Shared rivers and conflict - A reconsideration

► Sharing a river basin has no added impact on the risk of conflict outbreak in a dyad of two countries. ► There is no conflict-inducing effect of shared rivers over and beyond contiguity itself. ► A new dataset shows that nearly all neighbors in the international system share at least one river. ► Among river-sharing states, basins with an upstream/downstream configuration increase the risk of conflict.