“Hydropolitics” or the “politics of water” symbolises the most complex relations and interactions between states that share river basins. In analysing the state of hydropolitical vulnerability, it is essential to look at both sides, that is, the underlying factors that create vulnerability to conflict as a response to hydrological change as well as the legal and institutional response to such change. Through an application of Homer-Dixons Environmental Scarcity Theory, this article examines the nexus between environmental scarcity and the potential for violence in the Orange-Senqu River Basin. In addition, by utilising the Regime Theory, it analyses the intra-regional capacity for addressing challenges to avoid nascent. conflict both between and within nations.
