Water Rights and Water Fights: Preventing and Resolving Conflicts Before They Boil Over

Scarcity of freshwater is an increasingly critical public health problem in many parts of the world. World leaders, including United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, have urged that this issue be given high priority. Inadequate access to safe freshwater contributes to waterborne disease, malnutrition, poverty, economic and political instability, and conflict—potentially violent conflict—between countries or groups within countries.

Approximately 97.5% of all water is either salt water or water that has become polluted. Of the remaining 2.5%, nearly 70% is frozen in glaciers and the polar ice caps. Less than 0.01% of all water worldwide is available for human use in lakes, rivers, reservoirs, and easily accessible aquifers.

About three fifths of water flowing in all rivers is shared by two or more countries—in 263 river basins in 145 countries, where two fifths of the world's population lives.¹ As a result, many countries are highly dependent on water resources that originate from outside their national territory. For example, 34% of water resources in India and 76% of water resources in Pakistan originate from outside these countries.² As another example, the Nile River Basin is shared by 11 countries that are mutually dependent for their water resources.

The World Bank estimates that people generally require 100 to 200 liters of water daily to meet basic needs (36.5–73.0 m³ of water per person annually). If one includes other uses of water, such as agriculture, industry, and energy production, the total annual average requirement of water per person is 1000 cubic meters.³ In 1990, 11 countries in arid or semiarid regions of Africa and the Middle East had less than 1000 cubic meters of freshwater available per person.³ Given anticipated major population increases, each of these 11 countries will have substantially less water per person in 2025.

One billion people do not have access to safe water—a problem that will likely increase as the world population grows from 6.8 billion people now to about 9.0 billion by 2050. This problem likely will become especially severe in countries with high population growth rates that share a major source of freshwater with other countries.⁴

Conflicts over water, both within countries and between countries, are sharply increasing (Table 1). However, few of these conflicts have led to violence. Major underlying reasons for these conflicts include (1) low rainfall, inadequate water supply, and dependency on one major water source; (2) high population growth and rapid urbanization; (3) modernization and industrialization; and (4) a history of armed combat and poor relations between countries and among groups within countries. Water scarcity alone, however, is infrequently the cause of armed conflict over water. Immediately precipitating causes include sociopolitical tensions; disputes over dams, reservoirs, and other large-scale projects; and disputes concerning environmental and resource issues.⁵

TABLE 1.

Global Water Conflicts, 1900–2007

Time Period in Which Conflict Began	No. Conflicts	Average No./Year	No. Violent Conflicts and Conflicts in the Context of Violence
1900–1959	22	0.37	At least 19
1960–1989	38	1.27	At least 23
1990–2007	83	4.61	At least 61

Source. Adapted from Gleick.⁵

Although few conflicts over water have become violent, most have arisen in areas in which violence is widespread, and most of these conflicts could have become violent. Violent conflict over water, like other armed conflict, can have disastrous health consequences for individuals and populations, including not only death, injury, illness, and long-term physical and mental impairment, but also destruction of the health-supporting infrastructure of society, including systems that provide freshwater; forced migration, which generally decreases access to freshwater; and diversion of human and financial resources, including resources to maintain and improve access to freshwater.⁶

PREVENTING CONFLICTS OVER WATER

Several possible approaches can prevent conflicts over water. One set of approaches consists of measures to increase the availability of water, including (1) reducing use of water, such as by decreasing wasteful uses and increasing efficient uses; (2) increasing availability of clean water, such as by reducing industrial pollution and sewage contamination of water, improving sewage and wastewater treatment, and improving watershed management; (3) establishing and maintaining new groundwater wells; (4) designing and implementing improved methods of desalinization; and (5) expanding use of greywater (wastewater from domestic activities that can be recycled for some uses), as has been done extensively in Singapore and Israel.

Another set of approaches aims to resolve conflicts over water before they boil over—that is, before they become violent or have other serious consequences. Such preventive measures include (1) laws and regulations at the local, state or provincial, national, or international level; (2) proactive cooperation among nations or among states or provinces within nations; and (3) mediation and arbitration. Internationally, there have been more than 3800 unilateral, bilateral, or multilateral declarations or conventions concerning water, including 286 treaties.⁷ In addition, throughout the world there have been numerous laws and regulations concerning water use at the local, state or provincial, and national levels. Much needs to be done to strengthen the enforcement of existing laws and regulations and to develop new ones to address current issues.

Proactive cooperation can help resolve conflicts over water and help maintain public health, food security, and social, environmental, and economic stability. It can also help prevent violent conflict over water and help build sustainable peace. Two examples of such cooperation in the Middle East have been the Good Water Neighbors Project and the Nile Basin Initiative. The Good Water Neighbors Project, established in 2001, has brought together Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian communities to protect shared water resources and has significantly improved the local water sector and helped to build peace at the local level.⁸ The Nile Basin Initiative, which began in 1999, is an international venture in which nine countries have developed the Nile in a cooperative manner, shared substantial socioeconomic benefits, and promoted regional peace and security.⁹

Much cooperation over water use also exists in other parts of the world. For example, the Autonomous Water Authority created by Bolivia and Peru, which share Lake Titicaca, has enabled these countries to work together on the management of water resources.¹⁰ Another excellent example of cooperative water use can be found by examining the situation of the freshwater basin of the Aral Sea, which is shared by six countries. The surface of the sea had shrunk between the 1960s and 2007 to 10% of its original size by diversion of water, which drained two rivers feeding it and devastated the environment. With the completion of the Kok-Aral Dam, the Aral Sea has now begun to fill again.¹¹

While men make most of the decisions about water policy, the role of women is often inappropriately neglected. Women are the gatherers of water in most developing countries and make most of the decisions about its use for drinking and for personal sanitation. Women are also involved in 70% of food production in developing countries, and, although food production is a major use of water, women have little voice in this aspect of water policy. The targets of Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 3 (promote gender equality and empower women) are far from being achieved.

Despite the great challenges to peace that are posed by current and imminent conflicts over water, there is reason for hope that these dangers can be transformed into opportunities. As the United Nations has stated:

Despite widespread perceptions that water basins shared by countries tend to engender hostility rather than collaborative solutions, water is an often untapped resource of fruitful cooperation.⁷

WHAT PUBLIC HEALTH WORKERS CAN DO

Public health workers can play many roles in ensuring equitable access to freshwater¹² and in reducing the likelihood of armed conflict over water. These roles include (1) raising awareness about the importance of access to freshwater¹³; (2) documenting conflicts over water and their adverse health effects; (3) promoting efforts to prevent contamination of water, to conserve it, and to use it more efficiently; (4) promoting nonviolent approaches to resolving conflicts over water; (5) promoting proactive cooperation among countries or groups within countries; and (6) supporting a key target of MDG 7 (reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015). Public health is what we, as a society, do collectively to assure the conditions in which people can be healthy. Two of these critically important conditions are adequate access to freshwater and sustainable peace. By preventing conflicts over water, public health workers can help ensure these two basic requirements for public health.