Future wars over water?

For a number of years now, we have heard of predictions that future wars will be
fought over control of essential resources, such as water. To some extent, most
wars have already been about that. However, in terms of water itself, some experts
question this prediction. Inter Press Service (IPS) notes a number of experts
disagree with the view that future wars will be over water, and instead feel it is
mismanagement of water resources which is the issue, not scarcity (which is the
underlying assumption for the prediction of such wars.)

That same IPS article quotes Arunabha Ghosh, co-author of the United Nations

Human Development Report 2006 themed on water management who says, Water
wars make good newspaper headlines but cooperation (agreements) don’t.… there
are plenty of bilateral, multilateral and trans-boundary agreements for water-
sharing—all or most of which do not make good newspaper copy.

Others have noted that there are many more examples of cooperation than conflict
in regions with shard water interests. The Stockholm International Water Institute
opines that 10- to 20-year-old arguments about conflict over water are still being
recycled.

At the same time there have been various incidents that fuel the fear of water-
related wars, such as Israel’s recent bombing of the Lebanese water pipelines from
the Litani River to farmland along the coastal plain and parts of the Bekaa Valley,
and the conflict in Sri Lanka where the rebel group diverted a canal.

Other examples that might be worth watching include the Panama canal as that
country considers nationalizing it, the North West Passage through Canada’s
northern polar region that is now opening up more due to climate change, which
the US argues should be an international water way, and various others that may
affect water dependency further up or downstream (e.g. between India/Pakistan,
Israel/Jordan, various Nile-dependent countries throughout northern, eastern and
central Africa).

The Stockholm International Water Institute also argues that Such arguments [for
water wars] ignore massive amounts of recent research which shows that water-
scarce states that share a water body tend to find cooperative solutions rather than
enter into violent conflict, which may offer hope that conflicts do not arise, at least
not due to water resources.

Maude Barlow, in a short interview (transcript) also raises the concern of

geopolitical issues with water. She notes that places such as United States, China
and Europe are all seeing water as a national security issue, whether it be for
access, management or shortage. Control and access to water will also be
important for their industries, as well as for people’s consumption: