Historically, water-related problems led rather to a greater level of the international cooperation over water governance, than to conflicts. At the same time, the increasing frequency of the climate-related events, growing water demand due to the economic and demographic growth in developing countries creates a new dynamic and new scale water risks. Increasingly, different stakeholders call for enhancing and advancing international cooperation and governance of water, call for responses to the increasing water risks largely driven by these factors of climate change, economic and demographic growth.
Different studies and reports make projections in respect to the increase in risks of water conlficts worldwide.
The recent IPCC Report projects that 200 million more people will be exposed to increased water scarcity and more severe floods and droughts if the emissions continue to grow.
The Report on water, security and conflict, prepared by the World
Resources Institute argues that eventhough water risks have threatened human civilizations over millennia, today’s global population growth and economic expansion—together with threats from climate change—create a new urgency around an old problem.
In 2012 the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), working with the broader U.S. intelligence community, released an analysis of global and regional water security issues water problems that forecasted the increase of political and social instability in states important to US national security interests due to such water problems as water shortages, poor water quality, and floods by themselves are unlikely to result in state failure. However, water problems—when combined with poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership, and weak political institutions—contribute to social disruptions that can result in state failure. The recent water-related events confirm these projections, made in 2012.
Numerous recent water events have contributed to social and political insecurity—from large-scale chronic water stress and record-breaking drought in the Middle East, to devastating floods in South Asia, to local saltwater intrusion into aquifers that provide for urban water supply, such as in Jakarta. Some of such events had not only local, but also regional and global negative spillovers. When these events occur in transboundary river basins, they can precipitate disputes (or cooperation) between upstream and downstream countries (e.g., India and Pakistan over the Indus River; or Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt over the Blue Nile; or Turkey, Syria, and Iraq over the Tigris and Euphrates).
Water risks management is function of a community’s governance capacity and resilience in the face of natural hazards, that undermine the availability of sufficient water resources. Water-related conflict, migration, and food insecurity are much more likely if governance is weak, infrastructure is inadequate, and institutions are fragile. The existing examples confirm these statements. Drought in failed states or drought that contributes to state failure. Nearly 260,000 people died during the famine that hit Somalia from 2010 to 2012. Severe drought and its consequences contributed to state failure in Syria in 2011. Some experts believe that the 2011 food price spikes in Russia, the Ucraine due to draughts played a role in the Arab Spring in Middle East and North Africa region, that is dependent on imports and thus highly vulnerable to changes in food prices and supplies.
According to the authors of the Report, only multifaceted approaches to water governance can address complex nexus between water, security and conflict. It has to be a combination of the natinal and international efforts and responses. At the national level, there are many risk-reducing options available to decision-makers, – says the Report and provides a comprehensive list of the options available and excercised by the governments worldwide. Some of these options include: imposing water demand caps in water-stressed regions; replacing water-inefficient irrigation schemes with more efficient irrigation technologies (irrigation accounts for 70 percent of water withdrawals worldwide); planting water-efficient and drought-resistant crops; introducing social safety net programs; reducing global food loss and waste; reducing population growth rates; implementing urban water conservation measures; investing in wastewater treatment and reuse technologies; engaging in negotiation of watershed agreements; improving water data and information systems; investing in dams, dikes, and levees; protecting and restoring natural capital, including forests and wetlands; and helping countries strengthen their governance systems.
Weak governance capacity in developing countries calls for strong international cooperation and international responses. A separate set of strategies related to diplomacy, law, international agreements, and security policies can also be central to risk reduction. At a global scale, efforts to develop fundamental principles for transboundary watershed management have led to the drafting, adoption, and ratification of the 1997 UN Convention on the Law of Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses. This convention establishes standards and principles for best practices around joint basin management, data sharing, and conflict resolution, and while not universally accepted, the fundamental concepts in the convention are widely respected.
The report underscores the need to advance the cooperation and take decisive action before crises erupt, while conditions still permit us to act.
