harmful to other wateraourse States, whether resulting from natural causes or human conduct, such as flood or ice conditions, water-borne diseasea, siltation, erosion, salt-water intrusion, drought or desertification. (1) Article 26 deals with a wide variety of “conditions” related to international wateraourse[s] [systems] that may be harmful to watercourse States. While it may be debated whether the harm results from the condition itself or from the effects thereof, there is no doubt that such problems as floods, ice floes, drought and water-borne diseases, to mention only a few, are of serious consequence for watercourse States. The present article is concerned with the prevention and mitigation of such conditions while, article 27 deals with the obligations of watercourse States in responding to actual emergency situations. Of course, certain of the “conditions” to be prevented and mitigated under the present article, e,g, floods and ice floes, may in fact materialise in an l’emetrgency” of the kind dealt with in article 27, But the measures called for in preventing and mitigating these conditions are of an anticipatory nature and are thus quite different from those involved in responding to emergencies. (2) Like articles 22, 23 and 25, the present article requires that the measures in question be taken “individually or jointly”. As in the case of those articles, this expression is an application of the general obligation of equitable participation set forth in article 6. The requirement that watercourse States take “all appropriate measures” means that they are to take measures that are tailored to the situation involved, and that are reasonable in view of the circumstances of the watercourse State in question. The obligation is thus that watercourse States exercise their best efforts to prevent and mitigate the conditions in question. It takes into account the
**Analysis**
The text appears to be discussing the prevention and mitigation of harm to watercourse states caused by various natural and human-induced conditions, such as floods, drought, and water-borne diseases. It seems to be focused on the obligations of watercourse states to take measures to prevent and mitigate these conditions, rather than on specific economic or social activities. Given the emphasis on environmental and natural resource management, I hypothesize that this text is most closely related to the field of natural resources and environment.

**Category**
Natural resources and environment