Advent of inevitable water wars

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Advent of inevitable water wars

Thursday, 13 December 2018 | Kota Sriraj

Water is largely limited and has no alternative. Global demographics are changing and population is spiking like never before. These factors call for a cohesive international effort to forestall the water shortages of the future. And by so, we will be able to forestall the conflicts as well

Each one of us have already experienced the impact of water shortages at some point of our lives and definitely expressed our gratitude when the scarcity passed. However, these instances of water shortages might come back sooner than expected and might, perhaps, stay permanently. Water scarcity is the lack of sufficient available water resources to meet the demands of water usage within a region. It affects every continent and around 2.8 billion people across the world at least one month out of every year. More than 1.2 billion people lack access to clean drinking water.

Water scarcity can manifest itself as water stress, shortage or deficits and water crisis. While the concept of water stress is relatively new, it may refer to the difficulty in obtaining fresh water sources and the deterioration and depletion of the available water sources.

Water shortages may be caused due to climate change factors such as altered weather patterns, including droughts or floods, increased pollution, rise in human demand and overuse of water. Water crisis is a situation where the available potable, unpolluted water within a region is less than that demanded by the region. Many countries across the world are already grappling with different manifestations of water problems.

Given the sensitivity of the issue of water scarcity, the World Economic Forum has already listed this problem as one of the largest global risk in terms of potential impact over the next decade. Currently, a mere 0.014 per cent of all water on Earth is fresh and easily accessible. Of the remaining water, 97 per cent is saline and a little less than three per cent is hard to access.

Though there is sufficient amount of freshwater on the global scale, due to unequal distribution and worsening climate change, some geographic locations have ample availability whereas the rest are exceptionally dry. This accompanied by a sharp rise in global freshwater demand in recent decades, driven by industry, is causing humanity to experience water crisis like never before. If this continues, the demand for water is expected to outstrip supply by 40 per cent by 2030. This is bound to give rise to conflicts.

The ongoing tussle between India and Pakistan over Indus waters is an apt example of the conflict that we are increasingly bound to notice in other parts of the world as well. For decades, the Indus Waters Treaty kept the two countries from entering into a full-fledged conflict but that seems to be a thing of the past as exploding population, worsened by climate change, is forcing the neighbours to fight for every bit of the natural resource. So much so that even cross-border terrorism is now a subject of discussion around which the sharing of waters is concerned. This was bound to happen.

Where there is sufficient resource, there is never a conflict  but when the same becomes scarce, it brings conflicts of scale. Tired of one-way courtesies from its side in the face of relentless cross-border and state-sponsored terrorism by Pakistan, India is now changing gears and water has become a diplomatic leverage weapon. India recently fast-tracked hydropower projects worth $15 billion in Kashmir. Projects in the form of nine dams will be completed following the due procedures and requisite clearances. These dams will help Pakistan understand that the act of abetting terrorism has led to a cost where an already scarce resource is all set to become even scantier.

Apart from this, many other countries across the world are already locked in conflict over water resources. The Nile basin water, for instance, has been a source of dispute between Egypt and Ethiopia as is the Turkey, Syria and Iraq conflict over the waters of Tigris-Euphrates. These conflicts seem to be only rising.

Even within the country, India has seen ample disputes between various States, such as the Cauvery river dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. As climate gets worse, aided by global warming, these face-offs will only get worse. The solution is to change the focus from right-based claims on waters to need-based claims.

Countries need to appreciate that some regions have more need for water than the other, purely due to the punishing impact of climate change, population explosion or a recent drought. In these circumstances, stakeholders must put aside  matters of rights over waters and adopt a humanitarian approach and let the other side survive through the tough period by getting access to more water.

In order to allow humanitarian spirit guide the water matters, Governments must be strong enough to allow mature dialogue between stakeholders. This will surely dissuade conflicts and discourage warmongers who tend to accelerate resource clashes into bigger conflicts for certain gains.

This, unfortunately, results in armed engagements which results in loss of lives. Water is largely limited and has no alternative. Global demographics are changing and population is spiking like never before. These factors call for a cohesive and united international effort to forestall the water shortages of future. And by so, we will be able to forestall the conflicts as well.

(The writer is an environmental journalist)

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