ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the recent history of water management in Cyprus by assessing the complex relationships between water infrastructure development and processes of nation-building and peace-building. Focusing on the extensive 1960s United Nations programme of water surveys and dam construction that was wholeheartedly supported by the central government, the chapter demonstrates that the political “Cyprus problem” which emerged about the same time tied water management with ethnic conflict and Cold War geopolitics. The chapter uncovers the nuances in the relationship between the techno-scientific and the political, and exposes unique connections between development and peace-building rhetoric in Cyprus that resonate to this day.
