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The global water crisis and the coming battle for the right to water.

Article Excerpt
The Future of Water

The three water crises--dwindling freshwater supplies, inequitable access to water and the corporate control of water--pose the greatest threat of our time to the planet and to our survival. Together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, the water crises impose some life-or-death decisions on us all. Unless we collectively change our behavior, we are heading toward a world of deepening conflict and potential wars over the dwindling supplies of freshwater--between nations, between rich and poor, between the public and the private interest, between rural and urban populations, and between the competing needs of the natural world and industrialized humans.

Water Is Becoming a Growing Source of Conflict Between Countries

Around the world, more that 215 major rivers and 300 groundwater basins and aquifers are shared by two or more countries, creating tensions over ownership and use of the precious waters they contain. Growing shortages and unequal distribution of water are causing disagreements, sometimes violent, and becoming a security risk in many regions. Britain's former defense secretary, John Reid, warns of coming "water wars." In a public statement on the eve of a 2006 summit on climate change, Reid predicted that violence and political conflict would become more likely as watersheds turn to deserts, glaciers melt and water supplies are poisoned. He went so far as to say that the global water crisis was becoming a global security issue and that Britain's armed forces should be prepared to tackle conflicts, including warfare, over dwindling water sources. "Such changes make the emergence of violent conflict more, rather than less, likely," former British prime minister Tony Blair told The Independent. "The blunt truth is that the lack of water and agricultural land is a significant contributory factor to the tragic conflict we see unfolding in Darfur. We should see this as a warning sign."

The Independent gave several other examples of regions of potential conflict. These include Israel, Jordan and Palestine,...

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