Events over this past year have made water’s role in global conflicts increasingly salient. India threatened to restrict water flows to Pakistan in response to cross-border terrorism. Cyberattacks targeted water facilities across the United States and United Kingdom. And water infrastructure became a deliberate casualty in conflict zones from Ukraine to Gaza.

The Pacific Institute’s latest update to its Water Conflict Chronology—an important resource for stakeholders working on water-related issues around the world, including UN officials, journalists, academics, and members of the defense and intelligence communities— documents 420 new water-related conflict events worldwide in 2024, marking a 165% increase since 2000. The database has tracked water-related violence for nearly three decades, and it serves as the world’s most comprehensive record of instances in which water functions as a trigger, casualty, or weapon of conflict.

New Security Beat recently spoke with Peter Gleick, co-founder and Senior Fellow at the Pacific Institute, and one of the world’s leading experts on climate and water issues, to better understand this year’s accelerating trends in water-related conflict.

New Security Beat: The Pacific Institute database shows a nearly 20 percent increase in water conflicts in 2024 compared to 2023. What are the primary drivers behind this acceleration?

Peter Gleick: There is no single reason for the worsening violence; rather there are several key factors. Many of the entries in the past few years come from the Russia-Ukraine war, and the war between Israel and Palestine, where water systems have been targets and casualties of those conflicts. But we also continue to see extensive violence triggered by water scarcity and shortages, the failure to provide universal safe water and sanitation, and disputes over access to water in regions suffering from extreme events—sometimes worsened by climate change— especially in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa.

The latest update to the database shows a continuing trend in increased water conflicts worldwide, and an increase in two of the three major categories: water as a trigger or as a casualty of conflict.

In May 2025, India reportedly restricted water flows to Pakistan, with Pakistan calling it a “potential act of war.” What does this development say about water potentially triggering major interstate conflict.

The Institute data tracks both interstate and intrastate conflicts. While the majority of water violence continues to be intrastate—that is violence in civil wars, regional disputes, local riots over access to water, or even fights between clans, families, or individuals over access to irrigation or drinking water—there has also been an upswing in nation-to-nation violence over shared water resources, including during the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Palestine wars.

In 2024, however, there were also growing tensions between India and Pakistan following a terrorist attack in India. This led India to suspend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty and threaten to withhold water to Pakistan. Iran and Afghanistan also continue to dispute the waters of the Helmand River. Violence continues to be reported in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers shared by Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. And tensions are even growing between the US and Mexico over water shortages in the shared Rio Grande/Rio Bravo River, despite a formal treaty that is supposed to facilitate sharing and peaceful dispute resolution.

Incidents of water as a casualty (276) far outpace its uses as a weapon (24). Can you explain this distinction? Why are attacks on water infrastructure now a common military tactic?

Water as a casualty or as a trigger of conflict comprise the majority of the events. These events are driven largely by scarcity and disputes over control of and access to water, and by attacks on civilian water infrastructure in wars and conflicts that start for other reasons.

Water is a weapon of conflicts when treatment plants, pipelines, or other water systems are attacked, intentionally or as collateral damage, or when energy systems required for the reliable operation of water systems are destroyed. Intentional attacks on civilian water systems are explicit violations of international laws of war (such as the 1977 Geneva Convention Protocols), but enforcement of these laws has been weak and inconsistent.

The report mentions cyberattacks on water facilities in Texas and widespread attacks on UK and US water utilities. Is cyber warfare becoming a new frontier in water conflicts?

A new threat, now beginning to be recognized in the Institute’s database, is cyberattacks on water utilities and services providers. More and more such attacks are now being reported, including digital attacks by one country on the water systems of another country that have the potential to affect water supplies and water quality. These kinds of attacks are a new challenge for the water security community.