Water: A Source for Future Conflicts

chapter-1

Introduction

The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict."

Ban Ki Moon

Secretary General

United Nations Organisation

Water along with sunlight and wind is one of the most important resources for the sustenance of life because it is a fundamental human need. Its criticality makes it a vital national asset for any country. In view of its all pervasiveness, it is the key to the socio-economic development of any society and as such of the quality of life for the society. With the ever rising population and consequent increase in the economic activities in the overarching envelope of increased energy intensive mechanisation, the water requirement is rising exponentially. This dynamics of the social and economic transformation will continue to spur the demand for fresh water and as such pose a challenge to national planners to find ways and means to bridge the demand-supply gap in the water sector. In this connection role of rivers assumes great importance. Rivers are a crucial source of water resources and physically link upstream and downstream users. While their flow offers ample opportunity for water harnessing, but it also creates barriers and tensions due to certain non-equitable uses and difference in perceptions of the upper and lower riparian about the rationality of each other’s view point due to rising needs of both upstream and downstream users without any accretion in the quantum of available resource. The management of rivers in the context of inter-state relations cannot take place in a vacuum but need a rather complex political and economic framework which should be evolved by a mutual consultation between the stake holders or by coercive methods used by one of the users against other users.

Because of the criticality of the water for the human survival, no wonder, from time immemorial water has had a major bearing on the evolution of civilisations. History is witness to the fact that all human settlements from the time immemorial have come up along the river valleys or have been based on oases in the deserts. All ancient civilisations, of the world, to name a few; Nile Civilisation, yellow river valley civilisation, Indus Valley civilisation and finally Tigris-Euphrates River valley civilisation, have all been river valley civilisations. These civilisations even today are alive and thriving in the form of Egypt, China, India-Pakistan-Bangladesh, Turkey, Iraq and Syria, although it is a separate issue that some of their geographical and political contours have changed with the passage of time.¹

In addition, many a fights between adversaries through the history have either been to deny access to the water or to gain unhindered access to the water. Water has played a central, albeit usually overlooked, role in conflicts throughout the human history, more than even precious energy resources. During the past 50 years alone, there have been over 500 conflicts pitting a country against another country, and 21 instances of actual hostilities as a result of disagreements over water. It is being anticipated that many of the wars of the 21st century will be fought over water. Water and war" are two topics being discussed together with increasing frequency. The problem, each time is as to who owns the water, how the water should be shared between different countries and under what conditions. In this connection it is appreciated that, though partly, water has also played a critical role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and other wars in the region but it was much under reported. The ‘Six-Day’ war, which pitted Syria, Jordan and Egypt against Israel, had partly to do with a disagreement over water. One of the reasons (there were of course many others) as to why Israel has been reluctant to pull out of the Golan Heights and the West Bank; because it fears losing control of water flows by handing over control of them to hostile forces. Even nearer home; Pakistan’s one of the important interest in Kashmir is the water of Jhelum and Chenab. Similarly China’s, one of the main interest, in Tibet is its water based resources. It may be appreciated that the 261 international watershedsii, covering a little less than one half of the land surface of the globe, affect about 40% of the world’s population. During the past 15 years, there have been armed conflicts over water in Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Malaysia, Yugoslavia, Angola, East Timor, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Ecuador and Peru. Several terrorist groups have threatened to poison water systems and water distribution has been regularly targeted in Iraq. However it would be interesting to examine the role of water in the initiation of a conflict or perpetuate/aggravate a conflict or be used as a force multiplier in deciding the outcome of a conflict. In recent times, the British Non Profit Organisation, International Alert released a study,iii identifying 46 countries—home to 2.7 billion people—where water and climate stresses could ignite violent conflict by 2025, prompting UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to say,

The consequences for humanity are grave. Water scarcity threatens economic and social gains and is a potent fuel for wars and conflict.

Case of International Water Channels. Quantum of available usable water in these rivers is increasingly becoming lesser and lesser due to a host of reasons. Though some of the reasons are; population growth, political instability, and conflict, however these reasons need to be examined in detail. Implication of scarcity of any resource which has a cross boundary relevance is part of a resource geopolitics and as such results into a conflict. Main issue remains ownership of water. The Trans boundary Freshwater Dispute Database, needs to be generated which can provide a framework for quantitative, global-scale explorations of the relationship between freshwater resources availability, its augmentation, need for international cooperation to manage these resources and absence of such cooperation & resultant conflict. It has been established by a number of researchers that as scarcity increases, so does the potential for conflict.iv There are many examples of internal water conflicts ranging from interstate violence and death along the Cauvery River in India, to California farmers blowing up a pipeline transporting water to Los Angeles to much of the violent history in the Americas between indigenous peoples and European settlers.v and Popular pressvi point to water not only as a cause of historic armed conflict, but as the resource which will bring combatants to the battlefield in the 21st century. The problem, each time, is who owns the water, how the water should be shared out between different countries and under what conditions. The fundamental problem is that access rights to water are often badly defined. Unlike with other commodities, the institutions of modern capitalism - property rights, private companies, free market prices – have rarely been applied to water, and especially not to water flows that cross different countries. The result is that countries all too often use non-commercial methods to arrange their water supplies – such as finders-keepers, war, or diplomatic deals.vii Indian Subcontinent is endowed by nature, because two of the five river systems by discharge in the world are in Indian Subcontinent:-

Table-1.1  Five Largest Rivers By Discharge

Source: UN Environment Programme and Oregon State University, 2002.

Fig-1.1  Water Availability Per Capita By Basin

Water Security

Before nuances of the water security are studied, it would be pertinent to slightly go back into the matrix of broader human security from where the water security emanates. Security studies have increasingly included in their ambit the domestic factors that can lead to destabilization of a national government and as such there is a need to understand the broader concept of Human Security, which considers security of people not just of territory. A link between the two was established by Ullman (1983),viii who evolved the concept of national security, which is as follows:-

A threat to National security is an action or sequence of events that threatens drastically and over a relatively brief period of time to degrade the quality of life for the inhabitants of a state, or threatens significantly to narrow the range of policy choices available to the government of a state or to private, non government entities (persons, groups, corporations) within a state.

Human Security has been defined by Meyers (1993) and in a broad sense it goes as follows:-

…. Security applies most at the level of the individual citizen. It amounts to human well being: not only protection from harm and injury but access to water, food, shelter, health, employment and other basic requisites that are the due of any person on earth. It is the collectiveity of these citizen needs-overall safety and quality of life-that should figure prominently in the nation’s view of security.

Centrality of Water in the Security Matrix of a Nation. This linkage as explained above clearly establishes the centrality of the Water in a nation’s security matrix. Water security can be defined as the capacity of a set of people to ensure that they continue to have access to potable water. It will be in terms of time and duration. It is an increasing concern which is a function of population growth, drought, climate change, oscillation between El Niño and La Niña effects, urbanisation, salinity, upstream pollution, over-allocation of water licences by government agencies and over-utilisation of groundwater from artesian basins for needs other than basic sustenance. Also non availability of water on account of various tangible and intangible factors has a major bearing on the production of food grains, industrial output and to meet the demands of the service sector. All these aspects enlarge the scope of the water security which, with all these aspects borne in mind, now can be defined as the capacity of a society to the affordable access to clean water for agricultural, industrial and household usage besides for drinking purposes. This revised interpretation of the water security makes it an important part of human security. Historically also it can easily be concluded that water or lack of it caused the collapse of defences in battles where defences were invested but lack of water forced the defenders to accept terms which were less than favourable. In modern times also countries like Israel and Singapore have declared their water sources as national vital interests and have formulated their policies to ensure their safety and security. It will also be not far from truth that one of the major interest of Pakistan in Kashmir and China’s interest in Tibet is the water assets of these two places respectively.

Finite Nature of Water. There is another question which is relevant and calls for a serious examination is; whether quantity of water or more importantly usable water be increased. It is indeed a complex problem and has its co-relation in the availability of energy, capacity to do pollution control, address global warming among many other relevant aspects. Thus Water along with food, pollution control, global warming and energy forms a critical part of the ‘new security agenda’ and redefines the understanding of security as a basis for policy-response and long term planning.

Need to Evolve a Timely Response to Water Shortage. Water security for India implies effective responses to changing water conditions in terms of quality, quantity and uneven distribution. Unheeded it can affect relationships at the inter-state level and equally contribute to tensions at the intra-provincial level. Water security is rapidly declining in many parts of the world.x According to the Pacific Institute While regional impacts will vary, global climate change will potentially alter agricultural productivity, freshwater availability and quality, access to vital minerals, coastal and island flooding, and more. Among the consequences of these impacts will be challenges to political relationships, realignment of energy markets and regional economies, and threats to security.xi It impacts regions, states and countries. Tensions exist between upstream and downstream users of water within individual jurisdictionsxii There are a number of examples in History wherein conflict over use of water from rivers such as the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers has been recorded.xiii Another highly politicized example in history is Israel’s control of water resources in the Levant region since its creation,xiv where efforts of Israel to secure (to reduce the possibility of its water sources falling into the hands of Arabs) its water resources was one of several drivers for the 1967 Six Day War. Water security is sometimes sought by implementing water desalination, pipelines between sources and users, water licences with different security levels and war. More than 50 countries on five continents are said to be at the risk of getting embroiled into conflict over water.xv & ¹ Turkey’s South Eastern Anatolia Project (Guneydogu Anadolu Projesi, or GAP) on the Euphrates has potentially serious consequences for water supplies in Syria and Iraq.xvi In 1987 India recognised water security as an overriding national objective.xvii

Migration and Conflict. With several parts of the India, becoming increasingly water scarce, especially in North India, millions of people will be forced to move away from their homes (internal migration) in search of work and water supply with attended problems of tensions in the region of deficit and also in the new emerging areas of water shortage in areas where these internally migrated people move to. This trend will worsen the tensions that are already prevalent in parts of the country over migrant workers. These tensions will further exacerbate existing ethnic & social divides and increase crime rates especially in urban areas where most rural migrants are likely to gravitate. It is estimated that in the next two decades, more and more rural residents will be forced to abandon their hometowns due to the lack of water resources, and the increase in extreme weather events such as floods. Lack of job security in the agriculture sector due to water shortages will also force many farmers to leave their villages and move towards urban areas. With an increased number of people competing for scarce resources and jobs, an anti-outsider mentality will start to take over, and create a backlash against migrant workers. This tension could manifest itself violently, given the appropriate circumstances and external pushes. While this ‘locals versus outsiders’ conflict is already prevalent in certain parts of the country, and to a large extent in most urban centres, future water shortages will push these conflicts to the forefront of national dialogue. This phenomenon, known as environmental migration, will not be restricted to the Indian territories. Migrants from countries like Nepal and Bangladesh are also likely to move into India due to a serious shortage of water within their own countries, creating a serious human security problem.xviii

With water becoming an increasingly scarce resource, its importance in any discussion on national security has started becoming increasingly more and more regular and significant. Today non-traditional threats are assuming greater importance in the security grid. The ‘securitisation move’ of an existential issue such as water generates political attention, public awareness and policy-initiatives. Human security, as various definitions suggest, is based on access to clean food; basic health care and education; environment, water security and energy security. In this connection it needs to be appreciated that the quantity of water and its regeneration is finite. Gradually its availability per capita is steadily reducing and that is the reason for its criticality.

Scarcity versus Conflict. Due to growing scarcity, water has become a resource of contention and conflict among the regions of a state/ states/ countries sharing the resource and the nature of conflict gets reduced to the question of who has the ‘good’ and how much of it, who needs and how much of it. From an inter-state perspective, an analysis of water security would essentially entail an investigation as to why and when states choose to cooperate over water or why and when states tend to use water as a ‘bargaining tool’ and an ‘instrument of politics’. Finally it is essentially a question of survivability. It is also true that the water resources have rarely been the sole cause of conflict but should be viewed as a function of the relationships among social, political, and economic factors, including economic development.

Most Affected Countries

Based on a map published by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), xix the countries and regions suffering most water stress are North Africa, the Middle East, xx India, Pakistan, Central Asia, China, Chile, South Africa and Australia. Water scarcity is also increasing in other parts of South East Asiaxxi South East Asia as a whole covers 3.20% of the surface area but accounts for 21% of population (1995 Census). The annual average replaceable water resources are 6.8% of the total replaceable water resources (Report of the FAO 1997 axxii). The average per capita availability of fresh water in the entire South East Asia region in 1995 was 2265 CUM as against world average of 7000 CUM per capita.xxiii As far as India is concerned the major reason for declining water availability in the country is the substantial increase in the population. The annual per capita availability in the country was 6008 CUM per year in 1947 which has declined to 2246 CUM per capita per year in 1997.xxiv The pattern of the change with a likely trend up to 2027 has been as tabulated below:-

Legal Framework

The problems of water management are compounded in the international realm by the fact that the international laws that govern it are poorly developed, contradictory, and unenforceable as such international laws on allocating water within river-basin are difficult to implement. The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses approved in 1997 by a vote of 104-3 (though not yet ratified), requires watercourse nations (Article 5) to participate in the use, development, and protection of an international watercourse in an equitable and reasonable manner. In spite of the UN Convention, riparian nations pitch their respective claims and counterclaims based on their interest and interpretation. This raises a fundamental question on whether formal arrangements on long lasting peaceful sharing of river waters can be achieved particularly in regions where the political climate is hostile to co-operative endeavours. In this situation, such long-negotiated instrument of international water law as the 1997 UN Convention on the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, is of little help as it provides for equally contradictory ‘equitable use’ and ‘no significant harm’ principles: while the former is favoured by upstream countries, downstream riparian states insist on emphasising the latter because it protects their own rights. It is also difficult to enforce the Convention in the absence of any international enforcing mechanisms. More importantly, the Convention hardly weighs out a variety of political, social, economic, demographic and environmental factors that encompass each shared river basin.

Water as a