Search results
May 8, 2024 · The term 'water conflict' describes tensions or disputes between states, countries, or people groups surrounding the utilization, consumption, or control of water resources. In this article, we'll cover: Some of the major causes of water conflict around the world. A timeline of water conflict throughout human history.
- Water Scarcity
In places where water is already scarce, geopolitical...
- Subscribe
Water Crisis; About. About Us; Contact Us; Subscribe!...
- Water Crisis
The global water crisis is projected to increase in severity...
- Water Scarcity
- Overview
- Where is groundwater the most threatened?
- How did these giant basins become so depleted?
- How has irrigation changed farming?
- How much water remains?
- Is there any good news?
Underground water is being pumped so aggressively around the globe that land is sinking, civil wars are being waged, and agriculture is being transformed.
To learn more about global water wars, watch Parched.
Beijing is sinking.
In some neighborhoods, the ground is giving way at a rate of four inches a year as water in the giant aquifer below it is pumped.
The groundwater has been so depleted that China’s capital city, home to more than 20 million people, could face serious disruptions in its rail system, roadways, and building foundations, an international team of scientists concluded earlier this year. Beijing, despite tapping into the gigantic North China Plain aquifer, is the world’s fifth most water-stressed city and its water problems are likely to get even worse.
Beijing isn’t the only place experiencing subsidence, or sinking, as soil collapses into space created as groundwater is depleted. Parts of Shanghai, Mexico City, and other cities are sinking, too. Sections of California’s Central Valley have dropped by a foot, and in some localized areas, by as much as 28 feet.
The most over-stressed is the Arabian Aquifer System, which supplies water to 60 million people in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Indus Basin aquifer in northwest India and Pakistan is the second-most threatened, and the Murzuk-Djado Basin in northern Africa the third.
Drought, bad management of pumping, leaky pipes in big-city municipal water systems, aging infrastructure, inadequate technology, population growth, and the demand for more food production all put increasing demand on pumping more groundwater. Flood irrigation, which is inefficient, remains the dominant irrigation method worldwide. In India, the wo...
Irrigation has enabled water-intensive crops to be grown in dry places, which in turn created local economies that are now difficult to undo. These include sugar cane and rice in India, winter wheat in China, and corn in the southern High Plains of North America. Aquaculture has boomed in the land-locked Ararat Basin, which lies along the border be...
More is known about oil reserves than water. Calculating what remains in aquifers is extraordinarily difficult. In 2015, scientists at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada concluded that less than six percent of groundwater above one-and-a-half miles (two kilometers) in the Earth’s landmass is renewable within a human lifetime. Bu...
Depleted groundwater is a slow-speed crisis, scientists say, so there's time to develop new technologies and water efficiencies. In Western Australia, desalinated water has been injected to recharge the large aquifer that Perth, Australia's driest city, taps for drinking water. China is working to regulate pumping. In west Texas, the city of Aberna...
A wide range of water conflicts appear throughout history, though they are rarely traditional wars waged over water alone. [5] Instead, water has long been a source of tension and one of the causes for conflicts. Water conflicts arise for several reasons, including territorial disputes, a fight for resources, and strategic advantage. [6]
Mar 22, 2024 · The United Nations World Water Development Report 2024, published by UNESCO on behalf of UN-Water, highlights that tensions over water are exacerbating conflicts worldwide. To preserve peace, States must boost international cooperation and transboundary agreements.
Conflicts View Water Conflict Chronology Map | Contact. Copyright 2024 Pacific InstitutePacific Institute
Mar 24, 2021 · Rather, the term “water wars,” in order to be analytically useful, refers to conflicts over rights of economic exploitation of water, whether through the support of fishing fleets or the...
People also ask
Will there be a large-scale water war?
What is a water war?
Will there be a water war in the next 10 years?
What is water conflict?
Water Conflict. In an ongoing effort to understand the connections between water resources, water systems, and international security and conflict, the Pacific Institute initiated a project in the late 1980s to track and categorize events related to water and conflict, which has been continuously updated since.
