In Afghanistan, where 80% of the population is rural, irrigated agriculture using surface water is an extremely important economic activity. With the advent of the New Water Law, highly localized and centuries-old agricultural water management traditions are giving way to more modern centralized institutions. The newly-created river basin councils need management tools to support decision-making at the watershed level.

Shared water resources are strong sources of conflict in the Jordan River basin shared by Israel, Jordan, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. The control and allocation of water has been explicitly made a part of the ongoing peace negotiations. This article calls for the application of international water law in the resolution of water disputes in the negotiating process. The challenging task for negotiators is to translate water law principles into operating rules and procedures for the equitable apportionment of waters from shared water resources.

Thai national irrigation systems, serving a large number of small paddy farmers, require water users' organization for effective and sustainable joint management; however, water users' organizations (WUOs) presently cover only 27% of the total irrigation area. This three-year action research investigated the difficulties in organizing water users in the Khlong Thadi Weir System in southern Thailand by immersion into the socio-economic conditions of Muslim farmers in farm turnout No. 4 of the 1L-4R-LMC canal and the conventional on-farm irrigation development there.

Farm production is surrounded by uncertainty. Between planting and harvesting manyrandom events such as plagues, droughts and sudden changes in commodity prices, may affectfarmers’ revenues. Agriculture in arid and semi-arid zones is highly dependent on rainfall, whichintroduces an additional risk during droughts. This research posits the hypothesis that watermanagement in agriculture during droughts strongly depends on the risks farmers face and ontheir expectations, based on past drought experiences.