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Water, Security, and Conflict ISSUE BRIEF WATER, SECURITY, AND CONFLICT PETER GLEICK AND CHARLES ICELAND HIGHLIGHTS ▪ A wide range of water-related risks undermine human well-being and can contribute to political instability, violent conflict, human displacement and migration, and acute food insecurity, which in turn can undermine national, regional, and even global security. ▪ Political instability and conflicts are rarely caused by any single factor, such as a water crisis. Instead, water crises should be seen as contributing factors to instability. ▪ While 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. ▪ We classify water and security pathways under three broad categories: diminished water supply or quality, increased water demand, and extreme flood events. ▪ Water risk is not only a function of hazards, such as extreme droughts and floods, it is also a function of a community’s governance capacity and resilience in the face of natural hazards. ▪ No single strategy is sufficient to reduce water risk. Instead, multifaceted approaches will be needed. WRI.ORG EXECUTIVE SUMMARY migration, and food insecurity are much more likely if governance is CONTENTS Context weak, infrastructure is inadequate, 2 Executive Summary Water has played a key role and institutions are fragile. in human security through- Although water risks are grow- 3 Introduction out history, but attention to ing worldwide, there are many water-related threats has been 4 Water in a risk-reducing options avail- Dynamic World growing in recent years due to able to decision-makers. Some increasing water risks. Water of these options include imposing 5 A Water and Security demand has increased sharply in water demand caps in water-stressed Classification System many regions of the world as a result regions; replacing water-inefficient of population growth and economic irrigation schemes with more effi- 8 Reducing Water-Related expansion. Water supply is expected cient irrigation technologies (irriga- Risks to Global Security to decline in the mid-latitude regions tion accounts for 70 percent of water 10 Concluding of the world because of climate withdrawals worldwide); planting Observations change, which is also expected to water-efficient and drought-resistant alter the timing of water availability crops; introducing social safety net 11 Appendix A: and increase the severity of drought programs; reducing global food Some Definitions and flood events. The destruction loss and waste; reducing popula- of natural habitat and the discharge 12 Endnotes tion growth rates; implementing of untreated municipal, industrial, urban water conservation measures; 13 Bibliography and agricultural wastewater into our investing in wastewater treatment rivers and lakes is rendering much of and reuse technologies; engaging 15 Acknowledgments our surface water and groundwater in negotiation of watershed agree- unusable. These increasing pressures ments; improving water data and on water resources are undermining information systems; investing in water security and contributing to dams, dikes, and levees; protecting conflict, migration, and food insecu- and restoring natural capital, includ- rity in many parts of the developing ing forests and wetlands; and helping world. countries strengthen their gover- A water and security classifica- nance systems. tion system: multiple water and security pathways. There are many pathways leading from water About This Paper risk to water insecurity (which in This paper summarizes our current turn may lead to conflict, migration, understanding of water and security 1 or acute food insecurity ). Three threats and their links to conflict, general pathways include diminished migration, and food insecurity. It water supply or quality, increased is intended for professionals in the water demand, and extreme flood defense, diplomacy, and develop- events. Each of these pathways ment fields. We review the key includes subpathways, and mul- drivers behind growing water risk, tiple subpathways often coincide to describe and illustrate water and undermine water security in a given security pathways, and present watershed. A region’s capacity to approaches for reducing water- handle “water shocks” also influences related risks to global security. outcomes. Water-related conflict, 2 | Water, Security, and Conflict 1. INTRODUCTION We define water security as the realpolitik and superpower politics, capacity of a population to as the Cold War waned, to an evalu- 1.1. Background safeguard sustainable access to ation of other threats to national and Water has long been a factor in ▪ adequate quantities of acceptable international stability, such as energy security and conflict, going back to quality water for sustaining live- security, transboundary environ- ancient times and continuing to the lihoods, human well-being, and mental pollution, conflicts over water present day. Insufficient water due socioeconomic development; resources, climate change, and other to prolonged drought has contrib- environmental threats (Brown 1977; ensure protection against water- uted to the collapse of civilizations Ullman 1983; Myers 1986; Mathews ▪ borne pollution and water-relat- (Iceland 2017). Access to water has 1989; Gleick 1989a; Gleick 1989b; ed disasters; and been a trigger of conflict. Water has Gleick 1990; Homer-Dixon 1990). been used as a weapon and a tool of preserve ecosystems, upon The fundamental concept, now ▪ war. But pressures over water are which clean water availability widely accepted, is that political growing, due in part to new factors, and other ecosystem services instability and violence, especially including rapid population growth, depend (adapted from UN-Water at the local or regional level, do widespread environmental degrada- 2013). not have purely political roots but tion, rising consumption from an The ongoing academic and institu- are influenced by economic, demo- expanding middle class in much tional debate about these definitions graphic, and social factors that are of the global South, and human- will continue to result in redefini- themselves sensitive to resource and induced climate change. These new tions and refinements, and we look environmental conditions (see, for pressures make it increasingly urgent forward to that discussion. example, Barnett and Adger 2007; that solutions to water tensions be Hsiang et al. 2013; Ratner et al. found and implemented. This paper 1.3. Environmental Threats as 2013). summarizes our current understand- National Security Issues As an example of an early discussion ing of water and security threats and of this issue, the concept of “environ- their links to conflict, migration, and Fresh water is vital for all economic mental security” was a central topic food insecurity. It is intended for and social activities, from the at a November 1991 symposium at professionals in the defense, diplo- production of food and energy to the U.S. National War College, “From macy, and development fields. We the maintenance of natural ecosys- Globalism to Regionalism: New Per- review the key drivers behind grow- tems that provide basic services for spectives on American Foreign and ing water risk, describe and illustrate humans. Yet freshwater resources Defense Policies.” More recently, the water and security pathways, and are limited, unevenly distributed in U.S. Office of the Director of National present approaches for reducing space and time, increasingly con- Intelligence (DNI), working with the water-related risks to global security. taminated or overused, and poorly managed. These constraints, coupled broader U.S. intelligence community, with growing populations and econo- released an analysis of global and 1.2. Water as Both a Resource regional water security issues that and National Security Issue mies, are putting more and more pressure on water, even in regions concluded the following: As background, this paper discusses where natural water resources were During the next 10 years, water a broad set of security issues and previously considered abundant. ▪ problems will contribute to concepts. The concept of security has Such pressures increasingly have instability in states important to different meanings and connotations political and security implications. US national security interests. for different communities, and for These concerns are not new. Begin- Water shortages, poor water the purposes of clarity, we provide in ning in the late 1970s and early quality, and floods by them- Appendix A a set of definitions of the 1980s, researchers concerned about selves are unlikely to result in terms used in this paper. international security and conflict state failure. However, water began to shift their focus from problems—when combined with poverty, social tensions, environ- ISSUE BRIEF | August 2018 | 3 mental degradation, ineffectual influenced in part by water scarcity— leadership, and weak political has had profound political impacts In 2017, the institutions—contribute to social in Europe (Iceland 2017). The brunt disruptions that can result in of the growing global refugee crisis, global forcibly state failure. however, has been borne not by displaced The lack of adequate water will European and other global North ▪ be a destabilizing factor in some countries, but by global South coun- population grew countries because they do not tries themselves. In 2017, the global have the financial
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