The economic impact of water scarcity is grim: in the past two years, new power plants in four U.S. states, as well as several dozen commercial and residential development projects in California, have been cancelled because developers weren’t able to secure long-term water supplies. This summer, as California approaches its fourth year of drought, up to 30,000 workers will be laid off in its 650-km-long Central Valley, the country’s agricultural engine. Economic losses could top a half-billion dollars. In Australia, they’ve surpassed $20 billion.
As droughts and crises multiply, academics have begun grappling with the darker question of whether such shortages will push citizens—and even countries—into hostile factions of water-rich and water-poor. By mid-century, some of the world’s most populous, troubled regions are predicted to be dangerously water-scarce, including southern and central Asia, the Middle East and northeast Africa. This spring, a landmark report compiled by 24 UN agencies warned of a near future marred by war and conflict over water, sparked by so-called water bankruptcies.
But while it is newly popular to suggest the world’s next resource wars will be fought over water, and not oil, researchers at Oregon State University have found reason for optimism. Of the 1,831 documented disputes over freshwater resources in the last 50 years, 67 per cent were co-operative, while only 28 per cent resulted in conflict. The Indus Commission, a water sharing treaty between India and Pakistan, not only survived two wars, but, in the middle of one, India made treaty payments to Pakistan, says study author Aaron Wolf. Shared water can act like an “elixir,” bringing warring sides to the table to co-operate, he says.
Often, however, this looks like “asymmetrical co-operation,” where terms are dictated by the stronger side, says former water engineer Mark Zeitoun, who teaches international development in Britain. Consider the Nile basin, often cited as an example of multilateral co-operation over shared water resources. A 1959 agreement grants Egypt 87 per cent of the river’s waters, and Sudan the remaining 13 per cent. Ethiopia, whose highlands supply 86 per cent of Nile water, receives nothing (Egypt has threatened to bomb Ethiopia should it attempt to build a dam). After a decade of “co-operation” under the auspices of the CIDA-funded Nile Basin Initiative, regional hegemon Egypt retains its 87 per cent stake. Ethiopia still gets nothing.
Tensions are rising as shortages intensify, says Zeitoun, noting simmering water conflicts along the Tigris and Brahmaputra, and intra-state conflicts in China’s Yellow Basin and the Basra region of Iraq. Two Pakistani provinces, Punjab and Sindh—the last in line for the Indus water before it reaches the sea—are routinely at odds over water. In Sindh, many fishers and farmers reliant on the rapidly declining delta ecosystem have simply given up and fled to cities—water refugees. In Darfur, where rainfall is down 30 per cent over 40 years, evaporating water holes and disappearing pasture helped push farmers and herders into civil war.
History has clearly shown that we solve water shortages through trade and international agreements, and not by picking up a gun. The shortfalls that await us, however, have no historical precedent. You can’t buy water from a country that is afraid it is not going to have enough for its own people.
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