NE ENVIRONMENT BUREAU
CHENNAI, AUGUST 27
This year’s theme of World Water Week, taking place in Stockholm (25-29 August,) is ‘Bridging Borders: Water for a Peaceful and Sustainable Future.’ The theme is timely given a decade-long rise in violent conflicts triggered by water shortages.
While the prospect of fully blown water wars between countries is unlikely any time soon, thousands of people are dying due to water-triggered conflicts. Yet it is in our power right now to de-escalate tensions.
With the global population set to rise to 9.8 billion by 2050 and climate change already affecting once-reliable all-year water sources, governments and utility companies are quietly dusting off plans to cope with the prospect of day-zero events. In other words, contingency planning for when the taps run dry.
According to UNICEF, four billion people—almost two-thirds of the world’s population—experience severe water scarcity for at least one month each year. Furthermore, the UN and World Bank predict that drought could threaten 700 million people with displacement by 2030.
Today, unprecedented levels of dam building and water extraction by nations are leaving countries further downstream complaining. This is compounded by aquifers seldom respecting national borders.
In Europe, a dispute between Spain and Portugal over water levels in the Douro River stoked tensions in 2022 when Spain said it would no longer fully honour the Albufeira Convention, a treaty governing water transfers to its Iberian neighbour. A year earlier, 31 people were killed when Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan traded cross-border shots over a disputed reservoir and pumping station.
While water-triggered armed conflict between nations is rare, urgent attention should be given to a global fourfold increase in water conflicts in the period 2012-2021 compared to 2000-2011.1 Most of these arise internally, often when local subsistence farmers clash with police, troops, and rival groups in regions such as the Middle East, southern Asia, and the Sahel. According to a 2015 entry in the Water Conflict Chronology database, “The Yemeni Interior Ministry claims up to 4,000 people die annually from water-related violence including raids on wells and other fights over water access involving armed groups.”
It doesn’t have to be this way
Diplomacy is key. Firstly, to prevent disputes from evolving into conflict, parties must be willing to listen to grievances and explore potential resolutions.
Introducing a third party with experience in hydrological issues, climate adaptation, and water management can pivot the discussion to focus on root causes.
In many instances, the issue is not a lack of water nor an urgent need to build new reservoirs and lay pipelines. Often, a dispute can be resolved by the improved operation and maintenance of the existing water system. The introduction of science allows for a better understanding of the natural system and helps inform the solution. This is the basis of science-based water diplomacy.
When La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, experienced a day-zero event and the taps went dry, a national emergency was declared. The solution was not additional reservoirs but preventing water loss by improving the monitoring of existing water assets and combining data collected with a hydrological model and smart tool.
The tool constantly checks weather forecasts, dam levels, and flow data to help operators make better decisions and take preventative actions. As a result, the chance of another day-zero event was reduced from one in four years to one in 10 years.
We must adopt water-cooperation as the principal approach: Raveendra Bhat
“‘Bridging Borders – Water for a Peaceful and Sustainable Future’ is an apt theme for this year’s World Water Week, where we address that water is our shared resource connecting us beyond borders. Having a water-secure nation will pave the path for a sustainable and an energy-positive economy. Both water and energy are the basic foundation of a good economic development for any nation, we must hence focus on harnessing technology that can make governments and communities more future-ready. Countries such as India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Nepal have shown diverse needs and disparate usage patterns across vast geographies,” Raveendra Bhat, Area Sales Director, Water Utility – INDO Region, Grundfos (Water Utility), said.
“To address the multiple challenges across borders, we must adopt water-cooperation as the principal approach. The water cooperation model must be rooted in scientific principles of water management, sharing of cutting-edge technologies and the collective acknowledgement that by advancing the flow of water, we are advancing the flow of life. As a leading manufacturer of intelligent pumping solutions, we at Grundfos are proud to lead the way in fashioning sustainable and energy-efficient solutions and making a water-wise future a reality,” added Bhat.
