In a speech last week, National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar hinted at the contents of Global Trends 2025, the intelligence report being prepared for the next U.S. president on future global threats. It predicts that U.S. global dominance will decline over the next several decades, as the world is buffeted by climate change and shortages of energy, water, and food. The intermediate draft of the report was reviewed this summer at a Wilson Center meeting hosted by ECSP.

The Middle East is home to some of the most intractable conflicts in the world. But it is also generating some of today’s most creative approaches to peacebuilding—several of which use the environment to promote harmony and stability.

Time magazine recently highlighted the efforts of Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME) to restore the Jordan River to a more healthy, natural state (video). Currently, the Israeli and Jordanian governments both heavily subsidize water for farmers, who grow unsustainable, water-intensive crops. As a result, in many places, the Jordan River has been reduced to a sluggish, polluted trickle. The water level in the Dead Sea, which is fed by the Jordan, sinks approximately one meter each year because it is no longer being replenished. In addition, according to FOEME, because much of the Lower Jordan River “is a closed military zone and off limits to the public, most people simply do not know that the river is drying up.” If less water were diverted from the Jordan, pollution were reduced, and access to the river were increased, FOEME believes that local communities could establish—and thrive on—ecotourism and sustainable agriculture.

FOEME has also proposed the creation of a transboundary peace park on an island in the middle of the Jordan, and has secured the endorsements of the mayors and communities on both sides of the river.

A USAID-supported project on the Israeli-Jordanian border—this one in the Arava desert—brings young people together to study the environment in an attempt to forge personal connections and build peace. The students study the survival mechanisms of desert fauna and flora; learn how to tap solar energy and build structures out of natural materials; and are even carrying out research on the controversial plan to divert water from the Red Sea into the Dead Sea. One-third of each semester’s students are Israeli Jews; one-third are Arabs from Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian territories, or other nations; and one-third are American and European. “The main problem in the Middle East is that people don’t know their neighbors,” says Rabbi Michael Cohen, founding faculty member of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies, which runs the program.

Photo: The Jordan River is only a muddy trickle in many places. Courtesy of Flickr user j.fisher.

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For those of you following the development of the “virtual water” concept, which could help us accurately value goods on the international market, address food security in arid regions, and foster global cooperation, Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba provides useful commentary in “Water News: Bad, Good and Virtual,” his article in the current issue of American Scientist (subscription required). Like other water experts, Smil touts the potential of desalination and virtual water to change the way we address today’s water challenges (see my recent post on a Scientific American article by Harvard professor Peter Rogers), but he also argues that if we truly want to reduce our water use, we will have to adopt “rational food production” and “sensible carnivory.”

Smil defines virtual water as “all freshwater required for [the production of] a crop or an animal foodstuff in the place of its origin” and recognizes it as a valuable accounting tool. Yet he also believes that Americans and other affluent consumers must adopt two additional practices if we truly wish to change the way we use and manage our water resources. The first is rational food production; for instance, the United States currently produces approximately 45 percent more food than is needed by its population. The second is sensible carnivory; Smil calculates that if Americans reduced beef, pork, and poultry consumption by a third, they could save a total of 120-140 cubic kilometers of virtual water over the course of a year (equivalent to the amount of virtual water used to make 15 billion leather shoes).

For those who desire a more technical understanding of the concept, the article also goes into detail as to why some crops require more water, why the virtual water costs of dairy and meat products are so high, and why the amount of water saved by importing virtual water depends on the conditions in both the importing and exporting countries.

Photo: Men plowing fields in Mali. Virtual water would encourage arid countries like Mali to import food and devote their scarce water resources to other uses. Courtesy of Curt Carnemark / World Bank.

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A recent post on Andy Revkin’s Dot Earth blog—entitled “Poop is Funny, But It’s Fatal”—highlights a UNICEF World Water Day video about the necessity of destigmatizing human waste. Bacterial infections caused by contact with human waste kill 1.5 million people every year—most of them children. The stakes are high. The film uses kids and humor—two good ingredients for education through entertainment—to explain the importance of sanitation. The film emphasizes that although we may not like talking about feces, urine, toilets, and the like, we need to because the fact that 2.6 billion of us lack adequate sanitation is a fundamental threat to human health, productivity, and dignity. It’s a short film—YouTube friendly—and these are complex links, but they are key to understanding the need to invest in available technologies.

“Over the next twenty years physical pressures – population, resource, energy, climatic, and environmental – could combine with rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical change to create greater uncertainty,” warns the newly released 2008 National Defense Strategy. Demographic trends, resource scarcity, and environmental change all inform the updated strategy, which encourages international cooperation to address these impending challenges.

The “Population Forum” in the September issue of WorldWatch Magazine “reveals that empowering women to make their own family size choices…is the best strategy to tackle population growth” and the environmental and security problems linked to it. A short history of population trends is available online; the website offers free previews of Lori Hunter’s article on PHE and gender, as well as “Population and Security” by Elizabeth Leahy and ECSP’s own Sean Peoples. Bernard Orimbo links population growth and environmental degradation in his native Kenya, and PAI staff discuss urbanization.

Climate change threatens to exaggerate the challenges faced by the billions of people worldwide who depend upon natural resources for their survival. But the competition and, at times, violent conflict that results from increased resource scarcity is not a given; the recently released World Resources Report 2008 finds that “well-designed, community-based enterprises” can ease the environmental burden on natural resources and pave the way for sustainable dependence on the land.

At the 2008 World Expo’s “Water and Conflict Resolution” week, municipal representatives working with Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME) presented case studies from its “Good Water Neighbors” programs: cross-border solutions for the Lower Jordan River; the Jordan River Peace Park project; and the town of Auja in the Jordan River Valley. Speaking about these programs the Wilson Center, FOEME’s Gidon Bromberg said that “by working together, not only do we advance the environmental issues…we also advance peace between our peoples.”

Food shortages and high food prices are hot topics of conversation these days, and people are scrambling to uncover the causes and improve the current situation. A recent Financial Times article and multimedia package explore the links between food, water, and land use in Egypt, which has always contended with limited water resources but in recent months has also dealt with the impacts of sharply escalating global grain prices.

The article discusses how Egypt’s crops are grown under two distinct sets of conditions: the reclaimed desert in the West Nile Delta and the fertile Nile River Valley and Delta. In the desert, water is so scarce—and therefore valuable—that farmers are encouraged to conserve as much as possible through modern methods such as drip irrigation, helping the region achieve close to a 75 percent water efficiency rate.

This water-efficient agriculture lies in severe juxtaposition to the practices employed in the water-rich Nile River Valley and Delta. Here, rice is grown using flood irrigation techniques that waste 50 percent of the water. The government is attempting to increase water-use efficiency in order to use this saved water to reclaim more desert land for the production of high-value agricultural goods such as ornamental plants and citrus.

One idea proposed to alleviate water scarcity in countries like Egypt is that of “virtual water.” Proponents of virtual water argue that because water is embedded in products that are shipped around the world—particularly food—if water-scarce regions import these products instead of producing them domestically, they can then use their limited water for productive uses besides agriculture.

The Financial Times multimedia package includes an interview with Tony Allan, a professor at King’s College London and the originator of the concept of virtual water, for which he received the 2008 Stockholm Water Prize. He argues that virtual water would be “economically invisible”—as the cost of water is included in the cost of food, which would presumably be lower when imported from a country with plentiful water—and “politically silent”—as it would spare leaders from having to contend with the political fallout from a water shortage.

Unfortunately, as Allan notes, virtual water’s potentially large benefit to water-scarce regions is largely hypothetical, as U.S. and European agricultural subsidies prevent the prices of commodities, including water, from being set at their true levels. In addition, as the rice stockpiling triggered by the recent food crisis has demonstrated, few countries are likely willing to cease domestic food production entirely and entrust the filling of their kitchen cupboards to the global economy.

With more than one billion people lacking adequate access to freshwater, the world is already experiencing a vast set of challenges. In the not-so-distant future, as the global population continues to grow and as the impacts of climate change are felt, the problem will intensify. In this month’s issue of Scientific American, Harvard professor Peter Rogers unpacks the multiple factors contributing to this scarcity and proposes six priority actions to alleviate some of this stress.

Rogers’ key message is: “If a crisis arises in the coming decades, it will not be for lack of know-how; it will come from a lack of foresight and from an unwillingness to spend the needed money.” He points out that it is the combination of climate change and continued population growth that will have a devastating affect on local water scarcity. However, water scarcity is not only driven by demand outweighing supply, but also by the pollution of our water supply and by the wasting of water by individuals, industry, and our water-supply systems.

To address these issues, Rogers proposes six priority recommendations:

1. Set higher prices for water use. In the United States and other developed countries, water is so cheap that “it seems almost free,” so there is little incentive to conserve or reuse. Increasing the price of water supply would drive conservation. For instance, municipalities would be more likely to fix leaks in water-supply systems and to invest in water reuse.
2. Improve irrigation efficiency. With approximately 70 percent of available freshwater going to agriculture, increasing the efficiency of irrigation systems—fixing leaks, creating low-loss storage capabilities, and more efficiently applying water to crops—would create a volume of water that could go to other uses.
3. Supply “virtual water.” “Virtual water” refers to the amount of water used to produce a product. If arid and semiarid areas imported more food or other water-intensive products, this import of virtual water would allow the limited water that is available to go to other uses, such as drinking water or industry. Implementing this recommendation would require the liberalization of trade in farm products and a reduction in tariffs. Given the highly contested debates about farm subsides in the United States and the EU, this seems a far-off proposition.
4. Use dry or low-water devices for sanitation. This would reduce the amount of water used for sanitation and could also reduce the use of fossil fuel-based fertilizers if the solid waste were collected and composted for farming purposes.
5. Use desalination to increase supply. Once limited by high costs and high energy demands, desalination technologies are nearing commercial viability.
6. Invest in water. Major investment in existing technologies to conserve water, maintain and replace infrastructure, and construct sanitation systems will be needed to stave off a water crisis. According to the article, Booz Allen Hamilton estimates that a $1 trillion annual investment in these sectors will be required to meet the world’s water needs through 2030.

Rogers lays out a solid set of steps to address our growing water needs, but implementing them will require leadership in the government and beyond, as well as the conscious planning and management of water resources. And while these steps are reasonable for large economies with robust governance systems, the areas of the world that are most affected by a lack of water—places where diarrhea is the leading cause of death for children under five and where women and children are required to walk miles to wells to collect drinking water—will require not only financial support, as Rogers notes, but also long-term technical and legal assistance.

I was lucky enough recently to vacation in Israel—and I still have the jet lag to prove it. On the second day of the trip, as we crossed the Jordan River and entered the Golan Heights, our guide explained that people have fought over water throughout history—especially in the Middle East. “Aha!” I thought to myself. “Another example of how the average person mistakenly believes that water scarcity leads to conflict—whereas, as an Environmental Change and Security Program staff member, I know that interstate ‘water wars’ are actually incredibly rare.”

Yet our guide proceeded to describe several water-related conflicts between Israel and its neighbors before and after the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. So when I returned to the States, I was inspired to look up these events in the Pacific Institute’s Water Conflict Chronology and in Oregon State University’s Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database. I found that Israel and its neighbors were frequently engaged in violent conflict with one another over water during the 1960s and early 1970s. For instance, after Syria began diverting the headwaters of the Jordan River in 1965—a project that would have deprived Israel’s National Water Carrier of approximately 35 percent of its water and the country as a whole of around 11 percent of its water—Israel responded with a series of military strikes against the diversion works. The back-and-forth attacks helped instigate the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

Another example: In 1969, Israel, which believed that Jordan was overdiverting the Yarmouk River, bombed Jordan’s East Ghor Canal. The United States mediated secret negotiations in 1969-1970, and the Jordanians were allowed to repair the canal in exchange for abiding by Johnston Plan water quotas and expelling the Palestinian Liberation Organization from Jordan.

So how do we explain the apparent disconnect between the numerous instances of violent conflict over water in the Middle East and political scientists’ insistence that water rarely leads to interstate conflict? I think the answer is twofold. First, I happened to be standing in the region of the world that is by far the most prone to conflict over water. There were only 37 violent interactions over water between 1946 and 1999, and 30 of these were between Israel and a neighbor. Water experts recognize that the Middle East is the exception to the general pattern of water disputes leading to cooperation, not conflict. But to Middle Easterners like my Israeli guide, it may indeed seem that water frequently leads to conflict.

Second, the devil is in the definitions. The Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database classifies events according to its Water Event Intensity Scale, which runs from -7 (“formal declaration of war”) to 7 (“voluntary unification into one nation”). The East Ghor incident is classified as -6 (“extensive war acts causing deaths, dislocation or high strategic cost”). Events classified as -6 can include “use of nuclear weapons; full scale air, naval, or land battles; invasion of territory; occupation of territory; massive bombing of civilian areas; capturing of soldiers in battle; large scale bombing of military installations; [and] chemical or biological warfare,” so they seem to differ from war only in that war has not been formally declared.

Perhaps this is where much of the confusion comes from: Political scientists studying water conflict use a very narrow definition of war—probably a lot narrower than that of most non-experts. So while the average interested citizen would likely call the 1965-1967 conflict between Israel and Syria over the National Water Carrier and the Headwater Diversion project a war—or at least a high-level interstate conflict—the political scientist studying water conflict and cooperation would not.

Now, as a general principle, I’m all in favor of precise language and definitions. But formal declarations of war seem to have gone out of fashion over the past half century; the United States, for instance, has not formally declared war against another country since World War II. If the current war in Afghanistan were over water—which it decidedly is not—would it still merit only a -6 on the Water Event Intensity Scale because the United States has not formally declared war against the Taliban? It seems that requiring a formal declaration of war to classify a conflict as a war is perhaps defining the term too narrowly.

But although political scientists may be to blame for clinging to a somewhat outdated definition of war, the media are perhaps at fault for using the word too broadly in an attempt to make their headlines more enticing. This editor concludes—only somewhat self-servingly—that we would all benefit from using language more precisely. I welcome your responses.

Photo: The Golan Heights landscape still bears scars from the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. Courtesy of Rachel Weisshaar.

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