• woodrow wilson center
  • ecsp

New Security Beat

Subscribe:
  • mail-to
  • Who We Are
  • Topics
    • Population
    • Environment
    • Security
    • Health
    • Development
  • Columns
    • China Environment Forum
    • Choke Point
    • Dot-Mom
    • Navigating the Poles
    • New Security Broadcast
    • Reading Radar
  • Multimedia
    • Water Stories (Podcast Series)
    • Backdraft (Podcast Series)
    • Tracking the Energy Titans (Interactive)
  • Films
    • Water, Conflict, and Peacebuilding (Animated Short)
    • Paving the Way (Ethiopia)
    • Broken Landscape (India)
    • Scaling the Mountain (Nepal)
    • Healthy People, Healthy Environment (Tanzania)
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Contact Us

NewSecurityBeat

The blog of the Wilson Center's Environmental Change and Security Program
  • Guest Contributor

    Water Wars? Think Again: Conflict Over Freshwater Structural Rather Than Strategic

    April 15, 2014 By Cameron Harrington
    Pakistan-flooding

    The global water wars are almost upon us!

    At least that’s how it seems to many. The signs are troubling: Egypt and Ethiopia have recently increased their aggressive posture and rhetoric over the construction of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in the headwaters of the Blue Nile, Egypt’s major artery since antiquity. India continues to build new dams that are seen by its rival Pakistan as a threat to its “water interests” and thus its national security. Turkey, from its dominant position upstream, has been diverting the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and increasing water stress in the already-volatile states of Iraq and Syria.

    States rarely, if ever, fight over water; in fact, the opposite is true.

    It has been claimed for decades that a confluence of factors, including water scarcity, societal unrest, and strategic maneuvering, will inevitably push states and other actors to act aggressively, perhaps even violently, to secure precious water resources. So are we finally witnessing the first flashes of the coming age of water wars?

    To put it simply: no.

    These visions of future water wars miss one very important point: States rarely, if ever, fight over water; in fact, the opposite is true. Cooperation over transboundary water resources is much more common, even in the most sensitive geopolitical hotspots. In other words, the way many understand water conflict is fundamentally misguided and risks being a largely diversionary exercise that obscures other, non-military types of water problems occurring every day around the world.

    Focusing on War a Distraction

    While traditional organized warfare over water is essentially non-existent in the historical record, water insecurity is pervasive. From time to time this insecurity manifests itself in violent ways, but far more common is the day-to-day injustice endured by hundreds of millions from fundamentally inadequate water supplies and sanitation, a result of political, economic, and social failings . Water is the lifeblood of human societies. It sustains and nurtures our ability to lead full lives. When water supplies are diverted, polluted, blocked, or overdrawn, it directly impacts the possibilities of human life. That is the real story of water insecurity.

    Aaron Wolf on updating ‘Basins at Risk,’ transboundary water conflict and cooperation

    This does not mean military- or strategically-minded interpretations of water security are unimportant. It should make news when Egypt threatens “escalatory steps” if Ethiopia continues to build the Renaissance Dam. But we should still question the fascination with so-called “water wars.” It may be a tempting story to tell because it plays upon our deepest, most human insecurities, and despite its tenuous links to reality, it feels all-too-real in the face of the harrowing climate predictions we hear today. Maybe the alliteration just sounds good.

    The effects, though, can be dangerous. Our fear of, and obsession with, water wars diverts our attention and decreases our awareness of the very daunting and very immediate problems of freshwater resources. According to the latest measurements, 768 million people do not use an improved source of drinking water, and 2.5 billion lack access to improved sanitation. It is safe to say that these problems will not be solved in the war rooms of generals or on the computers of security analysts.

    It should make news when Egypt threatens “escalatory steps” if Ethiopia continues to build the Renaissance Dam

    One telling example of the complexity of water problems comes from the theme of this year’s World Water Day, celebrated on March 22: water and energy. Thousands of individuals, organizations, and governments used the opportunity to raise awareness and advocate for better policy that takes stock of the interconnections between water and energy consumption. According to the OECD’s International Energy Association, global energy needs are set to increase by 33 percent by 2035, with China requiring 65 percent more water in order to meet the demands of its industrial and energy sectors. All told, 15 percent of the world’s total freshwater withdrawal is used for energy production. Given the increasing energy needs of developing countries, the impact this growing demand will have on already-strained water resources is likely to be significant. Rather than war, however, the main problems are much more likely to be significant ecological degradation and adverse impacts on human health and well-being.

    Build Resilience Through Collaboration

    Rather than finding new “hotspots” where water wars will break out, it better serves us to focus on ways to build resilience and adaptation. The water-energy nexus is but one aspect of the multi-faceted global challenges to securing sustainable water resources, yet it can tell us much more about water security than the water wars thesis ever could.

    One of the principal ways to build resilience and adaption is to forge partnerships among various groups and interested actors. Not only does it promote responsible water management, it also leads to interactions that highlight the shared risks communities face from degraded water quality and diminishing water quantity.

    Far more prevalent is daily structural violence and injustice

    An innovative strategy being pursued in countries as diverse as Canada, India, and South Africa is to include “ecological infrastructure” in larger national investments in a country’s built infrastructure. Ecological infrastructure is a concept that views healthy ecosystems as drivers of economic and social well-being, in ways no less important than roads, railways, and ports. Viable ecosystems provide crucial services like fresh water, soil formation, disaster risk reduction, climate regulation, as well as cultural and recreational outlets. When properly managed they can provide high levels of economic and social development.

    Promoting ecological infrastructure will require a collaborative effort from a variety of stakeholders – farmers, banks, municipalities, etc. – to promote the shared value of sustainably managing water resources and the shared risk of inaction. It is this type of thinking that is needed to build resilient societies that can promote human and environmental security, not the incessant doomsday prophesizing that is characteristic of so much of the water wars literature.

    While the world faces multiple water crises of varying levels of severity, the prospects for all-out war are slim. Far more prevalent is the daily structural violence and injustice related to underdevelopment, poverty, and environmental degradation, which is itself a symptom of water insecurity. We should focus less on the specter of armed conflict and instead channel our efforts towards building environmentally and socially resilient societies.

    Cameron Harrington is the 2014 NRF Global Change Postdoctoral Fellow in the Global Risk Governance Program at the University of Cape Town, where he researches conflict and cooperation along vulnerable river catchments. He received his PhD in Political Science from Western University in London, Canada.

    Sources: Al Jazeera, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, Foreign Policy, Grasslands, International Institute for Sustainable Development, Middle East Policy, The News International, U.S. International Energy Agency, U.S. News and World Report, UN Environment Program, UN Water, Water Policy, World Economic Forum.

    Photo Credit: Flooding in Pakistan, August 4, 2010, courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Center.

    Topics: Africa, Asia, Canada, China, climate change, conflict, development, Egypt, energy, environment, environmental health, environmental peacemaking, environmental security, Ethiopia, featured, global health, Guest Contributor, India, Iraq, Middle East, military, natural resources, Pakistan, poverty, risk and resilience, sanitation, security, Syria, Turkey, water
    • yetnayet

      I like this article for its focus on collaboration for ecological sustainability rather than expending the scares financial resources yo wage conflics in another country. Hope the egyptian politicians read this message. Stop the war talking and come to the cooperation round table. If we work together for a sustainable future the nile water will be enough for all the basin. If you wish to wage a conflict you will definitely loose. Be friendly with all the nile basin countries. Also take lesson from libiya is there any nile river there? But they are existing. You have also many solutions from looking towards medditranian sea to diggibg down you ground water. Which one is better war or these solutions?

    • https://www.facebook.com/CREEP.org?ref=hl Mark Richardson

      At least you are right about one thing: “Cooperation over trans-boundary water issues” (has been) “much more common” in the past.

      Today Texas just lost a lawsuit against Oklahoma over a Red River tributary and Texas is suing New Mexico over the Rio Grande, while Texas would like to go to war against Mexico over the Rio Conchos too. Meanwhile, over in the Colorado Basin, lower basin users want to scrap the Colorado River Compact and tear down Glen Canyon Dam so that they can get more than their fair share of water, and who cares about the needs of upper basin users?

      Just today we learned that California is planning on desalinating the Sacramento River delta because the agricultural industry there stands to lose hundreds of thousands more jobs if they can’t find more water, an action that is in-defiance of a Federal Fish & Wildlife ruling on water already stolen from farmers to benefit the Delta Smelt.

      And we just learned last week that California only has one year of water supply storage remaining if they can’t get more than 20% of their average annual snowfall next winter, which is a whole lot better position than 50 million residents of east central Brazil are in right now too.

      Worse yet, these problems pale when compared to water supply sustainability issues across Africa and southern Asia where hundreds of millions of people may not have a viable water or food supply within just a couple of decades.

      And you think that just because the human race worked together in the past back when there were far fewer people and continuing economic growth for billions of people isn’t hanging in the balance that we can refrain from going to war over ever more-scarce remaining resources, despite the fact that the human race has repeatedly gone to war over oil reserves?

Join the Conversation

  • RSS
  • subscribe
  • facebook
  • G+
  • twitter
  • iTunes
  • podomatic
  • youtube
Tweets by NewSecurityBeat

Trending Stories

  • unfccclogo1
  • Pop at COP: Population and Family Planning at the UN Climate Negotiations

Featured Media

Backdraft Podcast

play Backdraft
Podcasts

More »

What You're Saying

  • 49890944808_c7d6dfef74_c Why Feminism Is Good for Your Health
    Melinda Cadwallader: "Feminism materializes through investment in human capital and caregiving sectors of the economy...
  • 49890944808_c7d6dfef74_c Why Feminism Is Good for Your Health
    Melinda Cadwallader: People who refuse to acknowledge patriarchy are often the ones who benefit from it. So please, say...
  • Water desalination pipes A Tale of Two Coastlines: Desalination in China and California
    Dr S Sundaramoorthy: It is all fine as theory. What about the energy cost? Arabian Gulf has the money from its own oil....

Related Stories

No related stories.

  • woodrow
  • ecsp
  • RSS Feed
  • YouTube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • Publications
  • Events
  • Wilson Center
  • Contact Us
  • Print Friendly Page

© Copyright 2007-2023. Environmental Change and Security Program.

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. All rights reserved.

Developed by Vico Rock Media

Environmental Change and Security Program

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center

  • One Woodrow Wilson Plaza
  • 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
  • Washington, DC 20004-3027

T 202-691-4000