In fact, there is a long and highly informative history of conflicts and
tensions over water resources, the use of water
systems as weapons during war, and the targeting of water systems during conflicts caused by other factors. The possible flash points are the Nile, Niger, Volta and Zambezi basins. "There is already little water left when the Nile reaches thesea," he says. In the dying years of the previous Ethiopian government,
tensions withEgypt increased rapidly when the rulers in Addis Ababa pondered the construction of dams on the Nile. The River Cuito which begins in Angola before heading through the Caprivi strip in Namibia and ending in the marsh lands of the Okavango Delta in Botswana runs through an area that is no stranger to tensions and conflict between neighbours. Agriculture is by far the biggest user of water in Africa accounting for 88% of water use. It takes about 1,000 tonnes of water to produce every tonne of grain. World watch says that already the water needed to produce the annual combined imports of grain by the Middle East and North Africa is equivalent to the annual flow of the Nile. For this reason the UN proposes monitoring worldwide reserves of drinking water and establishing agreements for the use of water.Talk of water wars reverberates around the globe these days. And while history suggests that cooperation over water has been the norm, it has not been the rule. The incident took place in Shandong, the last province through which the Yellow River runs before reaching the sea. The location is note worthy because the geography of water-related tensions is beginning to show a pattern: Disputes are erupting within countries in the down stream regions of over tapped river basins. And there is intensifying friction in the lower portions of the Indus River, where Pakistan's Punjab and Sind provinces have been feuding over water for several years. Asia today has roughly 60 percent of the world's people but only 36 percent of the world's renewable fresh water. Currently water-stressed countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East account for 26 percent of globalgrain imports. Driving privatization is a confluence of forces: the mounting costs and political liabilities of providing urban water services, increased pressure on governments from the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and theWorld Bank to reduce water subsidies and public-sector debt, and the growing power of private corporations seeking to profit from the sale of water and related services. Especially where privatization takes place in the presence ofpoverty and inequality, which is to say in most of the developing world, it canlead to civil protest and violence. The conflict abated only when the water system returned to public control. Activists in Colombia and South Africa like wise have opposed the privatization of water and other municipal services. These international water sheds account for about 60 percent of the world's fresh water supply and are home to approximately 40 percent of the world's people. Yet, the overarching lessonto draw from the basins of the Jordan, the Nile, and the Tigris and Euphratesrivers and other regions of water dispute is not that worsening scar city willlead inevitably to water wars. The signing of a treaty between the two countries in 1959 defused tensions before the dam was built. As in the case ofthe Jordan, only in recent years have the Nile nations begun to work cooperatively toward a solution. India unilaterally constructed a barrage during the 1960s and early 1970s on the Ganges River at Farakka, near the border with Bangladesh, in order to channel more river water to the port of Calcutta. Eight of the basins are in Africa, primarily in the south, while six are in Asia, mostly in the south east. Few are on the radar screens of water-and-security analysts. Consider, too, theOkavango, the fourth largest river in southern Africa. Angola and especially Botswana object to the scheme because of its pial harm to the people and ecosystems that depn the Okavango's flow for their existence. The main institution that can help manage the dispute is the fledgling OkavangoCommission, formed in 1994 to coordinate plans in the basin. The commission has recently received renewed support from the Southern Africa DevelopmentCommunity, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and other agencies, but the water dispute continues to simmer. The river system is the source of drinking water for large portions of these nations, but millions of tons of untreated sewage and industrial waste regularly push the level of water pollution to 10 to 100 times international standards. These water strains exacerbate, and are exacerbated by, relations over other contentious issues in the region, notably those of Nagorno-Karabakh and the proposed pipeline to transport Cas pian crude oil across the region to Turkey. The challenge to governments and international bodies is to recognize the new geography and causes of water-related conflict and to embrace three guiding principles as they act to promote water security.