essay on water conflicts

Water, Conflict, and Peace

By Peter Gleick

We live on a water planet. As the writer Arthur C. Clark noted, if we didn’t happen to be land-dwelling creatures, we would call our planet Ocean, rather than Earth. And for humans, fresh water is critical for life, health, our economies, and vibrant ecosystems. The vast majority of water on the planet—more than 97 percent—is salt water, in our oceans. Most of the small fraction that is freshwater is locked away in ice caps, glaciers, and deep groundwater. Yet the little bit of water left over in the form of rain, flowing rivers, lakes, and accessible soil moisture is what grows our food; powers spinning turbines; feeds our industries, businesses, and homes; and provides for recreational, artistic, and spiritual support.

Every child learns about the hydrologic cycle in school, and every day we see evidence of it in clouds, falling rain and snow, and running streams and rivers. Yet we also know that fresh water is unevenly distributed around the world with dry, arid deserts in some regions, rainforests and monsoon climates in others, with wet and dry seasons, and with extremes of weather in the form of both droughts and floods.

Water pollution on the Latvian coast.

It is this uneven distribution of water, and the uneven distribution of money, technology, and institutions to manage our water, that contributes to some of the global challenges we face. There is no lack of water crises: toxic water contamination, water-related diseases, inadequate access to safe and affordable drinking water and sanitation for billions of people, death and destruction from extreme hydrological events, collapsing fisheries and disappearing wetland ecosystems, and now human-caused climate change. These crises cause widespread human suffering. The United Nations estimates that more than a million people die every year from preventable water-related diseases. Floods and droughts kill thousands of people at a time and cause billions of dollars of damage. Bird and fish populations are plummeting as critical wetland habitat and rivers are drained, dammed, and polluted. These challenges are well understood, and for decades scientists, policy makers, activists, academics, and concerned citizens have worked to solve water problems. Great progress is being made, but much remains to be done, requiring new technology, better information and data, advances in science, smarter management and water institutions, and innovative economic approaches.

But one major water challenge remains under-appreciated and under-addressed: the growing threat of violence and conflicts over water resources. Water can be a source of both cooperation and conflict: history is replete with examples of both. But violence over water appears to be waxing, not waning, as pressures over limited water grow, as populations and economies expand, and as war and violence spill over into the civilian sector.

Piazza di Spagna and Fontana della Barcaccia in Rome. The fountains in Rome are not only artwork, but were also built as critical urban infrastructure in response to economic and population pressures of their time.

The issue is not “water wars,” despite the euphonious and alliterative nature of the term and the attractiveness to headline writers. Wars are big, brutal, miserable things, and they start for complex economic, political, ideological, religious, and historical reasons. Rarely is any “war” (and there are no single accepted definitions of what conflicts rise to the level of “war”) attributable to a single cause. Yet it is indisputable that fresh water is—and has been for millennia—a trigger, weapon, and casualty of conflict, violence, and war. A project of the Pacific Institute for nearly three decades has tracked the history of water-related violence in its open-source database: The Water Conflict Chronology . [1] Currently with over 500 entries, going back nearly 5,000 years, the database includes examples from every region of the world except Antarctica.

Disturbingly, reports of water-related violence are on the rise, with a serious spike in the past decade. And the vast majority of entries involve non-state actors: individuals, non-governmental militias, and civil conflicts, rather than nation-to-nation disputes. This increase may in part reflect better reporting, but it is also well correlated with water-scarce regions of the world where rising populations and growing economies must complete for fixed and often seriously limited amounts of water. In addition, while many shared international rivers do not have formal treaty agreements among the nations sharing those rivers, nation-to-nation violence is more likely to be constrained by international political and diplomatic tools and norms. The same cannot be said for sub-national violence.

Violence over water through history takes three forms: water as a trigger of violence, water resources and water systems as weapons of conflict, and water infrastructure as targets or casualties of conflicts. Each of these is described below, but note that some historical accounts of violence associated with water can be associated with more than one form. The Hwacheon Dam in Korea, completed in 1944, was both a target and a tool of opposing forces during the Korean War. In 1951, North Korea opened the dam to flood downstream areas and slow advancing UN forces. In response, the U.S. Navy sent aircraft to bomb the dam. In the 1990s Saddam Hussein reportedly poisoned and drained the water supplies of southern Shiite Muslims, the Marsh Arabs (or Maʻdān). These are examples of water resources being both a weapon of conflict and a target or casualty, as well.

Marsh Arabs poling a traditional mashoof in the marshes of southern Iraq. Photographer Hassan Janali, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Water as a Trigger

The first category is the most clearly related to water scarcity and competition for resources. When water is scarce, or access to water is constrained for political or ideological reasons, conflict can result. In AD 90 Josephus wrote about the diversion of a stream to Jerusalem by the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate in AD 30 and a deadly attack by Roman soldiers on the crowds that gathered to protest. Disputes over access to water and water rights in the western United States in the 1800s led to violence between farmers and rangers. Between 1907 and 1913, the Los Angeles Valley aqueduct/pipeline was repeatedly bombed in an effort to prevent diversions of water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles. Most recently, in places as diverse as India, Sudan, the western United States, and southern Africa, violence triggered by disputes over access to fresh water has killed and injured many people. And because populations worldwide are growing and total available water is fixed, water scarcity is rising. Complicating these factors is the reality that human-caused climate change is already observed to be affecting the hydrologic cycle, water scarcity, and extreme hydrologic events.

Whitsett Pumping Plant on Lake Havasu lifts the water 291 feet (89 m) for the Colorado River Aqueduct, bring water to Los Angeles. Photographer Charles O’Rear, 1972.

Water as a Weapon

The earliest entries in the Chronology are examples of the use of water as a weapon, including both historically documented cases as well as classic myths and legends. The biblical story of Noah and the flood, which has roots in the ancient Sumerian legend of the deeds of the deity Ea, relates the use of water as a weapon to punish humanity for its sins. Around 2450 BC, in “Gu’edena” (edge of paradise) region between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in ancient Mesopotamia, the king of Lagash diverted water from irrigation canals as a weapon in a dispute with the neighboring city-state of Umma. Between 700 and 400 BC there are numerous accounts from Egypt, Persia, Babylon, and Assyria of the diversion of rivers and the poisoning of wells as weapons of war. In 1642 toward the end of the Ming dynasty in China, dikes restraining the Huang He River were intentionally breached for military purposes, killing thousands. And in the recent violence in Iraq and Syria, dams along the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers have been a locus of conflict, with water being repeatedly and intentionally held back or released in the form of floods for military purposes.

See the  Memorial Cone of Mesilim , in the Louvre Museum, which depicts the earliest recorded conflict over water in BC 2450 between the city-states of Umma and Lagash in ancient Mesopotamia, described above.

The Deluge engraving by William Miller after John Martin which takes inspiration from the story of the flood in the first book of the Bible, in which God punished man’s wickedness by destroying nearly every living thing on earth. Published in The Imperial Family Bible According to the Authorized Version (John Martin Illustrator) Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London: Blackie & Son. 1844.

Water as a Casualty of Conflict

The third category of water-related violence is the targeting of water resources and water systems during wars and conflicts, regardless of the root cause. International humanitarian laws, or “the laws of war” such as the 1949 Geneva Convention and the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Convention, provide explicit protections to civilians and critical infrastructure that supports civilian populations, including explicitly water systems. Despite these protections, water sources, pipelines, treatment plants, dams, and irrigation systems are regularly damaged and destroyed either intentionally or as collateral damage, leaving large populations without access to safe water and sanitation and contributing to the forced migration of refugees. As with the other categories, there is a long history of such cases. Even the Old Testament Book of Chronicles relates the story of how King Hezekiah of Judah had springs and a brook outside Jerusalem stopped to keep water from the Assyrians coming to war (“So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?” 2 Chronicles 32:1–4). Wells have been poisoned throughout history as a casualty of war (note that the offensive use of this tactic falls under water as a “weapon”), including in the early 1900s in German Southwest Africa, 1999 Kosovo, Angola, and East Timor, and the civil war in the Sudan between 2003 and 2007. More recently, civilian water supply systems have been regularly attacked during the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars, contributing to a massive outbreak of cholera in Yemen.

Dragan Dam in Romania. Photographer Colin Woodcock.

Reducing the Risks of Water-related Conflicts

Reducing the risks of violence over fresh water requires that we first understand the root causes, and second, work to reduce the factors that contribute to water and conflict. Where water is a “trigger” of conflict, the principal factors include water scarcity and disputes over access to water sources. When populations are deprived of water, or lack control over local resources, tensions arise. Absolute scarcity of water is typically not the problem; instead, it is the maldistribution of water or of water infrastructure, combined with uncertain or conflicting legal rights to water that most contribute to tensions arising over access to fresh water.

When such tensions are exacerbated by the lack of effective institutions or governance mechanisms to manage and allocate water, violence is more likely to ensue., and the UN Sustainable Development Goals include the target of providing 100 percent of the world’s population with safe and affordable water and sanitation by 2030. Achieving this target will be extraordinarily difficult, given the current scope of the challenge, but doing so would help to reduce tensions over access to water.

Hanging wet clothes to dry in Pushkar, India. In 2010, the United Nations formally declared a human right to water and sanitation for basic needs.

Where water is a weapon of war or a target and casualty of war, international norms of behavior are vitally important—hence the creation over the history of civilization of guidelines, standards, and laws setting limits to protect civilian populations and the natural environment. Such codes of behavior extend back thousands of years in texts from early Sanskrit, Jewish, Christian, Islamic, and other cultures that offer guidelines for the conduct of war and the treatment of non-combatants.  In 1439, Charles VII of Orleans ruled that officers would be held responsible for ‘the abuses, ills and offences’ committed by the men they commanded. The Lieber Code of 1863, promulgated by President Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War, provided guidance for Union armies in the field and stated

“Military necessity…does not admit of the use of poison in any way, nor of the wanton devastation of a district. It admits of deception, but disclaims acts of perfidy; and, in general, military necessity does not include any act of hostility which makes the return to peace unnecessarily difficult.” (Section 16)

“The use of poison in any manner, be it to poison wells , or food, or arms, is wholly excluded from modern warfare. He that uses it puts himself out of the pale of the law and usages of war.” (Section 70, emphasis added)

The early declarations informed more comprehensive international law that began to take shape with the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions and Declarations. The purpose of the 1907 Hague Convention was laid out in the preamble: “to diminish the evils of war, as far as military requirements permit.” It included the famous Martens Clause:

Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilized peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.

The Hague declarations include articles protecting basic infrastructure such as water systems, undefended towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings (Article 25), and call for sparing “as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historical monuments” and medical facilities “not being used at the time for military purposes” (Article 27).

Following World War II, new efforts were made to develop legal protections for civilians and infrastructure. The 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits deliberate or indiscriminate destruction of property belonging to individuals or “the State, or to other public authorities” (Article 53) and “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” (Article 147). The most explicit protections for water-related infrastructure, however, were not put in place until the addition of the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Convention, designed to protect victims of international and non-international armed conflict. These agreements limit the means and methods of warfare that cause “superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering” or “widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment, prohibit indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, and protect civilian infrastructure critical to the survival of civilian populations including explicitly “ drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works .” Militaries are to avoid attacking such installations so as not “ to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause starvation or force its movement.”

Given the large and growing number of examples of attacks on water systems and the serious adverse consequences for civilian populations, existing humanitarian laws of war as currently framed, interpreted, or applied are inadequate: They have failed to prevent attacks on civilian water systems and to impose sufficient liability on governments in a way that offers effective constraints on military operations against such infrastructure. Part of the problem is that international laws are mostly focused on limiting intentional attacks on civilians and the use of specific instruments of war, like chemical and biological weapons. Less attention has been paid to the secondary or indirect health consequences of the destruction of civilian infrastructure, raising the question of how to push legal reforms to more explicitly protect critical civilian water systems and infrastructure and improve enforcement mechanisms of existing laws.

Water is a critical resource for the production of food, goods, and services, the health of humans and natural ecosystems, and the successful functioning of modern society. Violence and conflict related to water resources are worsening for many reasons, including growing populations and water demand, expanding economies, widespread water contamination, worsening human-caused climate change, and weak water management and governance. Strategies for reducing water-related conflicts exist, including improvements in technology, more sustainable water supply and demand options, and a wide range of legal, political, and institutional tools. But unless these are more quickly and widely deployed, the risks of conflicts over water seems likely to continue to worsen.

Qadisiyah Reservoir on the Euphrates River, Iraq. This image, taken in 2009, shows the reservoir at less than half its size in 2003 due to human consumption of water for drinking and agriculture. Image via NASA.

[1] www.worldwater.org

Resources and Additional Reading

Gleick, Peter. 2017. Water and U.S. National Security . The WarRoom, United States Army War College, Carlisle, PA. At https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/water-u-s-national-security/ (June 15, 2017).

Reed, David, ed. 2017. Water, Security and U.S. Foreign Policy . New York: Routledge Press.

The World’s Water: The Report on Freshwater Resources (Volumes 1-9). Washington, D.C.: Island Press and the Pacific Institute, Oakland, California. P.H. Gleick (editor). www.worldwater.org .

T he Water Conflict Chronology. The World’s Water. Pacific Institute. At http://www.worldwater.org/water-conflict/ (updated May 2017).

Recommended Citation

Gleick, Peter. 2018. “Water, Conflict, and Peace.”  Open Rivers: Rethinking Water, Place & Community,  no. 11.  https://openrivers.lib.umn.edu/article/water-conflict-and-peace/ .

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.24926/2471190X.4697

Download PDF of Water, Conflict, and Peace by Peter Gleick.

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• 14 December 2023

Water and warfare: the battle to control a precious resource

• Elie Dolgin 0

Elie Dolgin is a science journalist in Somerville, Massachusetts.

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Many people had to be evacuated following flooding caused by the destruction of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine. Credit: ZUMA Press, Inc. /Alamy Stock Photo

Oleksandra Shumilova was hundreds of kilometres away from her native Ukraine when, in early 2022, Russian troops invaded and destroyed a water pipeline near her hometown of Mykolaiv. For 24 days, the taps ran dry. When the water finally returned it was contaminated with salt and harmful chemical deposits that rendered it unsafe for drinking.

The incident struck a chord with Shumilova, a freshwater ecologist at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin — on multiple levels. Not only was Mykolaiv her hometown, but she studies the floodplains of a river in Italy that still bear the scars of the First World War.

Nature Outlook: Water

Pockmarked by craters from decades-old aerial bombardments, the area around the Italian river is scattered with unexploded military ordnance. When discovered, these munitions must undergo controlled detonations, creating blasts that reverberate in Shumilova’s mind during her fieldwork.

“Remnants of war can stay in nature for a long time,” Shumilova says. Now, she fears, history is repeating itself in the Russia–Ukraine war.

Shumilova took it upon herself to chronicle what is happening in Ukraine. “This research is very personal,” she says. She began poring over government records and media reports, meticulously searching for instances of damage to water resources and infrastructure, resulting from military actions. She and her collaborators cross-checked their findings with information from a diverse array of Ukrainian, Russian and international sources.

Parts of Kherson, Ukraine, were flooded after the Kakhovka dam was destroyed during the Russia–Ukraine war. Credit: Roman Pilipey/Getty Images

Focusing on just the first three months of the conflict, a detailed record of 64 events emerged, each affecting crucial water facilities and often triggering a chain of events 1 . Missiles striking hydropower dams, for example, might result in power outages that render water-pumping stations and wastewater treatment facilities inoperable — with devastating consequences. Millions of people can be left without access to clean water, agricultural fields might have insufficient irrigation, and the unchecked flow of untreated sewage and contaminated ground water from industrial mines can pollute nearby river basins, causing significant harm to both people and the environment.

These incidents highlight just one aspect of the intricate interplay between water and armed conflicts. Water resources can be casualties of violence, but disputes over water control can also act as triggers for unrest — for example, when two communities clash over access to a single water source. Furthermore, water is frequently weaponized, as has happened in Gaza, when Israel responded to the deadly attacks by Hamas on 7 October by restricting access to fresh water and cutting off fuel shipments needed to run desalination and water-treatment plants for local production of potable water.

Historical records show that conflicts over water access stretch back millennia, with water systems often being targeted or manipulated as strategic assets on the battlefield. But this water–war nexus seems to be intensifying. Driven by escalating tensions and intensified hostilities in places such as the Middle East, Ukraine, southern Asia and the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa, water resources have increasingly become targets or triggers of violence over the past decade, notes environmental scientist Morgan Shimabuku.

“What we do see right now is a really large increase in the total number of water-related conflicts around the globe,” says Shimabuku who is at the non-profit organization the Pacific Institute in Oakland, California, and helped to develop an online database of water-related clashes called the Water Conflict Chronology. There were more than 200 incidents in 2022 alone, and with the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, 2023 is projected to surpass that figure (see ‘Warring over water’).

Source: Adapted from O. Shumilova et al. Nature Sustain . 6 , 578–586 (2023)

Add in the mounting stresses on water systems from population growth and climate change, and the potential for violence and instability is only expected to grow. Shimabuku thinks that there is an urgent need for comprehensive and cooperative efforts to safeguard water resources and to promote peace, but she also sees reasons to be hopeful.

For example, many previously conflicting factions are embracing collaborative water-sharing treaties, which can de-escalate hostilities. “We have a lot more tools in our toolbox now for addressing these challenges,” Shimabuku points out.

Troubled waters

In 1995, the then-vice-president of the World Bank, Ismail Serageldin, made a dire warning for the years ahead: “Many of the wars in this century were about oil, but wars of the next century will be over water.”

People queue to refill drinking water in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, after Russian forces cut off the pipeline used to supply water. Credit: AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti/Alamy Stock Photo

It’s an oft-repeated idea that persists to this day, cited frequently in discussions about water scarcity and conflict. But according to Jampel Dell’Angelo, who studies governance and disputes over freshwater resources at the Vrije University Amsterdam Institute for Environmental Studies in the Netherlands, “this is a myth”. At least when thinking about conflicts between nations.

In a globalized economy of countries interconnected by trade, including that of agricultural commodities that can be considered a form of virtual water transfer, tensions over cross-border issues of water scarcity are often diffused by forms of interstate cooperation. This typically prevents water from serving as a trigger for major wars, but it doesn’t stop localized violence from arising in water-strapped nations.

In Iraq, for example, large-scale protests over tainted water supplies have been met with strong police crackdowns. Frequent droughts in Somalia have prompted herders to abandon their pastoral lifestyles and join militant groups instead. And neighbouring states in India clash every year over their allocated river waters, with demonstrations that often turn violent.

What’s more, the very conditions that promote interstate water peace can actually exacerbate water-related instability at the local level. This is particularly evident in water-scarce low-income countries, which frequently export their limited natural resources, amplifying their local water challenges and potentially fuelling smaller-scale conflicts. “There’s a shift in the burden of water scarcity on the heads of people who already suffer from the lack of water,” Dell’Angelo says.

Further compounding the problem, foreign agribusiness investors have increasingly acquired vast land holdings in low- and middle-income countries, often at the expense of local communities and appropriating valuable water resources in the process. Termed land or water grabbing, this phenomenon gained momentum after the economic and food crises of 2008 — and, according to Dell’Angelo, the ongoing war in Ukraine is likely to further intensify this trend, owing to reductions in Ukrainian grain exports and heightened concerns about food security. “This will put additional pressure on land and water,” Dell’Angelo says, “with escalating consequences.”

One priority of water-security researchers is to prevent similar crises in the future. “We want to put points on a map and show people where water conflict is happening so that we can better apply solutions,” says Samantha Kuzma, a data scientist at the World Resources Institute, an environmental policy and research group in Washington DC.

Those efforts begin with prediction. To identify problem hotspots, Kuzma and her colleagues developed an artificial intelligence algorithm called the Global Early Warning Tool. This tool considers a wide range of environmental, economic and social factors. By comparing past trends to present data, it flags regions where water-related issues such as flooding, pollution and scarcity could spell trouble 2 .

Kuzma hopes that the tool will help to inspire localized conflict-mitigation measures when and where they are needed. This could prove instrumental in drought-affected areas such as Ethiopia, where restricted access to potable water might escalate tensions between government forces and armed factions, or in water-scarce regions of Syria that are already marred by conflicts between rival militia groups.

Although implementation can be challenging, Kuzma emphasizes that the timely identification of emerging conflicts can streamline the adoption of collective land-use strategies that will ultimately ease tensions. “If we can see water as the security risk that it is — and have more investments going into securing the resource, and managing it sustainably — we should see real impacts on the ground,” she says.

Shifting baselines

The world’s rapidly changing climate could intensify the need for those kinds of water-security intervention. As a team led by Solomon Hsiang, now chief environmental economist at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in Washington DC, showed in an influential 2013 analysis, extreme rainfall conditions can be causally linked to an increased risk of violence and civil war 3 .

Displaced people in Gaza fetch drinking water outside a school. Credit: MAHMUD HAMS/AFP via Getty Images

Such was the case in Syria, where discontent over the government’s handling of a prolonged drought period contributed to uprisings in 2011. This spiralled into a devastating internal war that persists to this day.

Yet, perhaps counter-intuitively, as climate extremes become less anomalous and people become accustomed to more frequent water disasters, it’s possible that the number of water-related conflicts will decline, although the severity of such clashes could intensify.

That’s what Marc Müller, a water engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute for Aquatic Science and Technology in Dübendorf, and his colleagues found when they modelled the relationship between climate variability and conflict. Because the reference point for ‘normal’ levels of water availability changes, they concluded, so will the threshold at which people are willing to fight 4 .

Water-related conflicts could therefore become fewer and further between. But when they do arise over ever-shrinking water supplies, Müller warns, the hostilities are likely to escalate quickly. “Conflicts will be less often, but worse,” he says.

Such predictions offer little consolation to the people of Gaza, who continue to endure shortages of clean water and a sanitation crisis that is facilitating the spread of waterborne diseases.

Water challenges are nothing new in the region. Even before the current conflict, extreme overuse of groundwater resources, a lack of large-scale desalination plants and the discharge of mostly untreated sewage all contributed to water scarcities in Gaza. But the situation is now much worse — and with the world’s attention focused on the water crisis, some researchers are hopeful that more will be done to address the problem once the war ends.

“There’s going to be a lot of rebuilding necessary after all the destruction,” says David Katz, a water-policy researcher at the University of Haifa, Israel, “and maybe investing in water infrastructure will be something that can galvanize the global community.”

As Katz points out, water cooperation helped to pave the way for a peace agreement between Israel and Jordan nearly 30 years ago, and he’s hopeful that the same might be possible in any future détente between the Israeli and Palestinian governments. “Political change opens up new opportunities,” he says. “It could conceivably happen.”

Meanwhile, in Ukraine, the dire impact of Russia’s assaults on the nation’s water infrastructure is consistently and relentlessly worsening. This is starkly evident in the catastrophic destruction of the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power plant on 6 June 2023. The massive concrete structure crumbled. Trillions of litres of water gushed out, deluging areas downstream. At least 50 people died and thousands lost their homes.

A water pipeline in Ukraine is repaired after it was damaged during the Russia–Ukraine war. Credit: Pete Kiehart/Redux/eyevine

In the intervening months, the extent of the damage to communities, agriculture and the environment has become apparent. The Black Sea, into which the flood waters and accompanying sediment poured, became polluted, with a potentially devastating impact on the local marine ecosystem. Vast tracts of flooded land are no longer amenable to farming, crippling the Ukrainian economy, and areas that remain arable will probably have reduced yields without the reservoir there to provide a steady stream of water for irrigation.

This could spell trouble for global food supplies, given the dependence by many low-income countries on Ukrainian grain. “It will touch millions of people, not only those living in Ukraine,” says Viktor Vyshnevskyi, a hydrologist at the National Aviation University in Kyiv, who has studied the myriad water-related repercussions of the dam explosion 5 .

This human-caused flood was not without precedent. During the Second World War, in August 1941, the retreating Soviet army destroyed a dam at the northern end of the same reservoir where the Kakhovka dam was later constructed. The goal was to slow the advance of German forces. But the obliteration of the dam resulted in massive downstream flooding that reportedly claimed the lives of thousands of people. The occupying German forces partially restored the hydrotechnical structure, before they too demolished it as the tide of the war shifted back in favour of the Soviets.

With history as a sobering backdrop — in Ukraine and beyond — the persistent use of water as both a casualty and a weapon of war remains a looming threat in a world grappling with the chaos of climate change. However, by shedding light on this issue, water scientists aspire to catalyse efforts that can avert future conflicts and ensure the protection of this invaluable resource for generations to come.

“We want to provide a resource for other researchers, policy makers and those who can enact solutions around how to prevent violent conflict related to water,” says Shimabuku.

“Could there possibly be water-resource management approaches or governance structures that can be put in place to reduce the potential harm that these conflicts drive?” she asks. In a world in which water is both a source of life and strife, the choice between conflict and cooperation will determine our shared future.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-03883-w

This article is part of Nature Outlook: Water , a supplement produced with financial support from the FII Institute. Nature maintains full independence in all editorial decisions related to the content. About this content .

Shumilova, O. et al. Nature Sustain. 6 , 578–586 (2023).

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Kuzma, S. et al. Leveraging Water Data in a Machine Learning–Based Model for Forecasting Violent Conflict Technical Note (World Resources Institute, 2020).

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Hsiang, S. M., Burke, M. & Miguel, E. Science 341 , 1235367 (2013).

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Roche, K. R., Müller-Itten, M., Dralle, D. N., Bolster, D. & Müller, M. F. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117 , 1935–1940 (2020).

Vyshnevskyi, V., Shevchuk, S., Komorin, V., Oleynik, Y. & Gleick, P. Water Int. 48 , 631–647 (2023).

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The most intensive drought ever recorded in Syria lasted from 2006 to 2011. Water scarcity hit households, businesses and infrastructure, while in the countryside crops failed, livestock died, and entire families moved to the country’s cities. The subsequent eruption of civil war in 2011 led to as many as half a million deaths, as well as massive migration flows to neighbouring countries and beyond, and untold misery. Syria’s war has been a tragic illustration of the central, driving role that water insecurity can play in instability and conflict.

This is no surprise. In 2017 alone, water was a major factor in conflict in at least 45 countries, including Syria . Its importance as a resource means that water-related insecurity can easily exacerbate tensions and friction within and between countries. It can be weaponized; nefarious actors can gain control of, destroy, or redirect access to water to meet their objectives by targeting infrastructure and supplies. Advancements in cyber attacks on critical infrastructure raise further concerns as to the security of water systems.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Risk Report (GRR) has listed water crises among the top-five risks in terms of impact for eight consecutive years. In the most recent version of the report , it remains nested among a cluster of other risks that are rated as having both a very high likelihood and a very high impact. These include extreme weather events, natural disasters, the failure of climate change adaptation and mitigation, man-made environmental disasters, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, interstate conflict and large scale-involuntary migration.

These risks are increasingly interconnected. Failure to mitigate climate change could lead to more extreme weather events, ecosystem collapse and a greater likelihood of man-made environmental disasters. All of these can exacerbate food and water insecurity, which in turn can lead to human deprivation, and could make these and other risks like migration and conflict more likely in a negative feedback loop. Around two thirds of the world’s population, or 4 billion people, currently live without sufficient access to fresh water for at least one month of the year.

Further complicating the picture is the reality that securing water for food and economic activity will only become more difficult over time. As economies develop, their water consumption patterns shift and overall demand rises dramatically to meet the needs of food production, thirsty manufacturing and other industries, thermal power plants and households. However, water supplies are often damaged by poor management, pollution and over-consumption, in addition to supply-side reductions due to climate change impacts and the ecosystem degradation mentioned above.

Many of these drivers of insecurity can be seen in the Inner Niger Delta area of Mali , a marshy wetlands along a stretch of the Niger river. Disruptions to the Delta’s waters, for instance through the construction of two upstream dams, risk destroying fragile ecosystems and further destabilizing the entire region. Altering downstream flows can jeopardize traditional economic activities that underpin the viability of Delta fishing villages, destroying livelihoods and exacerbating social tensions such as intergenerational friction.

Combined with reductions in available farmland associated with rising temperatures and desertification, such environmental degradation risks further fuelling mass migration to the Malian capital Bamako and Europe. The journey is not a safe one, with criminalised trafficking routes that pass nearby between the West African coast and the Sahara. The history of radicalization in the region by extremist groups that have established themselves in northern Mali further illustrates the vulnerabilities facing the displaced and disenfranchised. People whose access to water is limited risk becoming increasingly marginalized, and a target for recruitment by radical groups. Water is critical to the region’s security.

The Inner Niger Delta illustrates the critical role that water insecurity can play in exacerbating other risks, and the necessity of holistic policy approaches. Unfortunately, water insecurity is not yet taken seriously enough by all actors, despite its central role in our economies and in human lives and livelihoods. In most scenarios, the true security threat caused by water insecurity is not a ‘water war’, but rather in its secondary impact on associated human security, that which can then exacerbate local, regional and international security threats.

It can impede or reverse economic development, and prevent countries from playing their art in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals . It can also affect the private sector, for instance by affecting critical parts of complex supply chains. Robust solutions to the water security challenge are critical for everybody from public policymakers and businesses to the wider public and the international community. A new generation of public-private partnerships can be part of the solution to such complex and interrelated risks, responding with urgency and innovation to manage the ‘less for more’ challenge of reduced supply and increased demand.

Advances in technology can play an important role in this new era of collaboration. Real-time data is already being used to generate insights about the interplay of risk factors, allowing the development of sophisticated early-warning tools. The Water, Peace and Security Partnership partnership , for instance, crunches vast amounts of data, using machine-learning and other technologies to identify patterns that indicate the high risk of a conflict situation developing. It does not simply flash a warning light, but points to the factors that need to be addressed through capacity-building and stakeholder engagement to mitigate any potential conflict.

The tool, presented to the UN’s Security Council in 2018, aims to build cohesion for collective action among diplomats, defence analysts, development and humanitarian experts and environmental scientists. Another partnership , Digital Earth Africa , is developing an open-access platform of analysis-ready geospatial data for public use that will enable African nations to track environmental changes across the continent in unprecedented detail, including flooding, droughts, soil and coastal erosion, agriculture, forest and land-use change, water availability and quality, and changes to human settlements.

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Such insights can help governments, businesses and communities better understand and address the interconnected web of environmental risks, in particular the impacts of climate change. From variations in rainfall patterns to extended periods of extreme weather events, building resilience across agricultural, industrial and domestic water supplies is a key priority for increasing water security.

The complex challenges and impacts of water crises will certainly make it difficult to shift from the top of future global risk lists. But real progress can be made, especially through cross-sectoral partnerships and platforms that can engage with such complexity. The 2030 Water Resources Group , which works across a network of more than 600 partners to tackle the water supply-demand gap in 14 different geographies, is a promising blueprint for effective public-private cooperation.

Access to better data can bolster such collaborations and lead to more effective solutions, for instance through mapping water risk , and generating greater understanding of how physical water shortages affect societal tensions, political disruptions and cross-border migration. These are just a few examples of how the world is already developing the types of ‘next generation’ insights, tools and partnerships needed to tackle water insecurity. But what the Global Risk Report makes clear is that any solution needs to be underpinned by an increased awareness of the scale and interconnectedness of the water security challenge before us.

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Press release

Water crises threaten world peace (report)

• Click here to view the full report

As water stress increases, so do the risks of local or regional conflict. UNESCO's message is clear: if we want to preserve peace, we must act swiftly not only to safeguard water resources but also to enhance regional and global cooperation in this area.

Water, when managed sustainably and equitably, can be a source of peace and prosperity. It is also the literal lifeblood of agriculture, the major socio-economic driver for billions of people.

According to the new report published by UNESCO, on behalf of UN-Water, today 2.2 billion people still live without access to safely managed drinking water and 3.5 billion lack access to safely managed sanitation. The UN goal of ensuring this access for all by 2030 is therefore far from being attained, and there is reason to fear that these inequalities may continue to rise.

Between 2002 and 2021 droughts affected more than 1.4 billion people. As of 2022, roughly half of the world’s population experienced severe water scarcity for at least part of the year, while one quarter faced ‘extremely high’ levels of water stress, using over 80% of their annual renewable freshwater supply. Climate change is projected to increase the frequency and severity of these phenomena, with acute risks for social stability.

Girls and women are the first victims of a lack of water

The first impact is the deterioration of living conditions, leading to heightened food insecurity and health risks. Water scarcity also has consequences on social development, particularly for girls and women. In many rural areas, they are the primary water collectors, spending up to several hours a day on this task. Reduced access to water supply exacerbates this burden, which undermines women’s education, economic participation and safety. This may also contribute to the higher secondary school dropout rate among girls compared to boys.

The lack of water security has also been identified as one of the drivers of migration. This displacement can, in turn, contribute to water insecurity by placing added strain on water systems and resources in settlement locations, thereby fuelling social tensions. A study conducted in Somalia indicates a 200% increase in gender-based violence against a group of displaced people.

An urgent need for transboundary agreements

This water scarcity can increase the risk of conflict. In the Sahel region, wetland degradation – often due to ill-advised water development projects – has exacerbated local disputes over access to water and productive land, causing tensions. 

While approximately 40% of the world's population lives in transboundary river and lake basins, only a fifth of countries have cross border agreements to jointly manage these shared resources equitably. Many transboundary basins are already located in areas marked by current or past interstate tensions. In the Arab region, seven countries were in conflict in 2021 – some dating back many years –which has had wide-ranging implications for water supply, infrastructure, and potential cooperation on water-related issues.

Africa remains especially vulnerable to interstate tensions relating to water: 19 out of 22 states studied suffer from water scarcity, and two-thirds of the continent’s freshwater resources are transboundary. Of the 106 transboundary aquifers mapped in Africa, interstate cooperation has only been formalized in seven.

Concrete progress in cooperation in several regions

In this context, cooperation on transboundary water management appears to be a powerful lever for maintaining peace. By creating conditions for regular dialogue between all parties and instituting the necessary legal frameworks, this cooperation has the potential to resolve most disputes relating to water, and therefore prevent the emergence or exacerbation of wider-ranging conflicts.

The Framework Agreement on the Sava River Basin (FASRB), signed in 2002 by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, was the first multilateral, development-oriented agreement in South-East Europe. It has successfully laid the groundwork for sustainable water management. Two decades after its adoption, it has become a key driver of stability in the region, and now serves as an example of best practice for other regions of the world.

The decline in volume of Lake Chad – which has decreased in size by 90% over 60 years – has led to a broad range of economic and security challenges in the region. Yet in recent years, Cameroon, Chad, the Central Africa Republic, Libya, Niger and Nigeria have given a new impetus to the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC). LCBC’s mandate has expanded to ensure the most efficient use of the basin's waters, coordinate local development, and prevent the emergence of disputes that might arise among these countries and local communities. LCBC is today the most appropriate institution for addressing the specific needs of the basin, including socio-economic development and security issues.

These two examples highlight the fact that, even in complex situations, states have the means to enact policies around access to water and shared resource management that are both fair and equitable thanks to international cooperation and the support of the United Nations system. 

The United Nations World Water Development Report is published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water and its production is coordinated by the UNESCO World Water Assessment Programme. The report gives insight into the main trends concerning the state, use and management of freshwater and sanitation, based on work by Members and Partners of UN-Water. Launched in conjunction with World Water Day, the report provides decision-makers with knowledge and tools to formulate and implement sustainable water policies. It also offers best practice examples and in-depth analyses to stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector and beyond.

About UNESCO

With 194 Member States, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization contributes to peace and security by leading multilateral cooperation on education, science, culture, communication and information. Headquartered in Paris, UNESCO has offices in 54 countries and employs over 2300 people. UNESCO oversees more than 2000 World Heritage sites, Biosphere Reserves and Global Geoparks; networks of Creative, Learning, Inclusive and Sustainable Cities; and over 13 000 associated schools, university chairs, training and research institutions. Its Director-General is Audrey Azoulay.

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed” – UNESCO Constitution, 1945. 

More information:  www.unesco.org

About UN-Water

 UN-Water is the United Nations inter-agency coordination mechanism for all freshwater-related matters, including sanitation. It represents 36 UN Agencies, Funds and Programs and 47 international organizations who work together to address the cross-cutting nature of water and sanitation issues, to identify gaps and opportunities and to maximise system-wide coordinated action at the global, regional and country levels and across the United Nations pillars.

More information:  https://www.unwater.org/  

Press contacts

François Wibaux, [email protected] , +33 (0)1 45 68 07 46

Daniella Bostrom Couffe,  [email protected] , +41 (0)79 660 92 84

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This article is related to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals .

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How Water Builds Peace and Resilience in an Increasingly Water-Scarce World

By Joanne Lu

Syrian refugee children drink from water taps installed by World Vision at Azraq refugee camp in Jordan. © World Vision/ photo by Elias Abu Ata

Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that something as ordinary as water can be so powerful. We know, for example, that access to clean water can transform the everyday lives of individuals, eliminating diseases, freeing up women to earn an income and allowing children to go to school. But more and more, water is also playing a crucial role in peace and conflicts, especially as water becomes more scarce with increasing populations, overuse, mismanagement, and climate change.

Throughout history, water has been a trigger or source of conflict, as nations wrestle for sovereignty over key waterways, groups fight for access to critical water sources, and populations are forced to leave their homes due to water scarcity.  It’s also been weaponized  to control populations and gain political leverage, and  water infrastructure is often a casualty of conflict, being intentionally or unintentionally damaged or destroyed. In 2017, water was identified by the United Nations as a major factor in conflicts in at least 45 countries , particularly in the Middle East and North Africa. A chronology compiled by the Pacific Institute shows a striking increase in the number of water-related conflicts within the last few decades.

And climate change is exacerbating the situation.  Amid erratic rainfall, severe droughts and other extreme weather events, competition for a diminishing water supply is ramping up and leading to more water-related conflicts. According to the World Resources Institute , 17 countries are facing “extremely high” levels of water stress, while about a quarter of the global population (more than two billion people) is experiencing “high” water stress. These conditions are fueling conflict and social unrest. It’s also forcing people to migrate in search of water for themselves, their crops, and their livestock. In turn, this large-scale displacement is causing further instability and conflict.

But increasingly, humanitarian and development organizations are  seeing water emerge as more than just a basic human right – it’s also an instrument of peacebuilding. Not only can water security reduce conflict triggers in water-scarce areas, but water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) projects present an opportunity for communities to build social cohesion and social capital around a shared resource.

According to Jonathan Papoulidis , an executive advisor on fragile states for World Vision, managing complex risk – like water-related conflicts – and building resilience requires improving social capital along three components simultaneously: bonding, bridging, and linking.

Bonding brings people together within a community when they share assets and resources, provide psychosocial support to one another and respond to emergencies together. WASH projects in communities that previously didn’t have regular access to clean water often accomplish this. Organizations like Water1st International accomplish this by training  communities – including refugee communities who have been displaced by conflict – to independently build, operate and maintain their own water projects in perpetuity. Community members  elect their own water committee to govern their new water systems. The result is greater social cohesion and water projects that last.

Similarly, Friendly Water for the World empowers communities to take care of their own clean water needs, and does so partly through peacemaking efforts. And The Hunger Project has trained more than 20,000 local leaders since 2011 in building community skills and awareness around water and sanitation.

Bridging is the second component of increasing social capital. It involves connecting communities that are either disconnected or in conflict with each other. This is yet another function of water projects. For example, Water Mission found that in Mkinga, Tanzania, water scarcity exacerbated existing tensions and arguments between neighbors of different faiths. But when Water Mission installed a tap for clean water in the community, arguments over water stopped, and the tap became a source of unity in the community. It was not only a shared resource, but also a gathering place for residents to engage in friendly conversations everyday.

World Vision , too, has seen similar bridging happen through a Cash for Work Water (C4WW) program, implemented  by the German agency for international development (GIZ), in Jordan. Because of a massive influx of refugees, primarily from Syria, tensions were rising between Jordanian host communities and refugee communities, especially amid high unemployment rates. The country’s already scarce water resources were  under immense strain because of the influx of refugees. And  the country’s water dams were losing capacity because of soil erosion. To address these issues, the C4WW program offered both Jordanians and Syrian refugees temporary work building erosion-prevention structures. Since 2017, the program has provided more than 9,000 people with temporary employment – half of them Jordanian and half of them refugees, working alongside each other.

The last component to building social capital is linking, in which communities that are  bonded and bridged are also linked to formal institutions, such as governments, NGOs, multilateral organizations, and private companies. When it comes to water, Mercy Corps , for example, recognizes the importance of linking communities to formal institutions for sustainability. In the immediate aftermath of a crisis, Mercy Corps will deliver water to communities without access. But in order to ensure that communities have continued access, Mercy Corps partners with companies and organizations like Walmart, the Miami Foundation and BlackRock in Puerto Rico to rebuild the island’s energy and water supply. In the Bahamas, Mercy Corps made sure that Freeport YMCA and Salvation Army had clean water by installing reverse osmosis purifiers to desalinate ocean water that had infiltrated aquifers.  Splash also understands the importance of linking, specifically through their partnerships with local governments. Splash believes that “in most cases, governments are the best entities to expand this work and carry it on for the long haul.” Splash’s influence on government practices acts as a “core building block towards sustainability and scale.”

Sustainable water projects that bond, bridge, and link communities are critical for building community resilience. They help prepare communities to not only confront increasing risks to water security, but also conflicts, water-related or otherwise. That’s why it’s important to continue progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 6 of clean water for all by 2030. Specifically, Target 6.A aims to expand water and sanitation support to developing countries, including through water harvesting, desalination, water efficiency, wastewater treatment, recycling and reuse technologies.

But Target 6.B really gets at how WASH projects can build resilience and peace. It aims to support and strengthen the participation of local communities in improving water and sanitation management, because it’s only through their participation that they become stronger as a community to withstand the threats of water scarcity.

Global Washington members working on water:

Friendly Water for the World

Founded in 2010, Friendly Water for the World is a dynamic, rapidly growing, 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Olympia, WA. Its mission is to expand global access to low-cost clean water technologies and information about health and sanitation through knowledge-sharing, training, applied research, community-building, peacemaking, and efforts at sustainability. The organization empowers communities abroad to take care of their own clean water needs, even as it empowers people in the U.S. to make a real difference. Friendly Water for the World currently works in 15 countries, and has assisted more than 160 marginalized and oppressed rural communities – including widows with HIV, people with albinism, survivors of war-time rape, victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, indigenous tribes, and unemployed youth – ensure their own safe drinking water while becoming employed in the process.

The Hunger Project

The Hunger Project’s holistic approach in Africa, South Asia and Latin America empowers women and men living in rural villages to become the agents of their own development and sustainably overcome hunger and poverty. Through  its WASH programs , The Hunger Project empowers rural communities to ensure they have access to clean water and improved sanitation, the capacity to develop new water sources, and the information to implement water conservation techniques. Since 2011, nearly 871,000 people have participated in The Hunger Project’s WASH skill or awareness building activities and the organization has trained over 20,000 local leaders in building community skills and awareness around water and sanitation.

Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps helps people around the world get clean water by providing water during emergencies, building wells to reduce long treks (often made by vulnerable girls and women), repairing damaged water infrastructure and helping construct reservoirs to ensure communities have access to clean water in the future. In Zimbabwe, Mercy Corps restored a community’s water infrastructure to provide clean and safe water for over 43,000 people. In turn, this also significantly reduced the distance girls had to travel to collect drinking water for their families from 2500m to 80m. During emergencies, access to clean water plays a vital role in preventing disease outbreaks and other water-borne illnesses. In response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo where three quarters of the population lack access to clean water, Mercy Corps has provided over 600,000 displaced people with safe drinking water to help keep their families healthy and prevent disease. In 2018, Mercy Corps connected more than 3 million people to clean water and hygiene and sanitation facilities during emergencies across the globe.

Path from Poverty

In Kenya, with unclean water sources often miles from villages, woman and girls are forced to spend hours each day simply finding and transporting water. It is not safe for women and girls to fetch water in the very early hours of the morning. The daily average for a Kenya woman is 4-6 hours of walking for clean water. The typical container used for water collection in Africa, the jerry can, weighs over 40 pounds when it’s completely full. With much of one’s day already consumed by meeting basic needs, there isn’t time for much else. The hours lost to gathering water are often the difference between the time to do a trade and earn a living and not. Path From Poverty works to end this daily hardship and is putting a stop to girls lives being at risk by providing clean, safe water at the homes of women and their families. Empowering women, teaching them to work together, start a micro enterprise, and pool resources, Path From Poverty is changing lives and giving back the time lost fetching water so girls can go to school, women can earn much-needed income, and they can be safe from rape and abduction.

Splash is a nonprofit organization focused on clean water, clean hands and clean toilets for children living in urban poverty across Asia and Africa. Splash implements water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programs in child-serving institutions, including schools, hospitals, shelters and orphanages, in order to reach the greatest number of children cost-effectively and to bring about generational change. The nonprofit’s holistic approach to WASH includes high-quality water filtration systems, durable drinking and hand washing stations, toilet renovations, and hygiene clubs to ensure that kids learn healthy habits like handwashing.  To date, Splash has completed over 1,600 international projects and serves safe drinking water to over 400,000 children a day in eight countries (China, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, Thailand, and Vietnam). Splash’s goal is to reach one million children per day by 2023.

Water1st International

Water1st prides itself on funding sustainable water projects that involve local communities, local women, as well as a consistent funding stream. Since its founding in 2005, Water1st has provided clean water to over 188,000 people. While its projects focus on providing easy access to clean water, the organization also ensures that projects integrate toilets and hygiene education. Water1st’s success centers on robust program evaluation of each of its funded projects to ensure that deliverables are effective and community needs are met.

WaterAid is the #1 ranked international nonprofit dedicated to transforming lives through access to clean water, toilets and hygiene education. WaterAid has been helping communities around the globe become more resilient to extreme weather, natural hazards and changing environmental conditions for more than 30 years. From rainwater harvesting and gravity-fed water systems, to spring water protection, environmentally-friendly sanitation solutions, improved rainwater monitoring and dedicated climate advocacy, WaterAid works with local communities throughout Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and the Pacific region to proactively identify the kinds of problems they face right now, and the ones they may face in the future. Since 1981, WaterAid has reached 24.9 million people with clean water and, since 2004, 24 million people with toilets and sanitation.

Water Mission

When COVID-19 began making its way around the world, Water Mission’s global staff quickly scaled up program efforts to provide handwashing stations, sanitation supplies, hygiene training, and COVID-19 awareness education. Water Mission provided critical hygiene supplies, such as safe water and soap, to more than 800,000 people around the world. Water Mission installed more than 8,550 handwashing stations in key locations, including healthcare facilities, schools, and existing safe water collection points in Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Peru, Malawi, Mexico, and the Bahamas. To date, this program has equipped nearly 1,000 healthcare facilities with handwashing stations and training materials, ensuring that frontline workers are better equipped and protected as they carry out their critical work.

World Vision

World Vision is committed to accelerating universal and equitable access to water, sanitation, and hygiene services to contribute to Sustainable Development Goal 6. This will only be achieved through collaboration. Between 2016-2021 World Vision reached 20 million people with clean water. The organization has more than 1,200 designated WASH staff members in 41 prioritized countries that provide localized expertise. In its business plan for 2021-2025, World Vision aims to impact 15 million people with safe water, 14 million people with improved sanitation, and 18 million with improved hygiene through access to household hand-washing stations. The organization is also ramping up area-wide approaches to support WASH universal coverage plans for more than 150 subnational districts. World Vision is expanding WASH investments in healthcare facilities and schools. These plans will demonstrate sustainable impact and keep the organization on track to reach everyone World Vision works with everywhere with basic clean water access by 2030 —approximately 50 million people between 2016 to 2030. World Vision is deepening its focus on the most vulnerable, especially in fragile and extremely fragile contexts. It will continue to provide WASH during emergencies, and when combined with the provision of sustained water service, World Vision will continue to reach one new person with clean water every 10 seconds.

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Editor’s Pick: 10 Violent Water Conflicts

Water is indispensable to human life. Though plentiful, it is limited and global demand for freshwater has been growing rapidly due to population growth and greater affluence. At the same time, climate change and environmental degradation are altering the regional and seasonal availability and quality of water. The resulting competition over water use may lead to conflict and sometimes violence, though researchers emphasize that it is rarely the lack of water as such that fuels conflict, but rather its governance and management.

In our Editor’s Pick, we present 10 case studies from our interactive ECC Factbook that analyse the linkages between water and conflict. They look at various pathways through which water and security are connected and outline different attempts to find peaceful solutions.

1. Dispute over water in the Nile Basin The Nile basin features significant conflict over access to and rights over the Nile water resources among its eleven riparian countries. The Nile Basin Initiative (NBI), founded by 9 out of 10 riparian countries in 1999 with backing from major donor institutions, has achieved some successes in its attempts to strengthen cooperation. Yet, since 2007, diverging interests between upstream and downstream countries have brought negotiations to a standstill, pitting Egypt (and, to a lesser extent, Sudan) against upstream riparians, especially Ethiopia. In 2015, trilateral negotiations between these countries over a major dam under construction in Ethiopia led to a framework agreement that may, in time, prepare the ground for a broader agreement. Read more and watch our explanatory video .

2. Water shortages and public discontent in Yemen As a consequence of severe mismanagement, Yemen’s water availability is declining dramatically. The impacts on the people are unequally distributed, and corruption and nepotism are at the core of this imbalance. This has increasingly frustrated the disadvantaged, with water scarcity playing a role in fuelling the political and security crisis in Yemen. Read more .

3. Turkey, Syria and Iraq: conflict over the Euphrates-Tigris The Euphrates-Tigris Basin is shared between Turkey, Syria and Iraq, with Iran comprising parts of the Tigris basin. Since the 1960s, unilateral irrigation plans altering the flows of the rivers, coupled with political tensions between the countries, have strained relations in the basin. Disputes have prevented the three governments from effectively co-managing the basin’s rivers. Although cooperation efforts were renewed in the 2000s, these have yet to result in a formal agreement on managing the basin waters. Read more .

4. Transboundary water disputes between Afghanistan and Iran Afghanistan’s efforts to harness the waters of the Helmand River and the Harirud to support post-conflict reconstruction and development have alarmed Iran. The Iranian government perceives Afghanistan’s agricultural expansion and dam construction activities as threats to water security in its eastern and northeastern provinces. With a largely ineffective water treaty in place, cooperative initiatives have not yet achieved a breakthrough. Afghanistan’s reluctance to engage in water negotiations, coupled with Iran’s alleged “paradoxical” activities of support vs. disruption, have further complicated the resolution of transboundary water disputes between the two countries. Read more .

5. Dam projects and disputes in the Mekong River Basin The Mekong basin is witnessing an enormous expansion of dam-building for hydropower generation, especially in China and Laos. This has led to diplomatic tensions as countries downstream of the dams fear the negative impacts they may bring about, from greater flooding to seasonal lack of water. The Mekong River Commission’s (MRC) effectiveness in resolving these tensions has so far been limited due to its lack of enforcement powers and China’s reluctance to join as a full member. Instead of joining the MRC, China is trying to engage with downstream riparians by proposing alternative institutional mechanisms and offering assistance for dam construction downstream in the Lower Mekong basin. However, without more formalized cooperation, especially between the lower riparians and China, contemporary dam-building activities might continue to act as a destabilizing force in the Mekong River Basin. Read more .

6. Dispute over water in the Cauvery Basin in India The long-standing conflict over water from the Cauvery River between the Indian states Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has recently resurfaced in the context of drier climate conditions. The implications are not only legal battles, but also violent protests following decisions to alter water distribution between the two states. Read more .

7. Droughts, livestock prices and armed conflict in Somalia Frequent droughts in Somalia put significant pressures on pastoral livelihoods. Droughts cause herders to sell more of their livestock than they would under normal conditions, resulting in plummeting livestock prices and deteriorating rural incomes. Widespread poverty and lack of economic alternatives, in turn, provide incentives for illicit activities and for joining armed groups such as Al Shabaab, which offer cash revenues and other benefits to their fighters. Especially the record drought of 2011 is believed to have swelled the ranks of the militant Islamist group. Read more .

8. Turkey-Armenia: Water cooperation despite tensions The Turkish-Armenian case is a prominent example of how two co-riparians can put their tensions aside, work together in their mutual interest, and share transboundary waters equitably. Read more .

9. Security implications of growing water scarcity in Egypt Egypt is currently using more water than its internal renewable resources - mainly based on Nile fresh water inflows - supply. Water stress in Egypt is expected to further increase in the future as a result of rapid population growth, rising temperatures and increasing water consumption. If not properly dealt with, growing freshwater scarcity will put severe strains on Egypt’s economy and make the country more vulnerable to renewed internal strife. Moreover, it risks putting increasing pressure on Egypt’s diplomatic relations with other states along the Nile. Read more.

10. Water privatisation in Cochabamba, Bolivia In 2000, privatisation of the drinking water in Cochabamba incurred violent protests and escalated into the so-called ‘Water War of Cochabamba’, which killed at least nine people. Eventually, the city’s water was renationalised and access to water received new legal backing. However, dwindling water supplies induced by global climate change, over-consumption and technological deficiencies continue to heavily strain the city of Cochabamba. Read more.

Compiled by Adrien Detges, Benjamin Pohl and Stella Schaller, adelphi.

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Water for peace: preventing conflict related to water and wetlands

Joyce kortlandt, julia karlysheva, mara tignino, caroline pellaton.

Water can be a key trigger of conflict among communities or between citizens and the state. This is happening all over the world: from Iraq to Guatemala and from Mali to Lebanon. Preventing water-related conflicts can save lives and is good for the economy. The Water, Peace and Security (WPS) partnership and the Geneva Water Hub show how water-related conflict prevention looks in practice, and how to measure the success of such programs. Clarity about programming and measuring impact are needed to unlock more investment in conflict prevention and to do so efficiently and effectively. 

“Water is becoming more scarce relative to demand,” says Dominick Revell de Waal, senior economist at the World Bank, “with population and economic growth this is inevitable”. When water insecurity repeatedly affects populations, it can increase the risk of conflict, fueling the perception that institutions and governments are not doing enough, exacerbating grievances, creating new risks, and deepening inequities. Water-related fragility can manifest itself from local conflict between fishers, farmers and herders about access to wetlands to international conflict between entire countries over the construction of a dam. “Greater fragility in turn, makes it harder to achieve water security. We must disrupt the vicious cycle of water insecurity and fragility”, says de Waal.

When combined with perceptions of exclusion and inequality, water-related conflicts can spill over into violence and instability across the world, fueled by the effects of climate change, and resulting in unacceptably high financial and human costs. The international community is increasingly calling for violent conflict prevention for two main reasons: prevention saves costs and lives. Prevention saves lives because people do not resort to violence and take up arms, and it saves money because investment in crisis response during and reconstruction after conflict is much more costly than investment in prevention. According to the latest Global Peace Index , for instance, if the world decreased violence by just 10%, our global economy would save $1.45 trillion.

Despite the case for prevention, only a small amount of development aid goes that way.  Growth of Official Development Assistance (ODA) is concentrated in fragile contexts, but most of this growth has been in humanitarian assistance. In 2016, only 2% of ODA for fragile contexts was dedicated to conflict prevention . There are two key reasons for this. First, the lack of clarity about what conflict prevention means for programming. Second, it is very difficult to quantify and measure success in preventing conflict.

Programming related to water, wetlands and conflict prevention requires a multi-pronged approach. The Water, Peace and Security (WPS) partnership , a collaboration among an expanding group of organizations supported by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, puts forward four key components: understanding, awareness raising, capacity development and dialogue. What does that mean in practice?

Mali is a case in point. Karounga Keïta, director of Wetlands International Sahel Office, one of the WPS partners, describes the situation in Mali: “Conflicts around water resources in the Inner Niger Delta, a major wetland in the center of Mali, contribute to violence in the country.  The wetland supports the livelihoods of up to two million people including farmers, fishermen and pastoralists. Since 2012 there has been an intensification of violence in Mali, including violent competition over natural resources provided by the wetland, such as watergrass fields - essential breeding grounds for fish and a vital food resource for the region’s cattle – and fish.”

Such degradation of the wetland can fuel an already complex situation where jihadist groups have been able to get support based on old grievances. Understanding the links between water, wetlands, peace and security is therefore a key component of the WPS program approach. Awareness of these links by national and international actors helps to design water management systems that contribute to the prevention of more water-related conflict. This requires promoting dialogue at different levels and training key players (governments, civil society and others) in inclusive and sustainable water management, resulting in carefully designed investments that promote stability instead of undermining it.

Linking policy and science is a fundamental tool for conflict prevention. Collaboration is a key element of programming related to water, wetlands and conflict prevention; at local, national and international levels. “Water is at the heart of the sustainable development, peace and humanitarian agendas”, says Danilo Türk , lead political advisor of the Geneva Water Hub , a joint initiative of the Swiss Confederation and the University of Geneva. The Geneva Water Hub aims at bringing together actors implementing the global agenda on water and local stakeholders. It works to ensure that water is used as a vehicle for peace and, the water-peace discourse is better understood and recognized.

Measuring the impact of water and wetland related programs on conflict and fragility is challenging. “It requires both general and specific monitoring approaches”, says Aseel Naamani, program manager in Lebanon at International Alert, another member of the WPS partnership.

Eight years into the Syrian crisis, tensions between host communities and Syrian refugees in Lebanon are still high. The deepening economic crisis pushes more people in Lebanon into poverty and in need of services. Women have identified access to water as one of the drivers of conflict. Alert uses key performance indicators as a monitoring and management tool to review, adapt and monitor their water and conflict program.

“We design indicators to capture progress and success at different levels and we analyze relations with gender and age because men, women and different age groups respond to and interact with water issues in different ways”, says Naamani. Indicators include accessibility of local populations to water resources, levels of violence and insecurity as experienced by local stakeholders and strengthened rule of law. Dialogue in the Bekaa valley, facilitated by Alert’s program, highlighted the central role of municipalities in curbing inter-community tensions by ensuring conflict and gender-sensitive approaches to provision of water, wastewater management and other services.

Measuring the impact of such water and wetland related programs on conflict and fragility will be key for making the case for more investment in conflict prevention, and ultimately making a real difference to people’s lives.

For more information about the cycle of water and fragility, programming to prevent water-related conflict, water as a connecter and measuring impact, listen to the podcasts with Dominick Revell de Waal (World Bank), Karounga Keïta (Wetlands International), Danilo Türk (Geneva Water Hub) and Aseel Naamani (International Alert).

This guest blog was contributed by Wetlands International as part of the Fragility Forum 2020 .

• Fragility Conflict and Violence
• Pathways for Peace

Senior Advocacy Officer, Wetlands International

Media Relations and Communications Manager, International Alert

Lead Legal Specialist, Geneva Water Hub

Corporate Operations Administrator, Geneva Water Hub

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Water-related conflicts: definitions, data, and trends from the water conflict chronology

Peter H Gleick 2,1 and Morgan Shimabuku 1

Published 21 February 2023 • © 2023 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd Environmental Research Letters , Volume 18 , Number 3 Citation Peter H Gleick and Morgan Shimabuku 2023 Environ. Res. Lett. 18 034022 DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/acbb8f

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1 Pacific Institute, Oakland, CA, United States of America

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2 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.

Peter H Gleick https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7232-9284

• Received 27 November 2022
• Accepted 13 February 2023
• Published 21 February 2023

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Violence associated with freshwater resources has occurred throughout recorded history, with water triggering violence and armed conflict, water or water systems being used as weapons, and water or water systems becoming casualties during conflicts. Understanding the causes of water-related violence and regional and temporal trends is critical for identifying priority areas for conflict resolution and strategies to reduce the risk of future conflicts. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the structure, content, and design of The Water Conflict Chronology, an open-source online database, which tracks water-related conflicts from around the globe. Some analysis is provided with caveats about the limitations of the data, but further analysis will be forthcoming. The database is updated approximately annually using information from other conflict-related databases, news reports, eyewitness accounts, and a review of historical documents. As of October 2022, the Chronology had 1298 entries, from the earliest events around 2400 BCE through early 2022. Initial analysis of data shows trends in the nature, location, and social and political characteristics of water-related violence, including a sharp increase in water-related violence in recent years, especially where water has been a trigger or casualty of violence, a concentration of events in the Middle East, southern Asia, and the Sahel, and the increased targeting of civilian water systems during civil and regional armed conflicts.

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1. Introduction

Not every resource issue or environmental problem is a threat to national or international security, but for several decades, it has been increasingly apparent that certain regional and global environmental problems produce conditions that enhance the risk of violence or even trigger violence. In the approach to security studies that dominated in the mid- to late-twentieth century, economic factors were secondary considerations and environmental or resource factors were largely ignored in favor of 'realist' or 'realpolitik' approaches to international relationships, where the conventional meaning of security was 'the defense of territorial and political integrity... as the fundamental, the immutable objective of states in the international system' [ 1 , 2 ].

By the 1980s, however, in parallel with the shift in the relationships between the traditional superpowers of the United States and the weakening Soviet Union, there was growing evidence of regional and global environmental and resource disruptions, including the depletion of Antarctic ozone, transboundary acid rain, depletion and contamination of international rivers, and anthropogenic climate change, and the realization that these problems required international cooperation and in some cases were increasingly affecting international tensions and security [ 3 – 5 ]. This led to a dramatic expansion of efforts to understand and study environment and resource issues that transcended traditional political borders and to develop concepts for integrating those issues into geopolitical studies and practice—what became the expanding field of environmental security [ 6 – 9 ]. The field has also benefited from efforts to develop policies of transboundary cooperation and negotiation, making it even more important to identify remaining triggers for violence [ 10 , 11 ].

Three related, but distinct aspects of security studies in this area are (a) evaluating the role that access to, control of, or a change in natural resources plays, as one of many variables, as a trigger of violence or armed conflict; (b) identifying where resources or the environment are used as military tools or weapons of violence; and (c) assessing the environmental consequences of war or violent conflict where resources or the environment are casualties or targets of violence.

Early efforts in the area of environmental security focused on the first category with particular attention to the role that access to energy resources, especially oil, plays in influencing the security objectives of states because of both the central part it plays in global economies and the massive and vulnerable international trade required to move oil from a small number of producers to a much larger number of consumers [ 12 , 13 ]. These factors have made oil-producing states, especially the Middle East, a locus for violence and conflict internally and involving powerful external players for much of the latter half of the 20th century. In this case, resources are strategic goals and triggers to violence, critical to economic prosperity and political stability.

States go to war for many reasons, including both material and ideological ones, and it is critical to understand the links between them. Resources are unevenly distributed around the world, including classic mineral resources such as precious or rare metals, energy resources such as fossil fuels, and even renewable energy resources like wind, solar, and freshwater. Lipschutz argued in the late 1980s that post-Cold War foreign policies should be understood as a synthesis of ideology and material interests [ 14 ]. As acknowledged by the U.S. military of the time, resource issues were already playing a role in superpower politics, triggering competition and conflict:

"US and Soviet interests focus to a large degree on the less-developed countries, many of which are resources rich.. The resources supply patterns.. demonstrate why access to these regions is important to the US and its allies, and how the Soviet Union, by intrusion therein, gains political and economic leverage against the West." [ 15 ].

A major shift in recent years has been the recognition that the availability of local substitutes for traditional fossil fuel resources, such as renewable energy, can greatly reduce the risk of energy-related conflicts, while constraints on natural resources for which there are no substitutes, such as water, may pose a greater threat to peace and stability [ 16 ].

The second area of concern is the targeting of strategic resources, including energy or water distribution systems, during conflicts that may start for other reasons, an action that violates the Geneva Principles on the Protection of Water Infrastructure and the 1977 supplemental protocols to the 1949 Geneva Convention [ 17 ]. Destroying these resources, or denying access, to them (water as a 'casualty' of conflict), is often considered a strategic military objective because of the multiple roles they play in power dynamics, military operations, and in supporting national economic well-being. Saddam Hussein targeted the oil production infrastructure of Kuwait during the Gulf War [ 18 , 19 ]. Access to and control of the nuclear power plants in Ukraine have been a focus of the war there since early 2022. The targeting of water and water systems also has a long history. Large hydroelectric dams were regularly attacked during World War II; civilian water systems in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq were persistently attacked in the late 2010s [ 20 , 21 ]. During periods of colonization, natural resources were often targeted (or used as weapons of war—the next category) with water resources being appropriated or poisoned. Examples from the database include water rights violence against both Native American Tribes and early Hispanic communities in the southwestern US in the 1800s and wells poisoned during slave revolts in the Caribbean [ 22 , 23 ].

The third category is the use of resources or the environment as 'weapons' of conflicts. This includes non-military tools such as trade embargoes, sanctions, or the direct manipulation of environmental factors in conflicts or wars that again, may start for traditional political, economic, or ideological reasons. After the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, the US imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union in 1980, prompting debate about the practical and ethical implications of using food as a weapon [ 24 ]. Saddam Hussein intentionally released oil into the Persian Gulf to try to cripple Kuwaiti desalination plants during the Gulf War, leading to calls for international treaties to prohibit intentional ecological destruction as a weapon of war [ 25 , 26 ]. The control and manipulation of the flow of oil and natural gas from Russia to Europe has played a key role in dynamics of the European response to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war [ 27 ].

While energy resources have been an early focus of much of the environmental security literature, the link between energy and security are weakening as pressures to cut the use of fossil fuels to address the growing risk of climate change has led to a massive expansion in the availability and use of renewable energy that can be produced locally. Fossil fuels are likely to continue to play a major role in international trade and economics and to influence political and strategic actions by major economic players dependent on imports of oil, but other resources—especially freshwater—are now increasingly tied to environmental security challenges.

Water is critical for all aspects of national economies, the production of goods and services, growing food, energy production, and the health of both humans and natural ecosystems. Fresh water is also unevenly distributed around the world, with natural variability in the stocks and flows of the hydrologic cycle [ 28 ]. These two factors make access to and control of water a top social and political objective, as well as a strategic objective during conflicts. As such, the links between water and conflict are becoming central to concerns about environmental security [ 11 , 29 , 30 ]. To investigate these links, the Pacific Institute, an independent water research institute in Oakland, California, began collecting data on water-related violence more than 35 years ago and created an open-source database—the Water Conflict Chronology (WCC)—to categorize and analyze water conflicts [ 31 ]. Below we introduce the structure, content, and design of the WCC, provide an initial review how water has been a factor in conflicts, explore the way water-related conflicts have changed over time and location, and identify some initial trends in water-related violence that deserve attention by decision makers and policy actors in the environmental security sphere.

2.1. The data: the WCC

The WCC is an online, open-source database that includes historical information on violence over water categorized by region and type, conflict time and date, locale, and other variables. An interactive map is also presented that shows the geographic location of and information about each event. Entries are collected from a wide variety of sources, including historical records, newspaper and magazine reporting, military reports, international governmental and non-governmental organizations, social media, and field work. Internet searches on terms such as 'conflict database' and 'war database' were used to discover online repositories of violent conflict events that were related to or involved fresh water. For every entry in the Chronology, a detailed source or reference is included.

Table 1 lists a set of online databases related to armed conflict, terrorism, or regional violence that were reviewed for entries involving water resources, water systems, and people involved in the conflict, such as the workers. These sources were typically created for other (non-water) purposes and their entries were reviewed and evaluated for inclusion in the WCC. Additional sources beyond those listed in the table below will be evaluated for inclusion in the future, including other data sets and media archives, as time and resources allow. For a water-related conflict event that we identified from one of these databases, we have cited the database itself as the source within the WCC.

Table 1.  Databases on armed conflict, terrorism, and violence reviewed for water-related conflict events.

2.2. Event categories and selection

Events are included in the database when there is armed conflict or physical violence related to water systems or water resources involving injuries or deaths, or threats of violence, including verbal threats, military maneuvers, and shows of force. Events are only included if the harm caused is or would have been immediate. Instances are excluded if unintentional or not directly physically harmful, such as impacts to individuals or communities associated with water-management decisions (e.g. populations displaced by dam construction). If, however, a water-management decision leads to a violent response, such as violent protests of water restrictions, then the event is included. Events are also excluded when the physical impacts are caused by weather or climate events such as flooding or droughts, and not by humans or direct, human-created activity. Events where water resources or water systems are incidental and not the defining factor, for example, the extensive use of water cannons as a tool to suppress social unrest and riots, are not included. All entries are categorized in groups that parallel the framework described above for broader environmental security discussions, specifically water as a trigger of conflict; water as a military tool or weapon of conflict; and attacks on water or water systems, i.e. casualties of violence. Table 2 summarizes the definitions of these categories and provides selected examples.

Table 2.  Water conflict chronology categories of water conflicts.

2.2.1. Trigger

Water is considered a trigger or root cause of conflict where there is a dispute over the control of water or water systems, or where economic or physical access to water, or scarcity of water, triggers violence. Thousands of people have been killed in recent years over competition for water and land in the Sahel where farmers and nomadic pastoralists clash over access to watering holes and land. Growing use of fences around land have reduced mobility and options for nomadic herders, and changes in climate and water conditions have forced herders further south in search of water, further sowing divisions and igniting religious extremism [ 32 ]. While some efforts have been made to reduce tensions over rural-urban water disputes, with negotiations and compensation, this area remains a key one for violence [ 33 ].

2.2.2. Weapon

Water or water infrastructure have also been used as intentional 'weapons' during conflicts. Water has been weaponized to poison or cut the supply of water to vulnerable populations or to flood areas for strategic military purposes (see table 2 ). More than 30 people were reported killed in Somalia in 2017 by water poisoned by al Shabaab, a militant group affiliated with Al-Qaeda [ 34 ]. In 2022 in the Russian-Ukrainian war, Ukraine intentionally released water from a dam on the Dnieper River, flooding land north of Kyiv to slow the advance of Russian armored columns [ 35 ].

2.2.3. Casualty

Water resources or water systems that provide water or wastewater services are 'casualties of conflict' where water resources, water systems, or people involved with the resource or the system, such as employees, are intentional or incidental casualties or targets of violence (see table 2 ). Attacks on civilian infrastructure, including water systems, violate long-standing international codes of conflict, yet these events still occur.

2.3. Additional factors related to data characterization

In some instances, more than one category may apply, such as where water scarcity may trigger violence during riots over access to water, but where water systems are also attacked (i.e. 'casualty'). In such cases, the WCC database categorizes the event under all applicable categories. In some instances, it can be challenging to distinguish between whether a weaponized form of water or water system also creates a casualty (of the resource or infrastructure). For example, in 1978, a water tank was poisoned in protest of airport construction in Japan; assuming that the poisoning was done with the intent to harm one or multiple people, this is listed as a weapon and a casualty as the water supply was no longer usable [ 36 ]. In 1938, Chiang Kai-shek ordered the destruction of flood control dikes along the Huang He (Yellow) River to flood areas threatened by the invading Japanese army. The resulting floodwaters covered an area variously estimated at between 3000 and 50 000 km 2 , and while it delayed the Japanese, it also killed Chinese estimated in numbers between 'tens of thousands' and 'one million' [ 37 , 38 ]. This is also listed as a weapon and a casualty. In 2021, an unidentified group attacked a water tanker and killed four people delivering water to pastoralists affected by drought near Buulo Xaaji village, Lower Juba, Somalia [ 39 ]. In this instance, the drought was a trigger contributing to a heightened levels of conflict over water, and the water system and four people killed were casualties in the conflict.

While most entries in the WCC include violence—the death or injuries of parties involved and/or destruction of infrastructure—a few instances of threats of violence are also included where there were plans of violence that were thwarted by law enforcement or where the threat was sufficiently serious to merit a reaction by authorities, including cyberattacks of computerized operating systems for dams, drinking water systems, or wastewater treatment plants. For example, in 1985, law enforcement authorities disrupted the plan of a religious cult to poison the water supplies of New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C [ 40 ]. In the early 2000s, a series of threats to poison water supplies were broadcast by Islamic fundamentalists [ 41 ]. In 2020, Israeli authorities thwarted an attempted cyberattack aimed at disrupting water supplies in at least two locations in Israel, linking those attacks to Iranian hackers [ 42 ].

2.3.1. Location and timing of events

To map the entries, Google Earth Pro is used to identify event locations by their latitude and longitude. Where a specific location is identified, such as a dam or building, the precise coordinates are used. When information on only the general area or a city or a nation was available, the mapping system's pre-set place location is recorded, typically in the centroid of that location. Many locally used place names are not captured by geographic information systems such as Google Earth Pro, and/or by the western, English-speaking community in which this chronology was created, likely reducing the accuracy of some assigned locations.

Sometimes events occur over multiple days or longer or extend over a wide area, complicating both dating and locating an event. For these events, a generalized location representing a single location may be used. Earlier historical incidents that persisted over time are more difficult to place compared to more current events. For example, the 'Fence Wars' in the United States represent more than a decade of violence over water and land in the 1870s–1890s, but we have only one well-documented entry for the conflict. In this instance, there is a single point placed in the general region where the wars were known to have occurred. Conversely, the availability of more detailed information and reporting in recent years produces many entries for a single, multiday conflict like the war in Yemen, where individual attacks on urban water systems can be fairly precisely located.

Events were 'lumped' into a single entry if the timing, event description, parties involved, and geographic location were sufficiently close in time to suggest that they were the same event or sufficiently connected to be part of a related action. This kind of lumping and splitting is also subject to the challenges of identifying older entries. For example, the earliest major water conflict—the water war between Umma and Lagash in ancient Mesopotamia—certainly involved multiple events spread out over almost a century and many generations, but only one entry is included in the Chronology. Comparable violence today over such an extended period would result in numerous separate entries.

Each entry in the Chronology has a field listing the country or countries where the event occurred, with multiple countries listed when the event includes a transboundary action or more than one national party. The location where the event occurred is used to assign the event to a region based on the UN Statistics Division M49 regional classifications (shown in table 3 ). Each event was assigned to a Level II region.

Table 3.  UN regional classifications 1

1 https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/#geo-regions (site visited 1/20/2022).

2.4. Sources of uncertainty

There are several kinds of uncertainty associated with conflict databases and the WCC and researchers should be aware of them and use caution in using the data. Here we briefly discuss the diverse sources of uncertainty.

2.4.1. Reporting biases

The most important reporting bias is the dramatic increase in the ability to collect information on water-related violence in the past several decades associated with access to real-time reporting, remote sensing, social media accounts, and access to digital resources. Older entries typically depended on historical accounts in books, news reports, and written records. Almost certainly, earlier instances of smaller-scale water-related violence were not recorded, or earlier entries are not easily accessible from stored archives. An example may be the relative paucity of entries from the First World War and World War II, when there were certainly many more attacks on water infrastructure, intentional or not, compared to the larger number of entries from the recent war in Yemen and the conflict with the Islamic State.

While we search for and include entries from as many sources as possible, collection methods may undercount or underreport events that are reported in non-English speaking sources. Recent online translation services have reduced the likelihood of missing, or misinterpreting these events, but we note a language bias to the entries. Interpretation of events, especially attacks on water systems, is also vulnerable to the biases of those reporting such events. For example, attacks on civilian water systems during conflicts may be intentional or accidental but determining intentionality can be subjective. Improving the ability to determine intentionality is important from a policy perspective, since intentional attacks on civilian water infrastructure are explicitly prohibited by international laws of war, including the 1977 Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Convention [ 43 ].

Another important bias in the data is the lack of documentation of violence against women and girls while collecting water. Globally, women and girls bear the disproportionate burden of collecting, distributing, and using water at the household level, which has been linked to experiences of physical and sexual violence [ 44 ]. Traditional sources of media used for conflict research, such as terrorism datasets, fail to capture this type of household-level violence. The UNDP has also found that survey instruments tracking corruption and related impacts fail to track gender-related factors and that much of the violence against women in low socio-economic classes responsible for water access at the household scale goes unreported [ 45 ]. This bias is also likely linked to under-reporting by the victims themselves who may lack the rights of protection against violence, depending on their country, or fear more the outcome from reporting than the incident itself [ 46 ]. As improvements in the area of gender-based water violence are made, the WCC will be updated.

2.4.2. Number of events/entries

The number of events included in the Chronology, or any conflict database, depends on two key factors: (a) the quality and accuracy of reports; and (b) the definitions used to determine if an event should be included. Methods of reporting water-related violence have changed over centuries, and especially dramatically in recent decades. The well-documented multi-generation water conflict in ancient Mesopotamia between the city-states of Lagash and Umma was described in several engraved stele that survived for 4500 years and were uncovered in archeological digs. While these historical records offer some insights into early examples of water-related violence, the paucity of these records and the almost certain loss of records over thousands of years make it highly likely that other violence over water occurred but that records of those events have not survived to present day.

Over the past century, reporting strategies and technologies have permitted more global assessments, analysis, and preservation of news and events in the form of newspaper, radio, and television, though even today, what events are reported remains subjective and inconsistent. For example, while several examples of military attacks on water systems during World War II and other conflicts have been reported and are included in the Chronology, underreporting of such events seems certain. Most recently, new tools of social media, global news coverage, and the ability of individuals with cell phone cameras, video capability, and real-time streaming means that even events that may have previously been considered 'not newsworthy' can be reported, studied, and included. These differences over time should be factored into any attempt to quantitatively assess the significance of the recent dramatic trend of increasing water-related violence (see figure 1 ). As a result, we report here only trends from the most recent periods when reporting has been more consistent.

Figure 1.  The number of events annually categorized as trigger, weapon, and casualty, from 2000 to 2021. Note the total number of events graphed is slightly larger than the actual number of events during this period because some events fall into two or more categories.

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3. Results: data analysis and trends

The entries in the WCC can be analyzed for a range of trends, and future research will expand on this area. Below we provide an initial synthesis of the data as of October 2022, assessing some trends over time and looking at the types and regional distribution of the entries. We limit this analysis to the period from 2000 to 2021 because of concern that data availability and reporting methods prior to this period were less comprehensive and consistent, as noted earlier.

Figure 1 shows the trends in both the total number of water-related conflicts from 2000 through 2021 as well as trends in the categories of events. For events that fall in two or more categories, they are included in all applicable categories, so the total number of events in the figure is larger than the actual number of events during this period. These data suggest a large increase in the number of events over the past decade, due to the extensive violence in the Middle East in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, but also with a growing number of events associated with drought and water scarcity in places like Iran, India, and sub-Saharan Africa. Over the second half of the past 22 years, the number of reported events is approximately four times larger than during the 2000–2011 period.

Figure 1 also shows a bifurcation in growth rates of event categories, with the number of events where water was a trigger or casualty generally growing beginning in 2012, while the number of events where water was used as a weapon has essentially remained flat or even decreased in this same timeframe. The largest number of entries in the complete database are those where water or water systems are casualties or targets of conflicts; the second largest number involves violence triggered by water scarcity or disputes over access to or control of water. Events where water is used as a weapon were the least common. Despite reporting biases that may favor more recent events, the fact that water-related conflict where water was a trigger and water or water systems were casualties have greatly increased in number while the instances where water has been used as a weapon has stayed constant or even decreased suggests that this observed trend is real. Table 4 summarizes the number in each category for the full database.

Table 4.  Water conflicts by form of conflict (full database as of 2022).

Note: Events categorized under two or more are counted in each relevant category such that the total number of events in the WCC is smaller than the sum of the rows above.

For the period 2000–2021, water-related violence has appeared to shift to an increasingly large proportion of conflicts when water was a trigger. From the early 2000s through the mid-2010s water-related violence was proportionally focused on events where water or water systems were a casualty of conflict with nearly all years from 2006 to 2018 having more than 50% of the events in this category. Starting in 2019, more than 60% of the water-related conflict events involved water as a trigger. Since 2011, during all but 2014, water as a weapon remained under 10% of the total number of water-related conflicts. Additional work is needed to understand the drivers of these shifts, such as increasing pressures on water resources due to population growth and climate change, economics and equity, or other factors.

For the full database, figure 2 shows the breakdown of the location of all events through early 2022. By far the largest number of events are recorded in Western Asia, including the countries of the Middle East, Gulf States, and in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly the Sahel Region. A note of caution: the spatial areas and the populations of the UN regions are vastly different: the Australia and New Zealand region encompasses just those two countries. 'Sub-Saharan Africa' includes 53 different countries.

Figure 2.  Number of water conflicts by region, as of April 2022. The regions are those defined by the UN Statistical Division. 2019. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/methodology/m49/#geo-regions .

Western Asia, where the WCC has tracked 380 total events, also has the highest number of events where water is a casualty of conflict. Figure 3 shows water conflicts as a function of type of conflict and key regions. In the four other regions with the highest number of water-related conflict events, water as a trigger is the most common category. This outcome is largely the result of the large number of events from the wars in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq over the past decade (see, for example, the comprehensive reporting from the Yemen Data Project).

Figure 3.  The top five regions based on total number of water-related conflict events for the full database, with the total number of identified events broken out by category: weapon, casualty, and trigger. Note: events in two or more categories are counted in each relevant category such that the total number of events in the WCC is smaller than the total of the rows above.

4. Discussion and future work

The WCC database is designed to serve as the basis for ongoing research on the risks of water-related violence, and improvements and extensions will continue. Some efforts have already been made to use WCC data to help evaluate these risks and to identify strategies for reducing those risks, but as noted, the complexity of definitions and limitations in conflict data reporting demand caution in assessing trends. Key gaps and uncertainties include reporting biases by region and language, lack of documentation around gender-related water violence, and better reporting of newer events.

As noted in the section 2 , efforts are underway to collect additional data, including older historical data, from a range of records, peer-reviewed research, other conflict databases, and media reports. The database will be updated on a regular basis as new information is processed. Additional analysis is also underway, including comparing trends in water-related violence with overall trends in conflict to identify if water resource conflicts are disproportionately represented, assessing detailed causal information to help in further identifying possible trends, and evaluating the nature of water problems that lead to conflict rather than cooperation.

Recent work by the Water Peace and Security Partnership (an international collaboration founded in 2018 among researchers in several countries, including the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, IHE Delft, the World Resources Institute, Deltares, the Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, the Pacific Institute, and others) included an assessment of four categories of strategies to reduce water conflict risks: natural resources, science and engineering approaches, political and legal tools, and financial and economic strategies. The report also included six in-depth case studies from the African Sahel, Yemen, Iraq, India, Iran, and Central America with recommendations for audiences from the global-development, diplomatic, disaster-response and water-management communities [ 32 ]. The WCC, including future analysis that it enables, will be used to advance solutions to help prevent and mitigate water-related conflict.

5. Conclusions

Social, economic, and political challenges associated with freshwater resources pose a variety of severe risks to communities around the world, from water-related diseases, to crop failures, to ecological destruction, to actual violence. The risks and incidences of water-related conflicts in recent years, when data are more available and consistent, as tracked by the WCC—an open-source database on water violence—are on the rise, and the factors driving such violence appear to be worsening. Additional research is needed to assess the role of key drivers of water-related violence, such as growing populations and economies putting more pressure on fixed water resources; accelerating climate changes that are worsening extreme hydrologic events such as droughts and floods; poor, weak, or corrupt water management and institutions; and increasing targeting of civilian water infrastructure in conflicts that start for other, non-resource-related reasons.

Data from the Chronology indicates that the frequency of water-related conflicts has grown in the past two decades, especially as a result of violence in the Middle East, growing disputes during severe droughts over access to water in regions like India and Iran, and worsening confrontations between nomadic pastoralists and farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. The database entries are classified in three categories: water as a trigger of conflict; water or water systems used as weapons of conflicts; and water or water systems that are casualties or targets of conflicts. The bulk of the entries are in the first and third of these groups. Additional work is underway to improve the historical coverage of the data, to identify additional forms of water-related violent conflict, to analyze the trends identified relative to conflict more generally, and to evaluate the drivers for each event. By understanding the root causes of water conflicts, more effective strategies for reducing their probability and consequences can be developed and implemented.

Data availability statement

The data used for this analysis come from the Water Conflict Chronology, created and maintained by the Pacific Institute at www.worldwater.org/water-conflict/ . The specific data used in the current analysis can be found at: Gleick, Peter; Shimabuku, Morgan (2022), 'Water Conflict Chronology Data', Mendeley Data, V1, doi: 10.17632/wjhw4xxgbr.1.

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available at the following URL/DOI: 10.17632/wjhw4xxgbr.1 .

Author's contributions

Both authors designed the research, performed the research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.

Justification statement

Water-related conflicts are growing in extent and severity. This paper presents a summary of a key database—the Water Conflict Chronology—that tracks these conflicts, analyzes the current trends, reviews and assesses uncertainties in the data, and discusses the value of such data in understanding and limiting the risks of future water-related conflicts.

Partial funding for this work was provided by the Wallace Genetic Foundation and general support from the Pacific Institute, Oakland, California.

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Home » climate and security » Why Water Conflict is Rising, Especially on the Local Level

Why Water Conflict is Rising, Especially on the Local Level

By Peter Schwartzstein

That future wars will be fought over water, rather than oil, has become something of a truism, particularly with regard to the Middle East. It’s also one that most water experts have refuted time and time and time again. But while this preference for cooperation over conflict may (and emphasis on may ) remain true of interstate disputes, this blanket aversion to the ‘water wars’ narrative fails to account for the rash of other water-related hostilities that are erupting across many of the world’s drylands. As neither full-on warfare nor issues that necessarily resonate beyond specific, sometimes isolated areas, these ‘grey zone’ clashes don’t seem to be fully registering in the broader discussion of water conflicts. In failing to adequately account for the volume of localized violence, the world is probably chronically underestimating the extent to which water insecurity is already contributing to conflict.

Since the late 1990s, both intrastate and interstate clashes in which water has featured as a victim, weapon, or cause of conflict have soared, according to the World Water Conflict Chronology . But the number of intrastate ‘events’ has generally been about four or five times greater than the number of country-to-country ones, with an average of 30 to 40 intrastate incidents a year over the past decade. In 2018, for example, one man was killed and many more injured when Iranian police cracked down on illicit water pumps.

None of this necessarily undermines the logic of water practitioners downplaying the risk of ‘water wars’– even if some of them have been overly dismissive of water’s destabilizing potential. It’s just that most sub-national clashes sway to a slightly different beat than their transboundary counterparts. With higher stakes among agriculture-dependent districts, for example, there can be more incentive to violence among individual communities than there is for nation states, few of whom could hope to pilfer more water from their neighbors, no matter how desperate they might be. Their options for winning over more water are severely limited. That’s not so at a more local level, where resources can be more easily secured and where the balance of power can be much more fluid than it is among nation states.

Since many of these localized clashes are likely to arise in rural or marginalized areas, where the inequities that underlie water disputes can be extra pronounced, state governments and multilateral organizations may have fewer means – or less of a desire – to rein them in. Who, after all, is going to devote the same attention to stifling a village dispute as you would a cross-border conflagration? Many of the states that are suffering through water woes are, not uncoincidentally, among the very same states that lack the capacity and often the wherewithal to address the root causes of much of this shortfall.

Given that citizens are generally much more exposed to the poor or heavy-handed governance of their own authorities – with all the unsatisfactory water outcomes often accompanying that – it’s only natural that domestic decision-making can provide particularly dry kindling for public fury against the state or against one another in ways that interstate disputes seldom do. All told, the rational inducements and emotional pull to violence over water can be greater at a local level, just as the barriers to remonstrating with accessible local targets can be much lower. Roll on turmoil.

Relatedly, people might have even more reason to chafe against domestic water management than they realize. With national honor seen to be on the line, the quality of transboundary water management personnel usually surpasses local administration, much of which is seemingly entrusted to underfunded, under scrutinized, insufficiently empowered, and perhaps less able officials. As one Bangladeshi think tanker put it to me: “When we deal with India and China, we are prepared. We put our best people on the job. But it’s not like that, of course, when you deal with squabbles between one village and another. You get whatever poor sod is closest to sort it out.”

One of the most notable things about localized water violence is where much of it is occuring. While interstate water-related violence has yet to materialize, it’s no coincidence that many of these smaller-scale clashes are playing out in precisely the places where observers have warned of future large-scale trouble. The dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has not yet spilled over into state on state violence, but that hasn’t stopped the Nile basin from turning into a hotbed of sometimes fatal water-related intrastate clashes covering at least 17 incidents and within no fewer than six riparian states since 2018 by my analysis. After torching a police car during a demonstration in 2015, a villager who’d been displaced by the construction of Sudan’s Merowe dam told me why his people’s protests had turned violent. “We tried to use every peaceful channel possible to get the government to act, to follow through on their promises of new villages. But they didn’t,” he said. “And sometimes there’s violence when all peaceful options seem exhausted.”

A similar dynamic is at play in Iraq. Policymakers in Baghdad appear unlikely to express their fury with dam construction by Ankara or Tehran through anything other than strongly worded communiques. Yet at the local level within Iraq and, to a certain but lesser extent, Iran and Turkey, water-related disputes among tribes and provinces are cropping up throughout the Euphrates and Tigris basins. The reality is that the forces that anger national governments along these rivers and others, such as the Indus, Ganges, and Mekong, are also contributing to lower-level disputes. It’s just that in many of those instances there’s been no ability, no desire, and/or no understanding by national governments or NGOs as to how to stop them.

So what’s next? As the international focus on transboundary water disputes intensifies, one might hope for a similar determination to address their regional, district, and communal equivalents. This appears challenging, however, given the dual pressures posed by increased dam construction and climate change. Dams, so often a public grievance because many are erected with insufficient regard for or consultation with the marginalized communities who tend to be the most affected, are having another moment in the sun. Ironically, much of this new wave is seemingly fueled by a push for cheap, clean, reliable electricity as fossil fuel attractiveness wavers. In 2018, there were 3,500 new dams under construction or under consideration, while East Asia added 10,000 MW of hydropower in 2017 alone.

Climate-induced variations in rainfall also bode ill for inter-communal relations – though not necessarily for the reasons one might expect. Water disputes are rarely wholly or even mostly grounded in scarcity, but erratic access can become an additional source of tension among communities with histories of conflict or mutual distrust, as has happened in parts of the Sahel and Central Asia .

Most importantly, because most of these water-related clashes are intimately wrapped up with poor governance, and because climate change stresses and population pressures only compound governance failures, even greater patches of the planet will become vulnerable to shortfalls in water quality and access. As water insecurity increases, it will be state and local governments and their neighbors to whom people will direct their fury. It can be hard to avoid the conclusion that water conflict is upon us. So far, at least, it just looks a bit less dramatic, a bit more local, and perhaps a lot more prolific than we might have imagined.

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Interstate water wars are heating up along with the climate

Regents Professor and Morris K. Udall Professor of Law & Public Policy, University of Arizona

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Robert Glennon received funding from the National Science Foundation in the 1990s and 2000s.

University of Arizona provides funding as a member of The Conversation US.

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Interstate water disputes are as American as apple pie. States often think a neighboring state is using more than its fair share from a river, lake or aquifer that crosses borders.

Currently the U.S. Supreme Court has on its docket a case between Texas, New Mexico and Colorado and another one between Mississippi and Tennessee . The court has already ruled this term on cases pitting Texas against New Mexico and Florida against Georgia .

Climate stresses are raising the stakes. Rising temperatures require farmers to use more water to grow the same amount of crops. Prolonged and severe droughts decrease available supplies. Wildfires are burning hotter and lasting longer . Fires bake the soil, reducing forests’ ability to hold water, increasing evaporation from barren land and compromising water supplies.

As a longtime observer of interstate water negotiations , I see a basic problem: In some cases, more water rights exist on paper than as wet water – even before factoring in shortages caused by climate change and other stresses. In my view, states should put at least as much effort into reducing water use as they do into litigation, because there are no guaranteed winners in water lawsuits.

Dry times in the West

The situation is most urgent in California and the Southwest, which currently face “ extreme or exceptional” drought conditions . California’s reservoirs are half-empty at the end of the rainy season. The Sierra snowpack sits at 60% of normal . In March 2021, federal and state agencies that oversee California’s Central Valley Project and State Water Project – regional water systems that each cover hundreds of miles – issued “ remarkably bleak warnings ” about cutbacks to farmers’ water allocations.

The Colorado River Basin is mired in a drought that began in 2000 . Experts disagree as to how long it could last . What’s certain is that the “ Law of the River ” – the body of rules, regulations and laws governing the Colorado River – has allocated more water to the states than the river reliably provides .

The 1922 Colorado River Compact allocated 7.5 million acre-feet (one acre-foot is roughly 325,000 gallons) to California, Nevada and Arizona, and another 7.5 million acre-feet to Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. A treaty with Mexico secured that country 1.5 million acre-feet, for a total of 16.5 million acre-feet. However, estimates based on tree ring analysis have determined that the actual yearly flow of the river over the last 1,200 years is roughly 14.6 million acre-feet .

The inevitable train wreck has not yet happened, for two reasons. First, Lakes Mead and Powell – the two largest reservoirs on the Colorado – can hold a combined 56 million acre-feet, roughly four times the river’s annual flow.

But diversions and increased evaporation due to drought are reducing water levels in the reservoirs . As of Dec. 16, 2020, both lakes were less than half full.

Second, the Upper Basin states – Utah, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico – have never used their full allotment. Now, however, they want to use more water. Wyoming has several new dams on the drawing board. So does Colorado, which is also planning a new diversion from the headwaters of the Colorado River to Denver and other cities on the Rocky Mountains’ east slope.

Utah stakes a claim

The most controversial proposal comes from one of the nation’s fastest-growing areas: St. George, Utah, home to approximately 90,000 residents and lots of golf courses. St. George has very high water consumption rates and very low water prices . The city is proposing to augment its water supply with a 140-mile pipeline from Lake Powell , which would carry 86,000 acre-feet per year.

Truth be told, that’s not a lot of water, and it would not exceed Utah’s unused allocation from the Colorado River. But the six other Colorado River Basin states have protested as though St. George were asking for their firstborn child.

In a joint letter dated Sept. 8, 2020, the other states implored the Interior Department to refrain from issuing a final environmental review of the pipeline until all seven states could “ reach consensus regarding legal and operational concerns .” The letter explicitly threatened a high “probability of multi-year litigation .”

Utah blinked. Having earlier insisted on an expedited pipeline review, the state asked federal officials on Sept. 24, 2020 to delay a decision . But Utah has not given up: In March 2021, Gov. Spencer Cox signed a bill creating a Colorado River Authority of Utah , armed with a US$9 million legal defense fund, to protect Utah’s share of Colorado River water. One observer predicted “ huge, huge litigation .”

How huge could it be? In 1930, Arizona sued California in an epic battle that did not end until 2006. Arizona prevailed by finally securing a fixed allocation from the water apportioned to California, Nevada and Arizona .

Litigation or conservation

Before Utah takes the precipitous step of appealing to the Supreme Court under the court’s original jurisdiction over disputes between states, it might explore other solutions. Water conservation and reuse make obvious sense in St. George, where per-person water consumption is among the nation’s highest .

St. George could emulate its neighbor, Las Vegas, which has paid residents up to $3 per square foot to rip out lawns and replace them with native desert landscaping. In April 2021 Las Vegas went further, asking the Nevada Legislature to outlaw ornamental grass .

The Southern Nevada Water Authority estimates that the Las Vegas metropolitan area has eight square miles of “nonfunctional turf” – grass that no one ever walks on except the person who cuts it. Removing it would reduce the region’s water consumption by 15% .

Water rights litigation is fraught with uncertainty. Just ask Florida, which thought it had a strong case that Georgia’s water diversions from the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin were harming its oyster fishery downstream.

That case extended over 20 years before the U.S. Supreme Court ended the final chapter in April 2021. The court used a procedural rule that places the burden on plaintiffs to provide “clear and convincing evidence.” Florida failed to convince the court , and walked away with nothing.

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Water Conflict Between Egypt and Ethiopia: A Defining Moment for Both Countries

On June 9, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan resumed talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which have been stalled since February. The new round of talks, held virtually due to COVID-19, among the three countries’ ministers of water and irrigation saw agreement on guidelines for the first stage of filling and operating the GERD and on safety rules. However, the dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia over the controversial dam is far from resolution. Had the recent round led to better outcomes, the impact of GERD on the bilateral relationship between Cairo and Addis Ababa would still be significant for the foreseeable future.

Genesis of the Dispute

Tensions and disputes over the Nile River’s water have been ongoing for decades. The relationships among the Nile Basin’s ten countries are governed by a set of treaties and agreements signed during the 20 th century (in 1902, 1929, and 1959) and are commonly known as the Nile River Agreements . They stipulate that the upstream riparian states (mainly Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ethiopia) have to respect the rights of the downstream countries (mainly Egypt and Sudan) regarding the Nile’s water. In addition, they are prohibited from building dams or launching construction projects on the river without the approval of the downstream countries, particularly Egypt. Not only have these treaties guaranteed Egypt’s share of the Nile water over the past century and enabled it to achieve its developmental and agricultural plans––particularly after building the Aswan High Dam in the early 1960s––but they also gave Cairo and Khartoum veto power over any construction plans or projects that might affect their share of the water.

These agreements were always contested and challenged by the upstream riparian states. While Egypt and Sudan insist that their share of water should be respected and honored, the upstream riparian states believe that these agreements are unfair and impede their agriculture and development plans. They reason that they are not bound by these agreements as they were signed by colonial powers and their governments were not part of such accords. As the populations of the Nile River Basin countries have been growing rapidly during the past decades, their developmental needs have increased, adding tensions and disagreements among them. Attempts at negotiations for governing and sharing the Nile River water did not stop during the past three decades. In 1999, the Nile River Basin countries reached an agreement–– Nile Basin Initiative (NBI)––that aimed to enhance their cooperation. It brought together all countries that have access to the Nile River to establish trust among them and make effective and beneficial use of the river for all parties.

As the populations of the Nile River Basin countries have been growing rapidly during the past decades, their developmental needs have increased, adding tensions and disagreements among them.

The NBI was a hallmark accord for the basin states as it aimed to create an inclusive framework for governing the river’s water. It also outlined the establishment of a “cooperative framework agreement” (CFA) to replace earlier bilateral treaties and to “formalize the transformation of the Nile Basin Initiative into a permanent Nile River Basin Commission.” Negotiations to reach such an inclusive framework took almost a decade. In 2010, the CFA was established and it introduced, for the first time, the principle of “ equitable and reasonable utilization ” of the Nile River water. But it was signed by only six countries (Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, and Burundi) and was vehemently rejected by Egypt and Sudan because, they maintained, it does not respect their historical and acquired rights to the Nile River water. For its part, Ethiopia interprets the CFA treaty as replacing the earlier Nile River Agreements and creating new realities that should be accepted by Egypt and Sudan. Since then, the relationship between these parties—particularly Cairo and Addis Ababa—has become strained and tense.

Ethiopia’s GERD Stakes

Ethiopia’s plans to build the GERD date back to the 1960s, but they were postponed for political and economic reasons. The country suffers from lack of electricity and underdevelopment despite its massive water resources. With its 112 million population, Ethiopia relies heavily on the GERD to enhance its economy and improve its people’s lives. Ethiopia has an acute shortage of electricity ; in fact, 65 percent of its population is not connected to the grid. The controversial dam is a $4.8 billion project and is built on the Blue Nile, near the border between Ethiopia and Sudan. It should provide electricity to millions of homes in Ethiopia as well as offer the chance of selling electricity to neighboring African countries. GERD is the centerpiece of Ethiopia’s bid to become Africa’s largest power exporter, with a projected capacity to generate more than 6,000 megawatts.

According to The New York Times , the completion and filling of this dam will make Ethiopia “ Africa’s biggest power exporter .” It will double Ethiopia’s electricity generation capacity, allowing it to earn as much as one billion dollars annually in energy exports to Sudan, South Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya and, potentially, Egypt. The dam would secure electricity for the power-starved nation and could both fuel economic development and bring in cash through international electricity sales. Furthermore, Addis Ababa considers GERD a national and sovereign project that should be respected by other countries. It is a national dream that came true. Believing that GERD will protect its natural rights of water and maximize its utilization, Ethiopia adopted a long-term strategy that could achieve a twofold objective: 1) to create a new legal framework that would supersede the Nile River Agreements and generate new favorable realities, and 2) to isolate Egypt and Sudan by neutralizing the rest of the Nile Basin countries through the CFA. To be sure, building and operating the GERD is the culmination of this strategy, and it seems that Ethiopia has achieved both goals. The GERD could be a watershed event in Ethiopia’s modern history, signaling its rebirth as a regional and important power.

The dam would secure electricity for the power-starved nation and could both fuel economic development and bring in cash through international electricity sales.

Egypt’s Water Security

According to the 1959 agreement over the Nile River water, Egypt’s share is 55.5 billion cubic meters (bcm). Around 85 percent of the water that flows into the Nile River comes from the Ethiopian highlands through the Blue Nile. Approximately 90 percent of Egypt’s fresh water comes from the Nile River, with about 57 percent of that water from the Blue Nile, on which Ethiopia is building its dam. Therefore, Egypt views the GERD as an existential threat. The reservoir behind the GERD, once filled, will hold about 74 bcm of water, almost equivalent to the entire annual volume of the Nile that flows into Egypt’s Aswan High Dam.

Currently, water insecurity is perhaps the most serious threat to Egypt. It is noteworthy that Egypt suffers from a shortage of water even without taking the GERD into account: its water resources are around 60 bcm and its consumption is 80 bcm. Egypt imports about half its food products and recycles about 25 bcm of water annually. Should the GERD be filled without an agreement, Egypt would face a risk of drought conditions and of losing more than one million jobs and about $1.8 billion in economic production each year. Filling the GERD would thus significantly affect Egypt’s share of water—it would decrease it by about 10 to 15 billion cubic meters.

Ethiopia plans on filling the dam in six years, starting in July. The longer it takes to fill the dam, the less this will impact the already struggling supply of the Nile’s water in Egypt. However, Egypt would like Ethiopia to extend this time to 12-21 years so that, especially in the beginning, the level of the river does not drop rapidly. In essence, a decision by Ethiopia to unilaterally fill the reservoir as quickly as possible would be disastrous for Sudan and Egypt, as this would consume the entire flow of the Blue Nile, or around 54 bcm, for more than a year. To fill the dam over a six-year period would mean 14 to 18 percent less Nile water flowing to Egypt during each of those years, if rainfall is average and the dam is filled evenly. Moreover, whereas Addis Ababa wants to flood GERD at the onset of July’s rainy season to boost accumulation, Cairo demands to be involved in such a decision because the pace of the water flow into the dam will affect the downstream movement of the river in Egypt.

The crisis over GERD is a defining moment not only for Egypt’s current regime but also for the Egyptian state and society.

In fact, the crisis over GERD is a defining moment not only for Egypt’s current regime but also for the Egyptian state and society. It is the first time in history that Egyptians feel threatened regarding their very source of life, the Nile River. Therefore, it is imperative to find a solution that can secure the future of millions of Egyptians and soothe their fears.

Deep Misgivings

In early 2011, Ethiopia unilaterally began the construction of GERD without notifying Egypt or Sudan. It took advantage of Egypt’s distraction with the political upheaval that toppled the former president, Hosni Mubarak, in 2011 and launched its long-planned project. In June 2013, Ethiopia’s parliament ratified the CFA; this dismayed Egypt to the extent that former President Mohamed Morsi warned Addis Ababa that “all options are open” if it continued building the dam without reaching a deal with Egypt.

In March 2015, Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia signed a new agreement called the “ Declaration of Principles ,” which gave priority to downstream countries for electricity generated by the dam, created a mechanism for resolving conflicts, and provided compensation for damages. However, the agreement—for the first time—did not mention Egypt’s acquired rights to Nile water and is interpreted by Ethiopia as an approval of its controversial dam. The agreement aimed to resolve the dispute among the three countries, though the opposite has occurred: the gulf of mistrust has deepened and negotiations stalled several times. Whereas Ethiopia accuses Egypt of trying to hold the GERD hostage by imposing rules over the filling and operation of the dam, Cairo accuses Ethiopia of not considering the massive impact of filling the GERD on Egypt’s water interests and economy.

According to experts , Egypt worries that an upstream dam on the Blue Nile will reduce water supply and power generation at the Aswan High Dam. Additionally, once the reservoir is filled, the GERD will not directly consume water but may result in a significant increase of irrigation in Sudan which will diminish the amount of water Egypt receives—adding to the latter’s worries.

The mistrust [between Egypt and Ethiopia] runs deep and creates many obstacles in reaching an accord.

While Egypt seeks a binding agreement that would require Ethiopia to release a fixed amount of the Nile River’s flow as well as mechanisms to monitor Ethiopia’s compliance, for its part, Ethiopia attempts to avoid any permanent commitment for a water quota that might extend beyond the GERD’s filling period. It seeks a flexible agreement with a provision for periodic reviews. Therefore, the mistrust runs deep and creates many obstacles in reaching an accord. Before the recent round of talks, Egypt and Ethiopia were engaged in heated rhetoric and both countries threatened each other politically and militarily . Sudan attempted to mediate and bring them back to the negotiating table.

The US Role

The United States, alongside the World Bank, has made efforts to mediate between Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in order to resolve the dispute over the GERD. High-ranking officials from the three countries held several meetings in Washington between November 2019 and February 2020. They also met with President Donald Trump in the White house last November. US involvement in the GERD talks came after a long deadlock. Washington attempted to use its economic and financial pressure to push them to resolve their dispute—the hope was to reach an agreement by the end of February; but hope dissipated after Ethiopia’s sudden withdrawal from the talks.

Ethiopian analysts believe that Washington always sides with Egypt and any agreement on the GERD would tie Ethiopia’s hands. 

The US Department of the Treasury, which coordinated the negotiations between the three parties, issued a statement on February 28, 2020, noting that “The United States believes that the work completed over the last four months has resulted in an agreement that addresses all issues in a balanced and equitable manner, taking into account the interests of the three countries.” However, that statement was criticized by Ethiopia’s foreign minister, Gedu Andargachew, who described it as “highly partisan.” Ethiopian analysts believe that Washington always sides with Egypt and any agreement on the GERD would tie Ethiopia’s hands. Clearly, then, Washington is seen at least by one party as the least suitable and effective mediator to resolve the GERD dispute.

The Need for Compromise

Egypt and Ethiopia are arguably East Africa’s most consequential countries and their amity and cooperation are essential for the region’s peace and stability. Their need for the Nile water is both mutual and urgent. But satisfying each party’s maximalist position is practically impossible considering the circumstances of the region and their inability to sustain a prolonged and unneeded conflict. It is in their mutual interest, and that of their friends and allies, especially the United States, that they find a compromise that avoids the dreaded maximalism that doubtlessly will lead to unwarranted outcomes.

Khalil Al-Anani

Fmr. Senior Fellow

@Khalilalanani

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Water conflicts: essay on world-wide water conflicts | water management.

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Water Conflicts: Essay on World-Wide Water Conflicts!

The world does not consider water the scarce resource that it is. Unless this changes, the world may be faced with another polarizing force to replace the Cold war. Water plays a central role in assuring an adequate food supply.

Agriculture is the largest consumer of water, using an average of 80 percent of total water consumption in developing countries. As population swells and incomes grow, demand for water for residential and industrial purposes increases rapidly.

With water becoming increasingly scarce and development of new sources of water becoming very costly for many already capital-short countries, more national conflicts are expected to arise, pitting industry, urban centres, and agriculture against each other.

To solve these national water tensions, countries tend to look beyond their borders for wider reign over water basins they share with other countries. Hence, national water scarcity could escalate existing tensions between nations and lead to flare-ups of long-standing international water con­flict.

Conflicts may stem from the drive to possess or control another nation’s water resources, thus making water systems and resources a political or military goal.

Inequitable distribution and use of water resources, sometimes arising from a water development, may lead to development disputes, heighten the importance of water as a strategic goal or may lead to a degradation of another’s source of water. Conflicts may also arise when water systems are used as instruments of war, either as targets or tools.

Conflicts are brewing now over rivers and river basins shared by many coun­tries around the world. This is not unexpected given the fact that more than 200 bodies are shared by two or more countries. Strife over water is erupting throughout the Middle East, from the watersheds of the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Likewise, a tussle is simmering in South Asia’s Ganges-Brahmaputra Basin, where Bangladesh, India, and Nepal dispute the best uses of water. India and Nepal want to exploit the basin’s huge hydroelectric power-generating potential, whereas Bangladesh wants the wa­ter managed in such a way as to minimize flooding during monsoon months and water shortages during dry months.

Of equal concern are the water conflicts between states in India that share river basins, such as Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which border the Cauvery River and between Haryana and Punjab over construction of Sutlej Yamuna Canal(SYL).

Violence, riots, property destruc­tion, arrests have taken place many a times over these disputes. In the year 2000 water riots were reported in some areas of Gujarat to protest against au­thority’s failure to arrange adequate supply of tanker water.

Police were re­ported to have shot into a crowd at Falla village near Jamnagar, resulting in the death of three and injuries to 20 following protests against the diversion of water from the Kankavati dam to Jamnagar town.

There are water shortages during the dry season in every major city in South Asia. During the dry season, city pipes are often empty, creating situations where water must be delivered by truck to mobs of desperate people.

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Water Related Conflicts in Africa Essay

How does water differ from other resources, reasons why water conflicts have received attention across africa, how can water privatization lead to conflict, works cited.

The population of Africa is in bad conditions due to water scarcity, and as it is noted in the articles I have read, African women and children are affected by this problem badly. In poor African villages, it is women’s job to manage the water supply of the family. All water the family needs for washing, bathing, livestock, and gardening is being carried by women on top of their heads through very long distances (Bouwer 394). Pollution of rivers and dams causes multiple diseases; population growth causes increasing scarcity of water. The prices for water in Africa are extremely high, much higher than the prices in the US, and privatization is going to make them even higher as water has become a profitable business for the elite (Archer 398).

Conflicts over natural resources are not new to mankind. Natural resources have caused many wars throughout the centuries. Water has become a weapon or a tool to achieve political and economic influence (Otieno par. 1). The water scarcity on the territory of the African continent is a well-known problem. We have all seen scary pictures of devastated African people, dystrophic children, and poor conditions they have to live in. The articles by Archer, Bouwer, and Alao presented a closer and deeper look at the problem; they have shown the issue from many different aspects.

I have found them very useful and informative, as many people know that the African population is devastated by thirst, but few realize what kind of consequences may follow. The articles have made a striking impression on me, the styles of writing, the descriptions of horrifying conditions of life in poor districts of African counties made me think how much water I have consumed today and how much of it I have wasted with no appreciation. The strategy of emphasizing the inequality between the countries of the world is great to show people from rich counties what we take for granted every day. The strategy of comparison of prices and amounts of water consumed daily is going to make a definite impact, to my mind.

Rivers tend to be shared by many countries; this is why water is a resource that is especially hard to divide equally between all the territories the river runs through. Water is essential for our existence; it is more important than most of the other resources. Water in Africa provides food, hygiene; it is connected to religion, to regional identity, and also water brings diseases. All of these aspects potentially can result in territorial conflicts.

In recent years the concern over possible water conflicts in Africa has grown. Water scarcity has increased in many countries. The most endangered ones are the counties with developing industries and the ones with the driest climate (Alao 410). Another reason for the possible conflict is the management of water that runs internationally, meaning rivers, and privatization of waterworks.

For a long time, water has been a resource that was owned by communities and governments; this was its difference from other resources. When the elite starts to make water their privacy and receive a way to manipulate the prices for water, the conflict is going to emerge. The rates of poverty will grow, and logically, dissatisfaction level among the African population will increase and lead to a conflict outburst.

Alao, Abiodun. “Water and Conflict”. The Water and Culture Reader. Ed. University Of the Incarnate Word. Southlake, Texas: 2011. Print.

Archer, Emily. “The wells are drying up: water and women in Ghana”. The Water and Culture Reader. Ed. University of the Incarnate Word. Southlake, Texas: 2011. Print.

Bouwer, Karen. “Women and Water”. The Water and Culture Reader. Ed. University of the Incarnate Word. Southlake, Texas: 2011. Print.

Otieno, Janet. Understanding Africa’s Water Wars. 2013. Web.

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