Water Conflict and Cooperation: Looking over the Horizon
Navigating Peace Initiative: Water Working Group II
“The wars of the next century will be about water.” This quote and similar ones from prominent political leaders commonly trumpet coming “water wars” in an increasingly water scarce world. The reality of water’s roles in conflict and cooperation is a more complex story than the political rhetoric often implies. Water may someday become a casus belli between states as population growth and high rates of unsustainable water use drive more and more regions into conditions of water scarcity. But the political rhetoric ignores today's local and subnational water policies that have caused social and even violent conflict around the world, while failing to address the needs of the millions of people affected by these policies.
WWGII Members | Inger Andersen,
Sector Manager for Urban Development, Africa Department, World Bank
Kent Butts,
Director, Outreach Operations, Center for Strategic Leadership, U.S. Army War College
Ken Conca,
Associate Professor, University of Maryland
Kirk Emerson,
Director, U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution
Patricia Kameri-Mbote,
Senior Lecturer, Department of Private Law, University of Nairobi
Aaron Salzberg,
Lead for Water and Head of Interagency Working Group on Water, U.S. Department of State
Anthony Turton,
Head, African Water Issues Research Unit, University of Pretoria (South Africa)
Aaron Wolf,
Professor, Oregon State University
Howard Wolpe,
Director, Africa Project, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars |
The potential for violent and social conflict over water is clear. What is less clear is at what level this conflict will take place. Exhaustive research by Aaron Wolf of Oregon State University has firmly established that international violent conflict is rarely if ever caused by, or focused on, water resources. Historically, formal and informal international political institutions managing water have adapted to increased scarcity without resorting to the expensive and inefficient means of war to secure water supplies. Instead cooperation, through multiple means, somehow emerges between states.
This history does not, however, close the door on the international “water war” debate for the present or in the future. Because as many as 7 billion people, more than currently alive in the world today, may live under conditions of water scarcity and stress in 2050, the future may not resemble the past when it comes to violent conflict between states.
In the case of water, evidence suggests that the lower level of analysis, the higher levels of conflict. Most of the current conflict surrounding water occurs at the national and subnational levels such as in Cochabamba, Bolivia on February 4, 2000 when riot police fought with protestors for two days over the privatization of the municipal water supply. Another example is in April, 2001 protestors in Karachi, Pakistan clashed with police while chanting “Give us water.” Conflict at this level is often between different water sectors, for instance when water is forcefully reallocated from agricultural use to urban or industrial use.
A large body of scholarly research at this level suggests that environmental degradation may catalyze various forms of inter-group violent conflict within states. In contrast, little systematic research exists on an important corollary: that environmental cooperation may be a useful catalyst for broader processes of regional peacemaking. Water presents a ripe opportunity for proactively utilizing the transboundary and non-substitutable qualities of water as a cornerstone of confidence building and, potentially, peacemaking among states and groups within societies. In regions with unsettled interstate relations, shared water resources appear to present avenues for confidence building that can in turn support predictable and more enmeshed relations among potential adversaries.
The Water Conflict and Cooperation Working Group
Because the future will not necessarily look like the past, the Water Conflict and Cooperation Working Group must identify the current and emerging trends in water conflict and cooperation. So far, attempts to translate the findings from the environment and conflict debate into a positive, practical policy framework for environmental cooperation and sustainable peace show some signs of promise, but have not been widely discussed or practiced. Current efforts suggest that this approach holds real promise. For example, the Nile Basin Initiative suggests that even the river basins seemingly ripest for conflict (where the downstream riparian is a military hegemon with a large, water-dependent population) can not only avoid conflict but fashion mutually beneficial integration and cooperation around water resources.
The challenge for the Conflict and Cooperation Water Working Group is to 1) understand the current mix of conflict and cooperation over water along wider continua of conflict and at more levels of analysis than has customarily been considered; 2) anticipate future possibilities for violent water conflict given the negative indicators in so many areas of water management; and 3) formulate proactive steps for heading off conflict and for encouraging cooperation.
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