Water Wars

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16 Jan 2024

184

How close are we to water wars?

Many new problems such as climate change and food security force conventional strategic analyzes to change. The possibility of countries entering into hot conflict with each other to access water and food is talked about more frequently than before and is the subject of academic studies and opinion articles.

Developments such as the one-day bloody war between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over the control of the Ispara River in the Fergana Valley in Central Asia last April also fuel discussions. Similarly, there are some other hot regions with constant tension regarding water, such as the Nile Basin, Tigris Euphrates Basin, and Jordan River Basin. Disputes there also bring to mind the possibility of water wars.

But is it really so? How close are we to water wars?

20. yüzyılda su kullanımı ve uluslararası su politikaları:

At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of countries with defined political borders was 57; In the 21st century, this number approached 200. This increase resulted in the sharing of large river basins, which constitute approximately half of the world's land area, by many countries. In this century, in order to feed the rapidly increasing world population, irrigated agriculture and intensive agriculture aiming to obtain the highest efficiency from the soil have intensified, and these practices have even been called the Green Revolution. The increase in water use, both within the Green Revolution concept and in other sectors, has been seen by the United Nations.

If we go back further, the last quarter of the 20th century was a period when water resources were tried to be commercialized, water problems became international and shifted to the political level. In the late 20th century, the conditions that pressured the world's limited clean water resources both increased and differentiated. The world's population, which increased by 3 times during the 20th century, and the need for water, which increased by 7 times, caused those who commented on the future of water resources to worry. These concerns have increased over time with the pollution of water resources, the construction of dams in transboundary river basins and climate changes.

All these problems led countries to determine the rules on how transboundary waters, that is, waters originating from a source country and crossing borders and flowing into the sea from other countries, should be shared.

Negotiations on this issue took time to yield results; The studies that started in the 1950s at the United Nations International Law Commission were concluded only in 1997 with the adoption of the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses by the General Assembly. It was necessary to wait until 2014 for the contract to come into force. Apart from this, another convention prepared by the UN Economic Commission for Europe (Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes) was accepted in 1992 and gained international validity in 1996.

However, these agreements were not accepted by a large part of the countries and did not gain widespread application. Currently, only 116 of the 276 transboundary river basins in the world have river basin management institutions. Most of the agreements made by countries in transboundary basins are agreements between two countries and are not multilateral agreements that include other countries. Approximately 40% of the world's population lives in transboundary river basins. All these conditions reveal that the balance in transboundary water basins is not very stable and can be disrupted at any time.

There is more agreement than conflict on water

The oldest disputes over water sharing date back 4,500 years. At that time, two Sumerian city states, Lagash and Umma, had problems sharing water to be used for irrigation and became parties to the first known water war. However, since then, history has witnessed water agreements rather than "water wars". Prof. from the Water Resources Program at the University of Oregon. Aaron Wolf writes that the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations identified 3,600 agreements on international water resources between 805 and 1984.1

The fact that a vital resource such as water is a very suitable argument for war makes the job easier for those who write war scenarios and make calculations on it. However, there are scientific studies on this subject. As a result of my in-depth research over the years, I have come to the conclusion that efforts to create war from "water" are not entirely based on realistic reasons. I concluded that when a water-related conflict needs to escalate to war, the tension can be escalated to this stage for any reason. In addition, it is very difficult for a water war to have a practical result that will spread over the long term.

Fakat elbette su kaynaklı olan veya olduğu iddia edilen pek çok gerilim ve çatışmaya sık sık şahit oluyoruz.

The military operations that Israel has undertaken to create a water security area since its establishment can be given as examples. For example, in 1964, the Arab League decided to divert the water of some rivers originating from Lebanon and Syria that feed Israel's Sea of Galilee, and in 1965 the Israeli army attacked the region in Syria where diversion efforts were continuing. Conflicts continued and eventually, of course, under the influence of different reasons, the Six-Day War began in June 1967. Israel increased its territory 3.5 times as a result of the war that lasted only six days. These lands included areas with surface and groundwater resources, such as the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Israel also occupied Southern Lebanon in 1982 and transferred the waters of the Litani River to the Hasbani branch through a tunnel, transferring 500 million cubic meters of water annually until 2000.

Apart from these water wars, there were also low-intensity, short-term conflicts that flared up from time to time between Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan, Egypt-Ethiopia, and Azerbaijan-Armenia. However, it is possible to think of these conflicts as controlled tensions that global powers benefit from, unlike those experienced in the Middle East.

This being the case, the slightest tension on these issues causes “water wars” headlines to come to the fore. Because a vital resource like water is considered a very suitable argument for war. Those who make calculations in this field can create the desired perception by using the dizzying progress in communication technologies. Thus, water continues to be used as a justification for wars and to cover up the real causes of war and hegemony.

There will be tensions over water in the 21st century

But all this does not mean that there will not be real water-related tensions in the future.

There will be tensions over water in the 21st century, as in the past. These tensions may also cause small conflicts, but it is not easy to predict an absolute water war.

In fact, for a long time in the world, it has been due to sharing of water on a local scale; in the form of short-term hot conflicts on a national scale; On a global scale, there are economy-oriented water sharing struggles and wars.

The wave of privatization of water and wastewater disposal services began to spread around the world in the mid-1990s. In 2000, the World Bank announced that the global water market was approximately 1 trillion dollars, which further whetted the appetite of transnational water companies. These companies increased their investments in water services with loans provided by the World Bank. In our country, Antalya Municipality had such an experience in 1996 and the process resulted in international arbitration. Huge increases in water prices and decreases in service quality, especially after the privatization of water services in underdeveloped countries, caused large street demonstrations and protests. Companies had to withdraw from some countries. In 2015, the World Bank announced that 34% of the privatizations of water and wastewater services for which it provided loan support could not be completed.