Yes

by C. M. Erickson

Created on: March 19, 2008

Fresh drinking water is rapidly becoming a scarce commodity. We humans need water to live, and while we can survive for even weeks with little to no food, we die in a matter of days without water. Fresh drinking water is vital to a people-group's survival, and as this precious commodity dwindles on our earth's surface, people groups and nations will fight over water rights and ownership.

On January 24th, 2008, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, expressed concern at the World Economic Forum that unless global water shortages were addressed soon, the number of armed conflicts could rise. Water shortages are so critical that the UN created the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) to promote international scientific cooperation in water research, water resource management, and education. Within the UN-IHP is a program called From Potential Conflict to Cooperation Potential (PCCP) to foster peace, cooperation, and development in relation to shared water resources. Clearly the UN realizes the grave problem facing the globe and is taking serious steps to remedy the situation before nations come to blows.

According to the American Institute of Biological Sciences, out of the 1386 million cubic kilometers of water available on the planet, only 2.5% (54.65 million cubic kilometers) is drinkable. Of that miniscule 54.65 million cubic kilometers, 68.7% is locked up in glaciers, 29.9% is buried deeply underground, and a tiny 0.26% percent of potable water is found in accessible areas such as lakes and rivers. That 0.26% of 2.5% makes for a grand total of 64,000 cubic kilometers of available fresh water. Those few thousand cubic kilometers will need to sustain an entire world full of people, including their industry and agriculture. As human populations trend ever more towards cities, those locations of high population density will strain the water resources to the point of breaking.

UNESCO stated in 2000 that at 70% of the human water consumption was for irrigation, drinking and sanitation was 10%, and industry, recreation and other sources comprised 20%. These numbers clearly indicate how reliant our world's food supply is on fresh water. A shortage of water would clearly not only affect how much water is available to drink, but also how much food is grown, and would precipitate a massive global crisis of thirsty and starving people fighting for survival.

According to the World Water Council, over 260 river basins are shared by two or more countries. Tragically, most shared water resources do not have adequate international agreements to prevent war over the decreasing resources, leaving the door wide open for wars between nations as water resources dwindle. While the UN-IHP is working hard to mediate between nations and create case studies on how to resolve shared international water resources, there are many locations around the globe that could prove hot spots of international tension as fresh water becomes more scarce.

Potable, or drinkable, water is rapidly drying up around the world. In many parts of the world, it has never been readily available, such as Saharan Africa or central China, and the effect on population density is marked. Little water equates to very few humans. According to the World Health Organization/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation, in 2004 1.1 billion people (17% of the world's population) had no access to improved water sources, of which nearly 60% live in Asia. In sub-Saharan Africa, 56% of the population is still without improved water.

While water in developing countries is often scarce, what water remains is often polluted by poor sanitation or attempts at industrialization. According to Maude Barlow in her book Blue Covenant, 80% of China's rivers and 75% of India's rivers are overflowing with sewage. Lakes and water sources are shrinking all over the developing world due to wasteful human practices, population growth, government mismanagement, and climate change. These forces often converge in developing countries to destroy potable water right before people's eyes, leaving entire population groups desperate for survival.

In modern areas of the world, the relatively abundant potable water supply is often treated frivolously, as people mindlessly assume there will always be more. Corporations in industrialized nations think nothing of dumping chemicals into rivers, thereby polluting the fresh water source for everyone downstream. Private citizens maintain lush garden paradises in desert places such as Arizona by constant and indiscriminant watering. Potable water is used to water lawns, run car washes, clean streets, and in other functions that could perform equally well with "grey," or used but not toxic, water.

Only in first world countries experiencing unusual drought conditions do you begin to see water conservation measures, such as the state of Georgia by the end of 2007. In the current water shortage, the people of the state have cut back water use significantly, and people are harassed if they wash their car. Yet even with such drastic measures to reduce consumption, the state of Georgia is trying to move their state boundaries one mile north to gain access to the Tennessee River. Naturally, Tennessee is against the idea.

In other areas, once plentiful water is disappearing under the strain of increased demand. The Aral Sea has shrunk by more than 60% of its volume because of upstream Soviet river diversions, leaving 36,000 square kilometers of salt land where water used to be. Already in China many rivers (such as the Yellow River) do not make it to the sea for most of the year due to water diversion for drinking, living purposes, and irrigation. Many countries down river are suffering from the water cutoff, and China's profligate dam construction is causing a "dam war" between them, Laos, and Thailand, leaving Vietnam in the lurch. Turkey is constructing dams on the Tigris and Euphrates, enabling them to cut off Syria and Iraq from their main sources of water on a whim. The lakes around Mexico City have dried, and like many places around the globe, they are experiencing "desertization," where once fertile land dries into a dustbowl.

Another threat to international stability is the bottled water industry. The bottled water industry has grown at astronomic rates in recent years as people all over the world seek safe drinking water. Even in modern countries such as America and Europe, people are choosing to drink bottled water over the perfectly safe water coming out of the tap. The rich people in impoverished countries with poor sanitation have chosen to purchase bottled water instead of investing in the infrastructure of their countries to ensure clean drinking water for all. The rich go about their happy lives while the poor, who cannot afford to purchase bottled water, are left scrounging for water in filthy ditches and rivers, or walking miles to wells.

As "third world" nations become more reliant on bottled water for survival, their continued existence becomes more and more dependent on capitalism, as bottled water companies are out to make money. Imagine a world where you have to purchase water to live! Those people without money will be left to desperate measures when the only water available must be purchased. Should the people of a country not be able to create a profit for the bottled water companies, the companies will go elsewhere, creating a water crisis of untold proportions. The privatization and capitalization of water could easily create resource wars in developing countries.

As the earth's population continues to grow and the supply of potable water remains constant, increasing conflicts over water ownership will occur. A simple mathematical calculation shows that when you take a fixed supply of water and divide it among an increasing number of people, industries, or other sources of consumption, there is less water to go around. As more and more countries move towards "first world" status, their consumption of water increases dramatically. As a result, the amount of potable water per person or consumption source decreases precipitously and soon will become an issue of survival.

People groups have a long history of going to war over resources. Tribes have raided rival tribes for their winter stores of dried meat, cattle, or horses. Spain slaughtered the South and Middle American Natives for gold. Hitler invaded Russia for Lebensraum and the rich oil fields in the Caucuses. Generally law abiding citizens get into fights in stores over the last of a particular toy before Christmas. If we consider that the United States ostensibly went to war in Iraq over oil, which is important but not vital to human life, the looming possibility of war over water ownership grows far more ominous. We humans have proven over thousands of years that we are not afraid to resort to violence to achieve our ends, and all the more so if we are pushed by survival.

Dwindling potable water resources per capita is a pending humanitarian crisis. As water is second only to oxygen as a need for human survival, it will soon be worth more than gold. Given the human race's tendency to fight over any provocation, and to get especially viscous when survival is on the line, our impending water shortage will soon spark a war.

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