Water resources in the region are scarce, and these issues directly affect the five political subdivisions (Israel, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan) located within and bordering the basin, which were created since the collapse, during World War I, of the former single controlling entity, the Ottoman Empire.

Because of the scarcity of water and a unique political context, issues of both supply and usage outside the physical limits of the basin have been included historically.

These terraces are locally incised by side wadis or rivers forming a maze of ravines, alternating with sharp crests and rises, with towers, pinnacles and a badlands morphology.

Small dams were built along the river within the Zhor, turning the former thickets of reeds, tamarisk, willows, and white poplars into irrigated fields.

[2] The Jordan River originates near the borders of three countries, Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, with most of the water derived from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and Mount Hermon to the north and east.

These springs pass through the beds of ancient seas and then flow into Lake Tiberias, as well as the groundwater sources that feed into the lower Jordan.

(Although Syrian riparian rights to the Euphrates has been severely restricted by Turkey's dam building programme, a series of 21 dams and 17 hydroelectric stations built on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, in the 1980s, 90s and projected to be completed in 2010, in order to provide irrigation water and hydroelectricity to the arid area of southeastern Turkey.

"[10] Equitable and reasonable utilization requires taking into account all relevant factors and circumstances, including: Studies of regional water resources and their development, in modern terms, date from the early 1900s during the period of Ottoman rule;[14] they also follow in light of a significant engineering milestone and resource development achievement.

At the end of the 1948 Arab Israeli War with the signing of the General Armistice Agreements in 1949, both Israel and Jordan embarked on implementing their competing initiatives to utilize the water resources in the areas under their control.

[24] The Israeli government protested to US over the Maqarin dam plan, over not taking into account its rights on the Yarmouk waters downstream.

[25] Military clashes ensued, and US President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched ambassador Johnston to the region to work out a plan that would regulate water usage.

[16] On 10 June 1967, the last day of the Six-Day War, Golani Brigade forces quickly invaded the village of Banias where a caliphate era Syrian fort stood.

In 1988, the Syrian-Jordanian agreement on development of the Yarmouk was blocked when Israel, as a riparian right holder, refused to ratify the plan and the World Bank withheld funding.

[39] The dramatic effect of the drought on southern Syria is proposed as one of the factors which led to the eruption of the Syrian Civil War.

Moshe Dayan and Yosef Tekoah adopted a policy of Israeli control of the DMZ and water sources at the expense of Israel’s international image.

[56] About 20% of the Hasbani flow[57] emerges from the Wazzani Spring at Ghajar, close to the Lebanese Israeli border, about 3 kilometres west of the base of Mount Hermon.

[55][59] The Hasbani was included in the Jordan Valley Unified Water Plan, proposed in 1955 by special US envoy Eric Johnston.

In 2001 the Lebanese government installed a small pumping station with a 10 cm bore to extract water to supply Ghajar village.

The project caused a conflict of interests between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Arab villages in the area and drew Syrian complaints to the United Nations.

This refusal on the part of Israel not only constituted a flagrant violation of the General Armistice Agreement, but also contributed to an increase of tension in the area.

On 26 April, the Israeli cabinet met to consider the Syrian suggestions; with head of Israel’s Water Planning Authority, Simha Blass, in attendance.

Blass noted that while the land to be ceded to Syria was not suitable for cultivation, the Syrian map did not suit Israel’s water development plan.

[72] On 4 June 1953 Jordan and Syria concluded a bilateral plan to store surface water at Maqarin (completed in 2006 as Al-Wehda Dam), so as to be able to use the water resources of the Yarmouk river in the Yarmouk-Jordan valley plan, funded through the Technical Cooperation Agency of the United States of America, the UNRWA and Jordan.

[77] This caused shelling from Syria and friction with the Eisenhower Administration; the diversion was moved to the southwest to Eshed Kinrot into the Israeli National Water Carrier project, designed by Tahal and constructed by Mekorot.

Modeled upon the Tennessee Valley Authority development plan, it was approved by technical water committees of all the regional riparian countries – Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The United states intervened to resolve the conflict, and the canal was repaired after Hussein undertook to stop PLO activity in the area.

[85] First summit of Arab Heads of State was convened in Cairo between 13 and 17 January 1964, called by Nasser the Egyptian president, to discuss a common policy to confront Israel's national water carrier project which was nearing completion.

Overall, there are about 40 major streams in Lebanon and, based on the hydrographic system, the country can be divided into five regions: …[including] the Hasbani river basin in the south-east.

The Dan spring, the largest of the sources of the upper Jordan, lies wholly within Israel close to the border with Syria.

These three small streams unite 6 km inside Israel at about 70 m above sea level to form the upper Jordan River.