Water, violence, conflict and cooperation

Water, violence, conflict and cooperation Dr. Ken Conca kconca@gvpt.umd.edu

Topics: • The world’s water picture and global water challenges • Water as a source of violent conflict (pathways and probabilities) • Water cooperation initiatives

Water is… …unsubstitutable in its most important uses; …unevenly distributed; …difficult to capture; …movable, but often only at great social, economic, or ecological cost; …highly variable over time in its availability.

I. The world’s water challenges • Addressing unmet human water needs • Allocating water across competing sectoral needs: agricultural, industrial, municipal • Managing and reversing the impact on critical freshwater ecosystems

Challenge: Unmet needs and water-related human insecurity • An estimated 1.3 billion people currently lack reliable access to safe drinking water • An estimated 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation • Struggle to keep pace with population growth in recent decades, much less make a dent in these figures • Projection: Half the world’s people will live in conditions of “water insecurity” by 2035

Per-capita domestic water use Source: Gleick, The World’s Water 2000-2001

Millennium Development Goals “By 2015, cut in half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation.”

Millennium water goals: mixed progress Source: Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2005

Challenge: Addressing water demands of competing sectoral uses • Growing inter-sectoral competition (agriculture vs. emerging industrial, municipal uses) • Strong growth projections across all sectors--but ineffective mechanisms for allocating water across sectors • Controversies over water pricing and private-sector participation

Challenge: Addressing environmental impacts and in-stream uses • importance of freshwater ecosystem services • cumulative toll of damming, diverting, draining, dumping, developing • 1/3 of world’s fish species endangered (vast majority are freshwater fish) • 800k dams on world’s rivers, 500k altered for navigation

Food production Water quality Water quantity Biodiversity Condition:Capacity: Good Mixed Poor Decreasing Fair Decreasing Bad Decreasing State of the world’s freshwater ecosystems Source: World Resources Institute, Pilot Assessment of Global Ecosystems

II. Water as a source of violent conflict • “The wars of the next century will be over water.” (Ismail Serageldin, World Bank) • “The next Middle East war will be over dwindling water supplies.” (Moammar Gaddafi) • “Conditions are ripe for a century of water conflicts.” (The Economist )

Water and conflict: Some key questions • What is the historical record? • What likelihood of future conflict, given changing conditions? • At what levels of social aggregation—localized, interstate, …? • By what specific pathways?

Gleick’s typology of historicalwater conflicts: • Control of Water Resources:water supplies or access are at the root of tensions. • Military Target: where water resources/systems are targets of military actions by nations or states. • Military Tool: water resources/systems used as a weapon during a military action. • Political Tool: water resources/systems themselves used for a political goal. • Terrorism: water resources/systems are targets or tools of violence or coercion by non-state actors. • Development Disputes: water resources/systems are a major source of contention/dispute in context of economic development.

Pacific Institute Water and Conflict Chronology http://worldwater.org/conflict.htm

Potential pathways to water-related violent conflict • Interstate conflict in shared river basins • Violence triggered along pre-existing social cleavages (ethnicity, identity group, social class, region) • “Developmental” states in conflict with affected domestic communities • Coercive environmental protection or water-related restrictions

Problem: Growing water stress in the world’s river basins • 2.3 billion people live in river basins under “water stress” (<1700 cu. meters/yr per capita) • 1.7 billion people live in river basins under “high water stress” (<1000 cu. meters/yr per capita) Source: World Resources Institute, World Resources 2000-2001

Problem: Thinly institutionalized cooperation on shared basins • 263 internationally shared river basins • fewer than 20% have a cooperative international agreement in effect • only a handful have accords involving all basin states • 1997 U.N. Convention on Shared Watercourses--not in force

Oregon State University “Basins at Risk” project (Wolf et al) • 50-year database of scaled cooperative and conflictual events • Tested wide array of social, economic, political variables for causal link to conflictual/cooperative events • Used results to identify “basins at risk”

Findings: • Cooperative events outnumber conflictual by more than 2 to 1 • Few extreme events • Major issues: water quantity and water infrastructure • Variables that don’t explain much: income level, regime type, water stress (!)

Findings (cont’d): Key is rate of change—when rate of change within basin exceeds capacity of institutions to adapt—specifically: • “internationalized” basins • unilateral development in the absence of international cooperative agreement

Findings (cont’d) • From this, extrapolate 17 “basins at risk” Source: Wolf et al, “International Waters: Identifying Basins at Risk,” Water Policy 5 Number 1 (2003) 29-60

Pathways to violent conflict: • Interstate conflict in shared river basins • Violence triggered along pre-existing social cleavages (ethnicity, identity group, social class, region) • “Developmental” states in conflict with affected domestic communities • Coercive environmental protection or water-related restrictions

The Homer-Dixon thesis: • Scarcity-induced violent conflict as a result of environmental change • Tendency of conflict to play out along pre-existing social cleavages • “Yes, but…”: Subsequent statistical studies show weak association, low-grade violence, importance of intervening variables

Critical ecosystem Anchor of local livelihoods and culture Scarce commodity with market value

“A river plays a very big role in our culture. It has a lot to do. If somebody passes away or maybe was killed by the lightning, usually he would be buried next to the river. It is a place where our traditional doctors go to get qualified. Some people say they talk with their ancestors right in the river. If a girl is about to start her first period, a traditional way to guide her is to take her to the river. Apart from that, if someone in the family dreams about a river, it will mean that someone in the family is pregnant; and if I am a mother, I should know that something is wrong with one of my daughters.”--Mathato Khit’sane, Highlands Church Action Group, Lesotho

Nehru: “Dams are the temples of modern India.” Stalin: “Water which is allowed to enter the sea is wasted.” World Commission on Dams estimates that 40-80 million people have been displaced to make way for large dams and water projects

Trends in state-society water development conflicts • Transnationalization of opposition • Increasing success of dam opponents (in context of greater private-sector role) • World Commission on Dams as a forum for dialogue, conflict resolution • Endurance of site-specific violence when movements choose confrontation and states choose repression

“The squatters live…next to a polluted river and the local authority fear that it could be a source of cholera.” (BBC 2-13-01)

III. Water Cooperation Initiatives • International river-basin cooperation • ‘Stakeholder’ dialogues around infrastructure and privatization controversies • Domestic water policy reforms

Principles for shared riverbasins (1997 U.N. Convention) • All basin states participate • “Equitable and reasonable use” • Obligation to avoid “significant harm” • Regular exchange of information • Prior notification • Peaceful dispute resolution

Water cooperation initiatives • International river-basin cooperation • ‘Stakeholder’ dialogues around infrastructure and privatization controversies • Domestic water policy reforms

World Commission on Dams UN Environment Programme Dams and Development Project

Water cooperation initiatives • International river-basin cooperation • ‘Stakeholder’ dialogues around infrastructure and privatization controversies • Domestic water policy reforms

Examples of innovative domestic water-policy reforms • Brazil: basin-level committees, mixed-membership bodies geared toward conflict resolution • South Africa: human and environmental “reserves”, pricing reforms/minimum free allocation

Global 2000: Major Conclusions “Regional water shortages will become more severe. In the 1970-2000 period population growth alone will cause requirements for water to double in nearly half the world. Still greater increases would be needed to improve standards of living. In many [less-developed countries], water supplies will become increasingly erratic by 2000 as a result of extensive deforestation. Development of new water supplies will become more costly virtually everywhere.”

Projected Global WaterWithdrawals in Year 2000 (cu. km), by year of forecast Source: Adapted from Gleick, The World’s Water 2000-2001

scenario: Raskin “reference” Seckler “BAU” Gleick “vision” WWC “vision” Raskin “reform” Seckler “efficiency” projected withdrawal (cu. km/yr): 5044 4569 4270 4200 4054 3625 Scenarios for global water use in 2025

Critical variables shaping water futures: -Population growth -Economic growth -Technological innovation ** Water finance trends & pricing policies ** Management of social controversies ** International river diplomacy

Water, violence, conflict and cooperation