Water Scarcity and Conflict - Prospects for Human Security - Essay Example

? Water Scar and Conflict - Prospects for Human Security Water is an important component of every livelihood on the planet earth. Water supports life of all living creatures on the planet both animals and plants (Arsenault, 2012). This is clear justification that water is one of the most valuable components of life but the extent to which its significance has never been accorded the level of seriousness it deserve is currently a cause for worry to the entire planet. Increasing demand for this important resource is distressing many countries in the globe and a number of avenues are being instituted to avail fresh water to everyone. Water is productive resource to human being considering its diverse use in the society particular in economic and social sector. Water is used to serve different domestic purposes and so is in economic sector where it is used in manufacturing processes, hydropower generation, and agriculture (Smithies, 2011). This clearly manifest that fresh water is a basic human necessity because without it several industrial processes will stall and all life will eventually become extinct. This means that when people feel that their livelihood and survival is threatened by water scarcity it is likely that they will turn hostile owing to fear, desperation and competition to protect the scarce resource. Earth is undoubtedly a water planet but unfortunately, approximately 1% of earth water is available for human use in an easily accessible way in its freshest form from either the lakes or rivers (Arsenault, 2012). Large part of the earth water approximately 97% is in the oceans and seas while the remaining percentage is held in deep underground water table and icecaps. However, unlike other natural resources water is substantially renewed through a natural cycle whereby rain falls from clouds onto the land and into the rivers and finally to the ocean where they evaporate once again and form clouds. At least 44,000 cubic kilometers of water gets on to land annually as the earth’s hydrological system pumps and transfers the water. Geologists estimate that the word boasts of at least 1,700 cubic meters per person, which is the minimum threshold that is required for household, agricultural and industrial use (UNDP, 2006). However, the biggest challenge is the wide disparity in the distribution of this vital resource considering certain countries are endowed with vast water resources while other have less or none at all. This difference in availability varies with regions. For instance, countries in Latin America boast of at least 12 times more water per individual compared to those in South Asia. Individuals can understand water scarcity from the dimension of supply and demand equation whereby demand surpasses supply. However, the biggest challenge lies in understanding what is leading to increasing water scarcity and its ultimate consequences. Hydrologists consider 1,000 cubic meters of water per person to be a state of water scarcity and below 500 cubic meters to be absolute scarcity. In most countries around the globe with the exception of perennial arid areas, water has been seen as an unlimited natural resource owing to the seasonal renewal through rainfalls (UNDP, 2006). Because of this reason, human population has continually exploited available water resources with little regard for future costs of overexploitation. People continue to misuse water to the extent that countries with adequate water supply owing to consistent rainfall are experiencing high level of scarcity. Most of these countries especially in African continue to battle with drought and crop failure and perennial hunger. It is unfortunate that public view about water security is only focused on scarcity. In other words, people are only concerned about the world running out of water while ignoring an important aspect of water insecurity, which involves mismanagement. Water security revolves around risk and vulnerability. This is evident in societies that have managed to harness the productive potential of water while at the same time limit negative consequences overtime since earliest civilization to the current globalised world has significantly managed to improve human progress of their civilians and vice versa. Most of these countries lie in the developed world as they have managed to overcome challenges of inadequate water supply. Eckstein (2009) asserts that human well being is enhanced based on effective predictability and reliability of access to water and guard against risks related to water. Too little of something important such as water can be so destructive as in the case of droughts and vice versa is true as too much water can lead to flooding and final destruction of arable land and property. Northern Kenya is a powerful demonstration of how too little of fresh water has caused perennial drought in the area leading to destruction of both human and animal lives (UNDP, 2006). A number of things have changed over time regarding water use while others have remained the same. For instance currently as in the past people still use water for agricultural purposes particularly irrigation. Today as in the past irrigation remains to be one of the biggest users of fresh water (Rassul, 2011). However, in the recent past use of fresh water in municipalities and industrial purposes has been increasing significantly and this can be attributed to the consistent growth of population and industrialization. In other words, the demand and use of water is growing at an alarming rate in at least a century and the trend is continuing. Water use patterns have also changed significantly over the past one hundred years. For instance, in the past 2 decades global industrial use of water was estimated at 6% however, its usage has gone up four times (Wagner, 2008). The municipalities’ use of water has also tripled over the same period to 9%. Despite the fact that industrial and municipal use of for water has grown threefold in one century, agriculture still leads in water consumption. This is because in most developing and emerging nations 80% of water is used for food production. Agricultural consumption of water takes over 70 times more than what is required by a household for domestic purposes (Smithies, 2011). It is undoubtedly that the pattern of water use will continue to change from time to time. The municipalities and industrial will continue to draw large share of water owing to the persistent growth in manufacturing and urbanization (Arsenault, 2012). The same case will happen for irrigation consumption as populating increase and growth in wealth will lead to high demand for food. Apart from increased urbanization, manufacturing and demographic pressures, climate change has also been blamed for the increasing water scarcity. Global warming is already with the planet earth and the rate at which it is influencing evaporation and precipitation associated with highly unpredictable hydrological cycle is worrying. Increased air temperatures in the 21st century are likely to increase evaporation from salty ocean waters. These wild weather exeprinces will go together with changes in rainfall patterns and more extreme events such as droughts and failing crops. Continuously worming of planet earth will bring with it many challenges especially water security and human development in world’s poor and growing countries(CLICO, 2012). It is unfortunate that most of people in Sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas and much worse, they relied entirely on the rain fed agriculture at the time when the continent is facing highly variable and unpredictable climate. The unpredictable climate pattern is making the continent extremely prevalent to water scarcity owing to prolonged drought. Water scarcity is key among humanitarian concern that currently lies at the top of global agenda in the potential security challenge in the 21st century discussions. Water insecurity has been highlighted as one among human sustainability challenges that is likely to turn into a breeding ground for potential security challenges around the globe especially human conflict and insecurity (Al-Bayaa, 2011). Other human sustainable challenges that pose a threat to security challenge include but not limited to pollution, poverty, illiteracy and hunger. The United Nations defines human security as a state where all the conditions necessary for humans to live freely enjoying their freedom and dignity are available. These conditions include social, economic, environmental and political (CLICO, 2012). It is noteworthy that human security is a versatile aspect and it covers several issues, which include freedom from violence, political repression, environmental hazards, diseases, crime and hunger. Water scarcity is directly linked to a number of these factors hunger and violence owing failing crops and scramble for scarce resource respectively. According to Al-Bayaa (2011), scarcity of an important resource such as water is likely to bring about conspicuous negative consequences in the society. It is a common to find neighboring communities endowed with differing water resource in terms of availability. This means that certain regions tend to face perennial water shortage while others have abundant water resource. If water is not managed appropriately then water scarcity will become a major threat to people’s livelihood, regional tension, food insecurity, and ultimately contribute to internal migration in search of water (Eckstein, 2009). In other words, the impact of water scarcity can be catastrophic to the society considering that it threatens people’s livelihood as well as means of survival. People tend to develop fears and desperation when threatened by scarcity or loss fundamental resources. People combat their fears through increased competition over scarce resource. A combination of fear, desperation and competition for the scarce resource can lead to human conflict and much worse violence if not handled effectively. Water wars unlike military intrusion, which are organized at national levels often, begin at local levels of the society as it may involve one society against another in a small region but it bubbles up into national and regional conflict depending on the gravity of the scarcity (Rassul, 2011). This claim can be justified by the intense relationship between pastoralist tribes in Sub-Saharan Africa for example in northern Kenya, which are always engaged in conflicts over water and pasture for their domestic animals. Regional water wars has been seen on the Nile conflict between Ethiopia and Egypt as once President Hosni Mubarak threatened to send a team to destroy a dam being built by the Ethiopian government on River Nile. Egypt is always ready to go extra mile in protecting both White and Blue Nile because it consider water from the Africa’s longest river a sources of its people’s livelihood. Egypt use water from the river mainly for agricultural purposes specifically irrigation to produce food for its people (Harhay, etal, 2011). The Egyptians also use water from the Nile River for domestic and industrial purposes considering that it is the single largest source of fresh water to the population. At least 780 million individuals across the globe according to the United Nations lack access to safe drinking water (Arsenault, 2012). It is estimated that in the next 2 decades, approximately 47 percent of the total global population will be leaving in areas faced by water shortage and by 2025 at least 30 countries in Middle East will be facing absolute water scarcity characterized by drying streams and drying of existing wells. It is hard to imagine what consequences this unfortunate trend will cause in already turbulent developing nations especially in Africa and Middle East. Government and military planners are aware of the looming threat of violence and constant human conflict over water. A onetime US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did acknowledge the impending water war problems when she confirmed report from the US Director of National Intelligence stating that warned the globe about risk of conflict owing to overwhelming demand of water that supersedes the supply (Arsenault, 2012). Hillary stated that the threats are real and they pose a serious challenge to the national security. The globe is becoming aware of possible water conflicts that would transcend national boarders into regional conflicts in the near future. Houdret (2004) asserts that most countries especially in African and Middle East are currently experiencing water wars at local levels owing to inter-clan and tribe wrangles over the valuable resources but it is assumed that the tension will rise above local boundaries to national and regional levels. This is because most countries around the globe share the same source of fresh water particularly rivers. These are evident in cases where rivers cross borders of neighboring countries one being upstream while the others downstream. Such neighbors might be having ancient cross boarder conflicts but with the looming water, shortage there is risk of conflict if upstream hostile neighbors threaten the only source fresh water (Harhay, etal, 2011). A clear example is in the case of Nile River which crosses more than four perceived hostile neighbors before it gets to it finally drains into Mediterranean Sea. This means that increased draining of water from Nile River by upstream neighbors (Sudan/Uganda) either through irrigation or through industrial will reduce water flow downstream (Egypt) and this would defiantly lead to national security concerns about these neighbors. Water scarcity will continue to pose risks to human security mostly in developing world despite the wide range of measure being instituted by governments to curb mismanagement and promote effective distribution. Significant causes of water wars and its possible threat to human security revolves around ownership and breakdown in the social structure(Rassul, 2011). Ownership of water resources evident in upstream-downstream controls as well as access to wells, which are a major source of freshwater in most countries, is considered by analysts as the biggest source of conflict between clans, tribes, and communities in water stressed countries. Breakdown in the water management system has made it impossible to have checks and balance over claims to water resources (Wagner, 2008). Most developing countries are faced with the biggest problem of corruption and inter-clan clashes, which often tend to undermine the underlying collective knowledge regarding local ownership and entitlement thus creating a fundamental ground for possible conflict between clans. Lack of knowledge about ownership and entitlements has witnessed instances where people clash as more powerful families claim ownership of existing water resource. Rassul (2011) elucidate that ownership wrangles and breakdown in social structure has been breeding ground for upstream and downstream conflicts between communities that highly depends on irrigation as source of employment. Irrigation is by far the leading user of water across the globe and for these farmers to gain access to water for irrigation they need proper support infrastructure. These infrastructure has to be shared between several communities as they share may share canals thus creating upstream and downstream dilemma. With weak social structures in place people in the upstream, tend to overuse water with little regard for farmers downstream thus, creating uneven distribution and scarcity of water downstream (Rassul, 2011). This limited access to water downstream will naturally make farmers agitated and create another potential cause of conflict between the communities as competition for water resource increase. Upstream – downstream dilemma is one of the biggest security threats that is not only affecting countries locally but also regionally especially for regions that are involved in agriculture (Wagner, 2008). Powerful individuals in a society with weak social structure also tend to misuse their power by diverting canals to their large track of land and monopolizing all water resources at the expense of small-scale farmers in water stressed communities (Rassul, 2011). This tendency creates a foundation for possible conflict as weaker and poorer segments of society tend to regroup and try to seize water resources in a hostile manner. Local fragmentation and social division of societies in water stressed regions especially in Asia and Africa is one of another potential risk for conflict. Most of comminutes especially in Africa are already divided along tribal, religious, political and ethnic lines (Houdret, 2004). Water scarcity in such regions makes them high susceptible to sociopolitical exploitation and manipulation as politicians often takes advantage of such divisions to draw their people further apart for individualized interest. In other words water scarcity can be another major reason for pulling already socially fragmented clans and tribes into conflict when competition over access to water is intensified. References Al-Bayaa, A. (2011). Preventive Security in the 21st Century: The Threats of the Threats. Student Pulse, 3 (1). Pp 1-2. Retrieved April 29, 2013 from: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/351/preventive-security-in-the-21st-century-the-threats-of-the-threats Arsenault, C. (2012). Risk of water wars rises with scarcity. Retrieved April 29, 2013 from: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/06/2011622193147231653.html CLICO. (2012). Climate change, water conflicts and human security in the Mediterranean, Middle East and Sahel. Retrieved April 29, 2013 from: http://ec.europa.eu/research/social-sciences/pdf/policy-briefs-clico-112012_en.pdf Eckstein, G. (2009). Water Scarcity, Conflict, and Security in a Climate Change World: Challenges and Opportunities for International Law and Policy. Wisconsin International Law Journal, 27 (3). Pp 213-76. Harhay, M. etal. (2011). Water stress and water scarcity: A global Problem/levy and sidel respond. American Journal of Public Health, 101(8). Pp 1348-9 Houdret, A. (2004). Water as a security concern – conflict or cooperation? Retrieved April 29, 2013 from: http://www.afes-press.de/pdf/Hague/Houdret_Water_Security.pdf Rassul, K. (2011).Water Scarcity, Livelihood & Conflict. Retrieved April 29, 2013 from: http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/CPAU_WaterScarcityLivelihoodandConflict.pdf Smithies, W. (2011). The human dimension of water scarcity. Journal of Human Security, 7(2). Pp 32-46. UNDP. (2006). Water scarcity, risk and vulnerability. Retrieved April 29, 2013 from: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2006_Chapter_4.pdf Wagner, C. (2008). Water and violence: Are scarcity and conflict connected? The Futurist, 42(3). Pp 3-3. Read More