanding its leadership in the arena of international water issues, with a new publication to be unveiled this month in Japan, an evolving partnership with other universities, and a key educational role in a proposed new $10 million initiative that would help manage water conflicts all over the world.

OSU geographers are the lead authors on a new Atlas of International Freshwater Agreements that will be presented on March 22 in Kyoto, Japan, by the United Nations Environment Programme at the third World Water Forum. The 184-page atlas outlines 4,500 years of the history of shared water resources as a major force for peace and cooperation, and explores the conflict resolution methods that have been developed with surprising success in this area of critical importance.

Meanwhile, OSU is making continued progress with the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters, an educational and training consortium that it founded and helped organize with nine other universities across five continents.

And the most ambitious initiative yet, officials say, may be a new "Water Cooperation Facility," a $10 million program that will be proposed at the World Water Forum. It is envisioned as an international support center for managing water conflicts and building consensus. The Universities Partnership, led by OSU, would join forces with the World Water Council; the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO; and the Permanent Court of Arbitration.

"All of our work in this area is important, but this new organization involving UNESCO and the World Water Council could really be a major asset in dealing with international water conflicts," said Aaron Wolf, an OSU associate professor of geography. "It would be able to address the economic, legal, educational and cultural components that are often components of many disputes. We're hoping it will get strong support at the World Water Forum."

Wolf, with a professional background in both dispute resolution and the geography of water resources, has helped create at OSU one of the world's leading programs in water resource management, conflict resolution and student education.

After years of analysis, Wolf has found that the history of water disputes is actually marked not by conflict but cooperation, often due to the deadly stakes at hand - water issues are so very serious that people throughout history have found they cannot afford to fight over them. They must collaborate.

A "Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database" compiled at OSU has documented some 3,600 treaties throughout history relating to water conflict resolution. The last actual war over water was in a region that's once again in the news - Iraq - but that conflict was in 2,500 B.C.

"There really is a rich history of creativity in crafting agreements over water," Wolf said. "We have been able to identify some of the most successful approaches that have been developed, and it's not beyond reason that some of what we've learned in resolving water conflicts could be applied in other areas. One key goal is to get the opposing parties talking about what they really need, not what they want or think they are entitled to."

OSU's research and outreach in this field last year helped lead to the creation of the Universities Partnership for Transboundary Waters, which includes the nations of China, Argentina, Costa Rica, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Thailand, Zimbabwe and South Africa. The group is focused on education and training in this field, outreach, and coordination of applied research. "The Universities Partnership is making good progress," said Marcia Macomber, its director of program development at OSU. "We've been designing and implementing international river basin workshops, brining professionals and peers from different countries together and allowing them to identify their common interests, get to know one another in a non-political setting."

In April, Macomber said, the partnership will bring to OSU representatives from Central America, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia to discuss common diplomatic and water management issues they face. Work is also underway at each university to provide joint transboundary waters certification to graduate students.

More important, Macomber said, is the potential role of the Universities Partnership in the new collaboration with UNESCO, the World Water Council and Permanent Court of Arbitration.

If that initiative is successful, OSU and the other universities would provide the main resource base for education, information resources and research, integrating the political aspects of water management with more traditional, technical-oriented training. The partnership's programs would try to build an international community of experts and approaches that would manage water while cutting across political boundaries and balancing social, economic and ecological needs.

There is still much work to be done. The new Atlas of International Freshwater Agreements notes that there are 263 international river basins in the world which produce about 60 percent of the Earth's annual freshwater supply. But 158 of these basins lack any type of cooperative management framework.

The new atlas can be found on the web at http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu. Major collaborators on the project included the National Geographic Society, the center for Earth Science Information Network, the World Resources Institute and the University of Kassel, Germany.

A website for World Water Day 2003 has been created at www.waterday2003.org.