For his Master's Thesis, OSU Water Resources Policy and Management Master's Graduate Mehmet Altingoz identifies potential hydro-political tension risks of the transboundary basins in the following disputed areas:

  • Abkhazia – this case looks at the transboundary water management between Abkhazia, Georgia, and Russia
  • Kosovo – this case investigates the transboundary water management between Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia
  • Palestine – this case examines the transboundary water management between Israel, Jordan, and Palestine
  • South Ossetia – this case looks at the transboundary water management between Georgia, Russia, and South Ossetia
  • The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic – this case investigates the transboundary water management between Mauritania and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
  • The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus – this case examines the transboundary water management between the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

In addition, he reviews the historical events in the Tigris and Euphrates basin to identify the previous management failures/successes as well as the hydro-political tension risks of the basin. He combines the lessons learned from the regions listed above and the historical management of the Tigris and Euphrates basin to offer proper management mechanisms for the basin for both during the armed conflicts and post-conflict era. He reveals that the management of all the research regions is vastly influenced by political, economic, social, and cultural relations among the riparians. Mehmet also found supporting facts regarding the hypothesis of fighting over shared water resources is not likely for even conflicting parties.

His thesis titled Investigating Management of Transboundary Basins between Sovereign Countries and Non-Sovereign Entities is available on OSU's Scholar's Archive.