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THE MYTH OF WATER WARS: A HYDROPOLITICAL ECONOMY
OF CONFLICT AND COOPERATION
by
JASON JESSEE MORRISSETTE
(Under the Direction of Markus M.L. Crepaz)
ABSTRACT
Although scholars and policymakers alike have predicted the outbreak of “water wars” in
recent decades, violent interstate conflicts over scarce water resources have yet to materialize. I
make the case in that such dire forecasts fundamentally stem from a flawed conceptualization of
water as a nonsubstitutable, zero-sum resource. Building on the concept of “virtual water” (the
water embedded in the food a country imports) as a substitute for actual water resources, I
introduce the concept of hydrovulnerability to describe a given state’s economic capacity to cope
with the challenges of water scarcity. Furthermore, I go on to argue that the political economy of
virtual water plays a significant role in determining why some international river basins are
characterized by ongoing disputes over fair and equitable distribution, whereas others have taken
important steps toward cooperation. To test this theory, I compare two case studies: the Tigris-
Euphrates and Nile river basins.
INDEX WORDS: Water wars, Virtual water, Conflict, Cooperation, Political economy, Institutions, Tigris-Euphrates River Basin, Nile River Basin
THE MYTH OF WATER WARS: A HYDROPOLITICAL ECONOMY
OF CONFLICT AND COOPERATION
by
JASON JESSEE MORRISSETTE
B.A., King College, 1999
M.A., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2001
A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial
Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
ATHENS, GEORGIA
2007
© 2007
Jason Jessee Morrissette
All Rights Reserved
THE MYTH OF WATER WARS: A HYDROPOLITICAL ECONOMY
OF CONFLICT AND COOPERATION
by
JASON JESSEE MORRISSETTE
Major Professor: Markus M.L. Crepaz
Committee: Jeffrey D. Berejikian Han S. Park Jaroslav Tir
Electronic Version Approved:
Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia August 2007
iv
DEDICATION
For Mom, Dad, and Kourtney
v
ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
This research would not have been possible without the indispensable guidance of my
dissertation committee: Markus Crepaz, Jeffrey Berejikian, Han Park, and Jaroslav Tir. Special
thanks also go out to Christopher Allen who served as an advisor in the early phases of the
project. Furthermore, I am in debt to Doug Borer for not only offering valuable advice at every
step of my graduate career, but also starting me on the path of researching water and conflict in
the first place. In addition, I would like to express my appreciation to the graduate student
colleagues who have offered insight and support as I have worked on this project, including (but
not limited to) Stacey Gibson-Mitchell, Aysuda Koleman, Brad McAllister, Greg McBrayer, and
Dwight Wilson. Finally, thanks to Coach Daryl Taylor. I couldn’t have done it without you.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................v
LIST OF TABLES......................................................................................................................... ix
LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................x
CHAPTER
1 INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGE OF WATER SCARCITY .........................1
Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................2
Project Overview .....................................................................................................4
Water at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century ........................................................7
How is Water Used? ..............................................................................................10
How Much Water is Needed? ................................................................................13
How Much Water Do States Have? .......................................................................17
What are the Threats to Global Water Supplies?...................................................20
Economic, Technical, & Pragmatic Obstacles to Resolving Water Scarcity ........26
Conclusions............................................................................................................28
2 WATER SCARCITY AND CONFLICT .................................................................30
Environmental Scarcity and Conflict.....................................................................34
Water as a Security Issue .......................................................................................43
Water Conflict: Domestic and International Disputes ...........................................49
Water as a Legal Issue ...........................................................................................58
vii
Water Wars and International Relations Theory ...................................................63
Quantitative Studies of Environmental and Water Conflict: An Overview ..........68
Is the Water Wars Thesis All Wet?........................................................................71
3 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HYDROVULNERABILITY ..........................72
Skeptical Voices in the Water Wars Debate ..........................................................72
The Six-Day War: A War over Water?..................................................................78
Why No Water Wars? Three Possibilities ............................................................83
An Indirect Link?...................................................................................................85
Water as an Economic Resource............................................................................89
Virtual Water: Buffering Against Water Scarcity .................................................91
Virtual Water and Hydrovulnerability ...................................................................98
Measuring Hydrovulnerability.............................................................................105
Conclusions..........................................................................................................107
4 CASE STUDY: THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES RIVER BASIN..............................110
A Note on Case Selection ....................................................................................111
Organization of Case Studies...............................................................................115
The Troubled Waters of the Tigris-Euphrates .....................................................116
Hydropolitics along the Tigris-Euphrates............................................................122
The Failure of Cooperative Efforts along the Tigris-Euphrates ..........................134
Virtual Water and the Tigris-Euphrates...............................................................139
Conclusions..........................................................................................................144
5 CASE STUDY: THE NILE RIVER BASIN..........................................................147
The Nile: Not Just a River in Egypt.....................................................................148
viii
Hydropolitics on the Nile: Choosing Cooperation over Conflict ........................155
Sub-basin Cooperation Gives Way to Basin-wide Regime Formation ...............163
Virtual Water and the Nile River Basin...............................................................168
Conclusion: The Basins Compared......................................................................173
6 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................178
Avenues for Future Research...............................................................................180
Policy Implications: The Sustainability of Virtual Water....................................181
Policy Implications: Building Better Institutions ................................................184
BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................189
APPENDICES .............................................................................................................................200
I CORRELATIONS ..................................................................................................200
II HYDROVULNERABILITY RANKINGS ............................................................201
ix
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Table 1.1: Water Scarcity in Thirty Developing Countries ...........................................................19
Table 1.2: Population Estimates, 2007 and 2025...........................................................................23
Table 2.1: Selby’s Three Discourses on Water Crisis ...................................................................68
Table 3.1: Virtual Water “Value” Embedded in Common Food Products....................................93
Table 3.2: Virtual Water Flows into the Middle East and North Africa........................................96
Table 3.3: Hydrovulnerability in Fifteen Countries.....................................................................106
Table 4.1: Hydropolitical Economy in the Tigris-Euphrates River System ................................121
Table 4.2: Virtual Water Flows to and from the Tigris-Euphrates ..............................................142
Table 5.1: The Hydropolitical Economy of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt ....................................153
Table 5.2: Virtual Water Flows to and from the Nile River Basin ..............................................170
Table 5.3: Virtual Water and Cooperation and Selected River Basins........................................176
x
LIST OF FIGURES
Page
Figure 1.1: Estimated World Water Use, 1900-2000 ....................................................................14
Figure 1.2: Individual Water Use Per Year ...................................................................................15
Figure 2.1: Hierarchy of State Motivations to Resolve Water Disputes........................................33
Figure 2.2: CPRs and the Prisoner’s Dilemma ..............................................................................36
Figure 2.3: A Neo-Malthusian Model of Environmental Conflict ................................................42
Figure 2.4: Population Growth, Water Scarcity, and Domestic Conflict ......................................50
Figure 3.1: Global Virtual Water Flows ........................................................................................95
Figure 3.2: The Relationship between Virtual Water and Hydrovulnerability............................100
Figure 3.3: Water Resources per Capita and Adequate Access to Water ....................................103
Figure 3.4: GDP per Capita and Adequate Access to Water .......................................................104
Figure 4.1: The Relationship between Virtual Water and Cooperation.......................................110
Figure 4.2: The Tigris-Euphrates River Basin.............................................................................117
Figure 5.1: The Nile River Basin.................................................................................................150
1
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION: THE CHALLENGE OF WATER SCARCITY
Increasingly, scholars and policymakers alike have recognized that the threat of severe
water scarcity will loom large over the developing world in the coming decades as populations
continue to boom and freshwater resources dwindle. The United Nations Development Report
estimates that almost one-third of the 4.5 billion people living in the developing world today
have no access to clean drinking water. The report further notes that the global population
tripled in the twentieth century alone, resulting in a corresponding six-fold increase in the use of
water resources. Moreover, infrastructure problems related to water supply abound in much of
the developing world; the United Nations estimates that between 30 and 50 percent of the water
presently diverted for irrigation purposes is lost through leaking pipes alone. In turn, twenty
countries in the developing world—encompassing roughly one-third of the Earth’s population—
presently suffer from water stress (i.e. demand for water exceeds the available amount or poor
quality restricts its use). Twenty-five more countries are expected to join that list by 2050, for a
total of two-thirds of the world’s total population.1 In response to these trends, the United
Nations resolved as part of its Millennium Development Goals to reduce by half the proportion
of people in the developing world who are unable to reach—or afford—safe drinking water by
2015. Yet, given current levels of financial and institutional commitment, most experts believe
there is little chance these goals can actually be met. And, even if the Millennium Development
1 Human Development Report: Consumption for Human Development (United Nations Development
Programme/Oxford University Press, 1998), 55; “Water Woes Around the World” (MSNBC, 9 September 2002), <http://www.msnbc.com/news/802693.asp>; “Water Scarcity: A Looming Crisis?” (BBC, 19 October 2004), <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3747724.stm>.
2
Goals were achieved, hundreds of millions of people in the developing world would still lack
basic water services.2
As a Turkish proverb cautions, “When one man drinks while another can only watch,
doomsday follows.”3 In addition to struggles over such fundamentally contentious issues as
religion, territory, ideology, nationalism, colonialism, and natural resources, many scholars have
focused on the role of environmental scarcity—in particular, water scarcity—as a potential
source of violent civil and interstate conflict in the developing world. At the risk of
oversimplification, in the coming decades, more and more people around the world will face the
challenge of sharing less and less fresh water. As such, scholars and policymakers suggest that
such a fundamentally competitive scenario presents significant potential for violent conflict.
Purpose of the Study
At the heart of this project are two key research questions. First, what is the relationship
between water scarcity and interstate conflict? Although dire predictions of “water wars” are
increasingly common, I argue that the historical record provides little evidence to suggest that
water has contributed to violent interstate conflict in the past. Nor should we expect it to in the
future. What is the basis for this claim? I contend that much of the pessimistic neo-Malthusian
literature predicting war over water scarcity proceeds from a flawed conceptualization of water
strictly as a nonsubstitutable, zero-sum resource. When we instead begin to think of water as an
economic resource—a commodity like any other in the international economy—we can move
beyond this seemingly inexorable link between scarcity and conflict. Therefore, non-violent
2 Peter H. Gleick, “The Millennium Development Goals for Water: Crucial Objectives, Inadequate
Commitments” in The World’s Water: 2004-2005, ed. Peter H. Gleick (Washington: Island Press, 2005), 1. 3 Arun P. Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World: Conflict and Cooperation in International River
Basins (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1999), 122.
3
solutions to severe water scarcity should be—and, as we shall see, are—quite possible. For
instance, although water is no doubt vital to human survival, substitutes do exist in the global
economy. Chief among these is “virtual water,” or the water resources embedded in food
imported from abroad. By importing virtual water, a water-scarce country can offset water
deficits by reducing its dependence on costly domestic food production. Theoretically, a country
with a relatively strong economy is in the position to mediate the deleterious effects of water
scarcity by importing virtual water as a substitute. To this end, I introduce the concept of
hydrovulnerability as a measure to gauge a given state’s economic capacity to cope with the
challenges of water scarcity.
We now turn to the second research question under consideration in the present study.
Assuming that interstate conflict over water is far from the norm in the international system, how
can we explain variations in hydropolitical outcomes among states that share a transboundary
water source? In other words, why are some river basins characterized by ongoing interstate
disputes over fair and equitable distribution, whereas others have made significant steps toward
cooperative solutions to water management issues? I hypothesize that virtual water plays an
important role in these riparian relations. As I will discuss at greater lengths in the following
chapters, greater reliance on virtual water within a river basin should lead to less intense
competition for actual water resources, therefore buffering against interstate conflict and instead
promoting cooperation. To test this hypothesis, I will examine two case studies: the Tigris-
Euphrates and Nile river basins.
Thus, by beginning to shift the discourse on water scarcity toward what one might call
“hydropolitical economy,” I essentially seek to reintegrate the issue into the greater body of
international relations theory rather than treating it as a sui generis phenomenon that inevitably
4
results in conflict. I argue that such a theoretical reorientation away from the pessimistic, zero-
sum logic of the neo-Malthusians offers a more nuanced understanding of the politics of water
scarcity in a rapidly globalizing world.
Project Overview
The purpose of this project is not to minimize the significance of water scarcity as a
global problem that affects individuals and states alike—quite the opposite, in fact. Instead, it is
intended to contribute additional theoretical and empirical rigor to the existing literature on water
scarcity, conflict, and cooperation. To this end, the present chapter will explore in greater detail
the issue of water scarcity and how it impacts both developed and developing countries. In the
remainder of this chapter, I will survey the availability of water around the world, the role water
plays in economic and social development, the challenge posed by booming populations in the
development world, the inherently transnational nature of shared water resources, and the various
difficulties faced in addressing water scarcity.
In Chapter 2, I review the research on the political and economic ramifications of water
scarcity, emphasizing the so-called “water wars” literature. I evaluate the scholarly literature
linking water scarcity to violent conflict, as well as discuss the challenges presented in achieving
cooperative outcomes over freshwater and other common pool resources. Furthermore, I will
examine the fundamental weakness of international law as it pertains to governing relations
among states with water disputes.
Chapter 3 examines the issue of how states have, by and large, avoided violent conflict
over scarce freshwater resources up to this point. Again, this is the project’s core theoretical
puzzle: if so much of the existing body of literature predicts conflict over water, why does
5
empirical reality suggest that such conflicts are rare if not virtually nonexistent? I suggest there
are three possible answers. First, it could be that water scarcity simply isn’t “bad enough” yet to
lead to conflict. As we shall see, however, there is reason to believe that the pressures created by
water scarcity are already at hand in much of the developing world. Turning to a second
hypothesis, perhaps water contributes to violent conflict less directly than the water wars
literature suggests. It could be that while few wars are fought explicitly over contested waters,
disputes over water may in fact heighten existing tensions between states, escalating interstate
conflicts or extending their duration. To test this hypothesis, I will review quantitative studies of
the relationship between water scarcity and conflict—at the very least, a first step toward a more
thorough understanding of this frequently predicted, yet seldom observed causal connection.
The third possibility I examine in Chapter 3—the hypothesis I argue has the most merit—
is that we do not witness water wars being fought because, as noted above, the literature on water
scarcity and interstate conflict misconceptualizes the nature of water. Specifically, most scholars
tend to view water strictly as a zero-sum, non-substitutable resource. In contrast, I contend that
water scarcity itself is not the key constraint on state behavior, but rather that a state’s economic
capacity to address issues of water scarcity serves as the driving force in determining conflictual
or cooperative outcomes. In other words, as a state’s economic capacity increases, its ability to
address and compensate for water scarcity also increases, therefore serving as a buffer against
violent conflict over scarce resources. In this sense, I am attempting to move toward a concept
“hydrovulnerability,” rather than simply looking at the raw number of cubic meters of freshwater
available in a given state at a given time.
Chapters 4 and 5 are case studies that serve to expand on this economic understanding of
water and, in turn, explain why we observe such significant variation in conflict and cooperation
6
across the world’s transboundary river basins. In other words, why have some river systems
achieved collaborative, multilateral solutions to water management issues, while others continue
to quarrel over the fair and equitable distribution of freshwater resources? Proceeding from a
“most similar systems” design (see Chapter 4 for more details), I compare political outcomes in
the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile River basins. In each case, I survey the hydropolitical economy of
the basin, explore past relations over water, highlight points of contention, and discuss the vital
links between water scarcity, food security, and the global market. Once again, by adopting an
understanding of water as an economic commodity in an increasingly interdependent world, we
can gain significant insight into variations in political outcomes.
Chapter 6 concludes with a summary of my study’s implications for future research on
water scarcity, conflict, and cooperation. In turn, I believe that my research represents a valuable
contribution to existing theory by offering a more thorough analysis of the often-theorized, but
seldom-tested link between water scarcity and conflict. Furthermore, instead of thinking of
water as a unique ecological resource with little room for the peaceful resolution of disputes, my
research approaches it instead as a more fungible, economic resource to be understood in the
context of a global economy. As a result, it integrates inquiry into issues of water scarcity into
the broader body of literature on interdependence and interstate cooperation, rather than treating
hydropolitics as an island unto itself. Shifting the emphasis of scholarly research from water
scarcity to water vulnerability not only presents a more accurate depiction of empirical reality,
but also offers significant insight into how and why states may ultimately achieve cooperation
over transboundary water resources.
7
Water at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century
Before delving further into that crucial nexus of water scarcity and conflict, however, it is
important to establish precisely what we mean when we say “water scarcity.” Environmental
scientists and policymakers alike have advanced countless definitions in recent decades to fully
capture this multifaceted concept, approaching scarcity from both supply-side and demand-side
perspectives. Most recently, in a 2006 initiative addressing the status of global water resources,
the United Nations defined water scarcity as follows:
[T]he point at which the aggregate impact of all users impinges on the supply or
quality of water under prevailing institutional arrangements to the extent that the
demand by all sectors, including the environment, cannot be satisfied fully.”4
The initiative goes on to note that water scarcity is a relative concept; that is, it can occur at any
level of supply or demand. While regions like the Middle East and North Africa may be said to
face absolute scarcity in the sense that there very little fresh water available due to arid climatic
conditions, many non-desert regions of the developing world face also relative scarcity. Even in
countries characterized by reasonable precipitation and readily available groundwater, population
growth or degraded water quality may nevertheless lead to relative scarcity problems.5 In some
cases, water scarcity may even be a social or political construct—the product of customary
behavior or a fundamentally biased system of water distribution. While societies typically have
options for addressing water scarcity, the 2006 United Nations initiative cautions that “scarcity
4 United Nations, Coping With Water Scarcity: A Strategic Issue and Priority for System-wide Action (UN-
Water Thematic Initiatives, August 2006), <ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/aglw/docs/waterscarcity.pdf>. 5 W. Douglass Shaw, Water Resource Economics and Politics: An Introduction (Northampton, MA:
Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005), 3.
8
often has its roots in water shortage, and it is in the arid and semiarid regions affected by
droughts and wide climate variability…that the problems of water scarcity are most acute.”6
Whether viewed in absolute or relative terms, there is little doubt in the scientific and
policymaking communities that water scarcity poses a serious global challenge at the turn of the
twenty-first century. As Sandra Postel notes, “Signs of water stress abound. Water tables are
falling, lakes are shrinking, and wetlands are disappearing.”7 In northern China, for instance, the
water table is dropping at a rate of one meter per year, forcing Beijing to divert water from
farmers in the surrounding countryside in order to supply its own needs. Meanwhile, the level of
the Dead Sea has declined over ten meters in the past century, both as a result of climate change
and ever-increasing human withdrawals from its primary tributary, the Jordan River. Lake
Chad—the primary sources of fresh water for the African nations of Chad, Cameroon, Niger and
Nigeria—is shrinking at a rate of nearly 100 meters per year.8 In aggregate, roughly 40 percent
of the global population now suffers from freshwater shortages for both personal and household
needs.9 To fully appreciate the extent of water scarcity in the twenty-first century, however, one
need look no further than the Bedouin communities that literally live in the shadows of water
pipelines throughout the arid Middle East, depending solely on the water that leaks from the
poorly-maintained pipes to survive. One might also consider the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh,
where women report that they require an average of three hours each day simply to convey their
household’s water from public wells and pipes back to their homes.10 As Arun Elhance notes,
6 United Nations, Coping with Water Scarcity, <ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/aglw/docs/waterscarcity.pdf>. 7 Sandra Postel, Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity (New York: W.W. Norton, 1992), 18-19. 8 Marq de Villiers, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd.,
2003), 12-14. 9 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 8. 10 Steven Renzetti, The Economics of Water Demands (Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002), 1.
For a fascinating treatment of the disproportionate effects of water scarcity based on gender, please see Gender, Water and Development, ed. Anne Coles and Tina Wallace (Oxford: Berg, 2005).
9
the strenuous physical activity of acquiring water under such conditions can burn off up to 600
calories per day—roughly one-third of the average daily food intake in the developing world.11
Clearly, water scarcity is a multifaceted phenomenon, encompassing numerous causes
and directly impacting issue areas ranging from economic development to global health. In an
effort to simplify and define the problem for meaningful analysis, H.L.F. Saeijs and M.J. van
Berkel summarize the four primary challenges faced by the world with regards to freshwater
resources as follows:
1. Shortage of renewable supplies;
2. Unequal distribution of supplies;
3. Problems of water quality and health;
4. Disastrous effects of unrestrained construction of dams and reservoirs.12
In the context of these challenges, I will attempt to answer a series of key questions concerning
water scarcity at the turn of the twenty-first century. First, why do states need water? That is,
what economic and social purposes beyond basic human survival does water serve? Precisely
how much water do states need to survive and, hopefully, thrive? How much water do states
actually have? How is this water distributed? What regions face the greatest water stress? What
are the major threats to global water supplies? Finally, what are the technical and pragmatic
impediments to resolving water scarcity problems?
11 Elhace, Hydropolitics, 9. 12 H.L.F. Saeijs and M.J. van Berkel, “The Global Water Crisis: The Major Issue of the Twenty-first
Century, a Growing and Explosive Problem” in The Scarcity of Water: Emerging Legal and Policy Responses, ed. H.P. Brans et al (London: Kluwer Law International, 1997), 5.
10
How is Water Used?
While water is first and foremost an essential biological need, it is also vital to nearly all
aspects of human life—a fact acknowledged by the World Bank when it describes fresh water as
“a finite and vulnerable natural resource, on which all social and economic activities are highly
dependent.”13 Over the course of human history, Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim S. Gray note that an
abundance of water has enabled various societies to flourish, whereas its scarcity has caused
others to fall.14 Civilization itself arose on the fertile banks of river basins like the Tigris-
Euphrates, the Nile, and the Indus, while early cities formed near natural aquifers and alongside
navigable waterways. The fact that Judeo-Christian and Muslim traditions closely associate the
concept of Paradise with rivers, springs, and running waters speaks to the significance of water
in early human society.15
In addition to potable water for human consumption, personal hygiene and sanitation
demand large amounts of fresh water, as do many other household activities. Going beyond the
individual level, huge quantities of fresh water are required for agriculture, fisheries, mining,
industrial production, generation of electricity, and trade.16 Placed in this context, water scarcity
clearly serves not only as a threat to human security at the individual level, but also as a serious
structural constraint on state development.
While precise estimates vary, agriculture makes the greatest demands on the global water
supply, constituting approximately 70 percent of total water withdrawal annually.17 In more arid
13 World Bank, “Water Resources Management, A World Bank Policy Paper” (1993), quoted in Saeijs and
van Berkel, “The Global Water Crisis,” 5. 14 Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim S. Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East: A Context for Conflict or Co-
operation? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 1. 15 Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 3. 16 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 3-4. 17 One of the challenges of researching the issue of global water scarcity is the difficulty posed by
measuring—or, more accurately, estimating—freshwater reserves in a given state at a given time. The data is often inconsistent depending on the organization collecting it and the means by which it is collected. Whenever possible,
11
regions of the world, such as Egypt, agriculture consumes as much as 98 percent of the overall
fresh water supply. In this regard, not only are food and water basic necessities of human life,
but they are also inextricable linked. During the twentieth century alone, the agricultural sector’s
water used increased roughly five-fold, with much of this growth coming in the last fifty years.
Despite the fact that the scientific advancements of the Green Revolution significantly increased
the yield of farmland in the developing world, agricultural output remains roughly proportional
to the amount of water supplied—and high-yield crops demand massive amounts of water.18 As
such, the goal of “more crop per drop” has proven far more difficult to achieve than many
experts had once assumed. In fact, the Food and Agricultural Administration estimates that in
order for the developing world to maintain its current, arguably inadequate, food supply in the
decade ahead, it will need to extend irrigation to an additional 54 million acres of farmland.19
Therefore, as populations continue to boom in the developing world, and land suitable for
irrigation becomes increasingly scarce, the diversion of water for agricultural purposes will
arguably become even more vital in the pursuit of food security.
After agriculture, industry places the second greatest demands on the global water supply,
constituting roughly 20 percent of the annual freshwater withdrawal.20 Generating electricity is
foremost among these industrial applications, and the role of water goes beyond simply powering
hydroelectric dams. As Elhance notes, “Every form of commercial energy production, whether
the present study relies on information gathered by either the World Bank, the United Nations, or the Food and Agricultural Organization.
18 Patrick Webb, “Water and Food Insecurity in Developing Countries: Major Challenges for the 21st Century,” in Water: Global Common and Global Problems, ed. Velma I. Grover (Enfield, NH: Science Publishers, 2006), 22; Leif Ohlsson, “The Role of Water and the Origins of Conflict,” in Hydropolitics: Conflicts Over Water as a Development Constraint (London: Zed Books, 1991), 6-7.
19 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 10. 20 Patrick Webb, “Water and Food Insecurity in Developing Countries: Major Challenges for the 21st
Century,” 22.
12
petroleum based, thermal, nuclear, or hydroelectric, also requires huge quantities of water.”21 In
addition to generating power, water is also vital to many other industrial activities. For instance,
10 liters of water are consumed in the production of a single liter of petroleum. One kilogram of
paper requires 100 liters of water to produce. Producing one ton of steel consumes 20,000 liters
of water.22 While these estimates do not fully account for the reuse and recycling of water for
industrial production, they also fail to reflect the polluting effects of industry on fresh water—
particularly in the developing world. Therefore, as water scarcity increases, the industrialization,
modernization, and overall economic development of a given state may face severe constraints.
When one considers that many landlocked states rely almost exclusively on river navigation to
conduct international trade, the potential economic impact of declining water tables and water
deficits in general is unquestionable.
Domestic consumption rounds out global water usage at roughly 10 percent annually.23
This category includes the drinking water consumed by a state’s population yearly, as well as the
water used for sanitation and other household purposes such as cleaning, cooking, or laundry.
The consequences of too little potable water for the individual are obvious and do not require
further analysis. It is worth noting, however, that the lack of access to clean, safe water and
adequate sanitation poses numerous health risks to the developing world. Most prominent
among these are water-related diseases, including cholera, dysentery, typhoid and malaria to
name only a few. In the early 1990s, World Health Organization estimates placed the annual
tally of water-related diseases at 250 million (excluding common diarrheal diseases, as well as
those cases undiagnosed or unreported). In addition to the unnecessary deaths caused by these
21 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 10. 22 B. R. Chauhan, Settlement of International Water Law Disputes in International Drainage Basins (Erich
Schmidt Verlag, 1981) summarized in table form in Elhance, Hydropolitics, 11. 23 Webb, “Water and Food Insecurity in Developing Countries,” 22.
13
water-related diseases, other consequences include morbidity, lost workdays, rising healthcare
costs, and the depletion of family resources.24 In a 2006 publication, the United Nations also
notes that “poor communities have tended to suffer the greatest health burden from inadequate
water supplies and, as result of poor health, have been unable to escape from the cycle of poverty
and disease.”25 Economist Jeffrey Sachs expands on this linkage between sanitation, disease,
and poverty, incorporating these factors into his framework of the “poverty trap” that prevents
families in some developing countries from thriving.26 Thus, thirst is not the only consequence
of water scarcity at the individual level.
How Much Water is Needed?
Having examined how states and individuals use freshwater resources, we now turn to the
question of precisely how much water is actually needed. At the state level, it is of course rather
difficult to designate a specific level of need considering variations in population, industrial
development, climate and other factors. To establish a general idea of water usage, however, the
World Resources Institute places the United States’ aggregate annual freshwater withdrawals at
roughly 480 cubic kilometers in 2000. Egypt’s withdrawals in 2000, on the other hand, totaled
68 cubic kilometers.27 While it is difficult to meaningfully compare state-level usage, there is
little question that global water use is on the rise, as Figure 1.1 illustrates.28
24 Gleick, “Millennium Development Goals for Water,” 7-9.. 25 United Nations, Coping With Water Scarcity, <ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/aglw/docs/waterscarcity.pdf>. 26 Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time (New York: Penguin Books,
2005), 51-74, 188-210. 27 World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,” <http://earthtrends.wri.org/>. 28 Data on estimated world water use in Figure 1.1 adapted from “Water Scarcity: A Looming Crisis?”
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3747724.stm>.
14
Figure 1.1: Estimated World Water Use, 1900-2000
As Figure 1.1 highlights, annual freshwater withdrawals have more than quadrupled in the last
century alone, increasing from less than 1,000 cubic kilometers in 1900 to nearly 4,000 cubic
kilometers in 2000. To put these numbers into the context of population growth rates, water use
has grown at more than double the rate of population increase in the last century.29
Turning to the individual level, hydrologists estimate an individual requires a single cubic
meter (approximately 264 gallons) of drinking water per year to survive. In addition to drinking
water, an individual requires an additional 50 to 100 m3 of fresh water for other domestic uses
such as personal hygiene, cooking, and cleaning. Finally, as Tony Allan notes, an individual
requires at least 1,000 m3 of fresh water each year, “either naturally occurring in soil profiles, or
transported to the profiles by irrigation systems, to raise the food needs of that individual.”30
Therefore, to provide an adequate supply of drinking water, address other personal needs, and
29 United Nations, Coping With Water Scarcity, <ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/aglw/docs/waterscarcity.pdf>. 30 Tony Allan, The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics in the Global Economy (London: I.B.
Tauris Publishers, 2001), 6.
15
grow enough food to sustain themselves, individuals requires roughly 1,100 m3 of fresh water
per year. Figure 1.2 summarizes these data.31
Figure 1.2: Individual Water Use Per Year
As the figure indicates, the vast majority of an individual’s yearly water needs are dedicated to
the provision of adequate food supplies. While most countries in the developing world can
provide the 100 m3 of fresh water necessary for personal consumption, acquiring the additional
1,000 m3 embedded in an individual’s annual food intake often proves more difficult—
particularly in arid states and those states with inadequate means of distributing water.
The 1,100 m3 of fresh water per capita per year figure—while it is only an estimate—at
least provides us with a “magic number” through which we can better understand, compare, and
analyze water scarcity around the world. In turn, it remains the indicator of water scarcity at
both the individual and aggregate levels most commonly used by the scientific community, as
well by as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations. Expanding on this baseline
figure, experts have established benchmarks to differentiate between water stress and water
scarcity. Water availability of less than 1,700 m3 per person per year is typically considered a
31 Figure adapted from Allan, The Middle East Water Question, 6.
16
condition of water stress, whereas countries that drop below 1,000 m3 are considered water
scarce. I discuss global freshwater availability in greater detail below, but as an illustration of
current trends, the World Resources Institute estimates that forty states in the Middle East and
Africa alone will experience water stress or water scarcity by 2025 given current consumption
and population growth rates.32 While this may not translate literally to thirsty populations, it
does mean that these states will find it increasingly difficult to provide adequate sanitation,
combat water-related diseases, and grow enough food to feed their growing populations.
These benchmarks are not without their failings, however. As noted, water scarcity is an
inherently relative concept; just because a country is rich in freshwater resources does not mean
that country effectively distributes those resources to its populace. Steve Lonergan, for instance,
cautions against relying too heavily on such estimates in analyzing water scarcity:
Although these benchmarks are widely used, they are not particularly useful. Not
only are there various forms of water scarcity, but the level of stress that is
imposed on an economy will be a function of many social, economic, and
institutional factors, such as efficiency of use, level of national income, and level
of agricultural development.33
To this end, scholars have endeavored to develop more nuanced measures of water scarcity that
take such social, economic, and institutional factors into account. One such measure is the Water
Poverty Index (WPI), which combines “both the physical quantities relating to water availability
and the socioeconomic factors relating to poverty to produce an indicator that addresses the
diverse factors that affect water resource management.”34
32 Steve C. Lonergan, “Water Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul F. Diehl
and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 111-113. 33 Lonergan, “Water and Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 111. 34 World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,” <http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
17
Taking into account these measures of need at the individual level, the United Nations
recently added enhancing “water security” as a key component in its overarching mission of
promoting human security. For instance, a 2004 resolution acknowledges that “water is critical
for sustainable development, including environmental integrity and the eradication of poverty
and hunger, and is indispensable for human health and well-being.” To this end, the resolution
urges that “the goals of the decade should be a greater focus on water-related issues at all levels
and on the implementation of water-related programs and projects…in order to help to achieve
internationally agreed water-related goals.”35
How Much Water Do States Have?
Now that I have defined water scarcity and explored the means through which we might
measure and compare relative degrees of scarcity, what is the current status of the world’s fresh
water? “The trouble with water,” Marq de Villiers offers, “is that they’re not making any more
of it.”36 De Villiers goes on to note, however, that they’re not making any less of it either; there
is the same amount of water on Earth today as there was during prehistoric time. Scientists
estimate the total amount of water in the world at roughly 2 million cubic kilometers—enough to
cover the globe to a height of 2.7 kilometers if spread evenly over its surface.37 However, the
vast majority of this global water supply—approximately 97 percent—is too salty for human use.
Of the remaining 3 percent, most is either locked in the polar icecaps and glaciers or lies too far
underground to utilize. That translates to less than 0.01 percent of the world’s water available
35 UN General Assembly, “Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly, A/58/485” (9 February 2004),
<http://www.unesco.org/water/water_celebrations/decades/water_for_life.pdf>. 36 de Villiers, Water, 8. 37 Ohlsson, Hydropolitics, 5; Lonergan, “Water and Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 110.
18
for human use, or approximately 13,500 km3 on an annual basis.38 If divided equally, Michael T.
Klare notes that this amount “would be more than sufficient to satisfy the basic needs of the
world’s existing human population. Indeed, scientists estimate that only about half of the total
renewable worldwide supply is currently being used.”39 On an individual basis, that averages out
to roughly 2,300 m3 per person—well above the aforementioned “magic number” of 1,100 m3
needed annually to provide for personal consumption and food production. Unfortunately, the
distribution of the world’s freshwater supplies—the “natural dispensation” as de Villiers calls
it—is highly variable.40
Examining the world’s water from a regional perspective in 2006, North America and
Europe boasted renewable water resources of 19,649 m3 and 10,679 m3 per capita, respectively.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s freshwater supplies were estimated at 7,208 m3 per capita, with Asia
trailing behind at 3,989 m3 per capita. The arid and semiarid states of the Middle East and North
Africa unsurprisingly rank last globally, with renewable freshwater resources of only 1,383 m3
per capita —falling within the category of “water stressed” discussed above.41 That is not to
suggest, however, that the Middle East and North Africa are the only regions facing water stress
and scarcity. Even in the highly developed, water-abundant United States (with over 10,000 m3
per capita), there are nevertheless severe water shortages in many southwestern states. What is
certain, however, is that water scarcity impacts developing countries more severely than
developed countries. In 2006, developed countries had 11,391 m3 per capita of renewable fresh
38 Lonergan, “Water and Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 110. 39 Michael T. Klare, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 2001), 144. 40 de Villiers, Water, 19. 41 World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,” <http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
19
water at their disposal; those in the developing world had only 7,693 m3, with many falling
below the 1,100 m3 per capita minimum.42
Figure 1.3 summarizes selected cases of water stress and scarcity from the developing
world, including each state’s actual renewable fresh water resources per capita as well as its
Water Poverty Index score (lower scores indicate water scarcity and poor water provision):
Table 1.1: Water Scarcity in Thirty Developing Countries43
Country Freshwater resources, 2006 (m3 per capita)
Water Poverty Index Score, 2002 (scored from 0-100)
Algeria 349.8 50 Bahrain 157 56 Burkina Faso 916.8 42 Burundi 1600.2 40 Cape Verde 578 41 China 2137.3 51 Cyprus 923.1 62 Djibouti 371.7 38 Egypt 772.8 58 Eritrea 1381.6 37 Ethiopia 1538.7 35 Haiti 1621.4 35 India 1694.1 53 Iran 1955.4 60 Jordan 150.8 46 Kenya 874.5 47 Kuwait 7.2 54 Lebanon 1219.4 56 Morocco 907.9 46 Oman 377.1 59 Pakistan 1381.3 58 Qatar 63.2 57 Rwanda 1029.3 39 Saudi Arabia 95.3 53 Sudan 1743.6 49
42 World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,” <http://earthtrends.wri.org/>. 43 Data in table derived from World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,”
<http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
20
Syrian Arab Rep 1345.8 55 Tunisia 450 51 United Arab Emirates 32.2 52 Yemen 189.5 44 Zimbabwe 1528.5 53
As Figure 1.3 illustrates, several developing countries already suffer from water stress
and water scarcity, with many more are hovering near the threshold. While most of the states
included in the table above represent the Middle East and North Africa, it is worth noting that
China—the world’s most populous country—is close to the 1,700 m3 “water stress” benchmark,
while India actually falls just below it. Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt emphasize the
global nature of water scarcity problem in the following passage:
Many areas—including much of Europe, large parts of the United States, the
Ganges basin in India, and the northwestern provinces of China—are using
virtually all of their river runoff…. Despite a seeming abundance of water, there
are significant problems with the quantity and quality available to much of the
world’s populations.44
Therefore, while the challenges posed by water scarcity may be most acute in the arid states of
the Middle East and North Africa, they are not confined solely to desert climes.
What are the Threats to Global Water Supplies?
Clearly, water scarcity is a global problem, and its effects are already being felt in much
of the developing world. This raises two important questions. What are the primary causes of
44 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, “Introduction: A Theoretical Overview” in Ecoviolence: Links
Among Environment, Population, and Security, ed. Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt (Lanhan, MA: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1998), 3.
21
water scarcity, and what are the ongoing threats to the global water supply? Experts commonly
enumerate four primary causes of water scarcity:
1. Aridity and long-term water shortages caused by dry climatic conditions;
2. Drought, or periods during which precipitation falls below normal levels;
3. Desiccation/desertification, defined as the degradation of existing land due to
deforestation, overfarming, overgrazing, or the drying up of soil;
4. Water stress, or low per capita water availability due to greater demand being
placed on fixed levels of supply.45
In addition to such structural factors, water scarcity may also arise from manmade causes
ranging from inefficient irrigation to ineffective distribution of water biased toward one segment
of society over another to large-scale damming projects that reduce or completely cut off water
flows to populations living downstream. Drawing upon these structural and institutional sources
of water scarcity, I will explore in greater detail three emerging threats to the world’s freshwater
supplies: population growth, global environment change, and pollution.
Returning to de Villiers earlier statement that the trouble with water is they’re not making
any more of it, one thing is certain: they’re definitely making more people. Even before English
political economist and demographer Thomas Malthus famously predicted population growth
would outpace food production by the middle of the nineteenth century,46 questions have
abounded concerning the effects of demographic pressure on the quality of human life. Since
fresh water is an inherently finite resource—that is, there is a fixed supply available—increased
demand as a result of population growth is a major concern. As the Worldwatch Institute notes:
45 Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf, “Water, Geography, and Peace in the Middle East,” in Water in
the Middle East: A Geography of Peace, ed. Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2000), 3; M. Falkenmark and C. Widstrand, “Population and Water Resources: A Delicate Balance,” Population Bulletin 47, no. 3 (1992); R. Clark, Water: The International Crisis (London: Earthscan, 1991).
46 In Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population, 1798.
22
If the world could move from the UN medium population projection of nearly 9
billion in 2050 to the low projection of less than 7 billion, water stress would be
greatly alleviated, making the water problem much more manageable. If the
world stays on the current population trajectory, a growing share of humanity may
simply lack the water needed for a decent life.47
Rapidly growing populations will produce a corresponding surge in demand for water—
particularly in agriculture, where food production is contingent on water availability. As
Michael Klare notes, “With most of the planet’s arable, rain-fed land already under cultivation,
any further expansion in grain and vegetable production will require the conversion of currently
barren land into productive use through irrigation.”48 Even assuming technical advances will
allow for more efficient use of existing fields, the prospect of significantly expanding irrigation
in states already facing issues of water scarcity is, at the very least, daunting.
From 1940 to 2000 alone, the world population almost tripled from 2.3 billion to over 6
billion. During this same time period, the per capita use of fresh water also doubled; combined
with population growth, this translates to a six-fold increase in global human water consumption
in six short decades.49 Furthermore, as one might expect, the pressures of population growth are
felt most acutely in the developing world. Approximately 90 million people are added to the
world’s population each year, with 95 percent of this growth occurring in Africa, Asia, and Latin
America.50 Figure 1.4 summarizes current regional population totals, as well as projected
populations in 2025.
47 Jan Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East: The Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
(London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 26; Worldwatch Institute, “Populations Outrunning Water Supply.” 48 Klare, Resource Wars, 143. 49 Ashok Swain, Managing Water Conflict: Asia, Africa and the Middle East (London: Routledge, 2004), 3. 50 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 3.
23
Table 1.2: Population Estimates, 2007 and 202551
Estimated total
population, 2007 Annual population
growth (2005- 2010)Estimated total
population, 2025 World: 6.61 billion 1.14% 7.90 billion
Developed countries 1.35 billion 0.27% 1.40 billion Developing Countries 5.26 billion 1.36% 6.51 billion
By Region:
Asia 3.68 billion 1.05% 4.30 billion Central America & Caribbean 191 million 1.26% 230 million Europe 727 million -0.07% 707 million Middle East & North Africa 470 million 1.89% 632 million North America 336 million 0.91% 388 million Oceania 33 million 1.15% 40 million South America 385 million 1.31% 466 million Sub-Saharan Africa 785 million 2.21% 1.13 billion
As the table illustrates, developing countries are growing significantly faster than the developed
world (1.36 percent annually year in developing countries versus 0.27 percent in developed
countries). Moreover, rapid urbanization in many of these developing states also creates greater
demand for water, as cities are typically associated with higher levels of water extraction. On a
regional basis, the fastest rate of populations growth is taking place in Sub-Saharan Africa (2.2
percent annually), with the Middle East and North Africa (1.89 percent) following close behind.
That corresponds to an estimated population by the year 2025 of 632 million in the Middle East
and North Africa alone—a region already experiencing the socioeconomic pressures of sever
water scarcity.
While population growth places greater demands on the world’s fresh water resources,
global climate change potentially threatens the supply. Although some debate persists
concerning the causes of global warming, there is little doubt in the mainstream scientific
51 Data in table derived from World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,”
<http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
24
community that it exists.52 At the risk of oversimplifying a complex subject, the accumulation of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causes average the global temperature to gradually rise,
altering weather and precipitation patterns in many parts of the world. Environmental scientists
estimate that by the year 2100, the temperature of Earth’s atmosphere will increase on average
between 1 and 3.5 degrees Celsius—compared to the estimated 5-degree increase experienced
since the end of the last ice age.53 This rise in temperature is expected to sharply increase the
frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and hurricanes.
Although it is difficult to precisely predict the precise effects of such macro-level climate
changes, Klare notes that experts predict warm inland areas such as northeast Africa and
southwest Asia will ultimately be left with smaller supplies of fresh water.54 For instance, higher
temperatures in these areas translate to greater evaporation, reducing the efficiency of reservoirs,
as well as dry, hardened earth unable to effectively absorb rainwater to replenish soil and
groundwater supplies. Furthermore, as polar icecaps melt and sea levels rise, they threaten to
contaminate groundwater with salt, significantly impacting both drinking water and agriculture
in coastal areas. Experts warn that a rise in sea level of only a few feet as a result of global
warming would ruin inland water supplies in many low-lying developing countries, including
Egypt and Bangladesh.55
Pollution is yet another significant threat to the world’s freshwater supplies—specifically,
its quality as opposed to quantity. In addition to the pollution problems associated with rapidly
growing, urbanizing populations, the use of agricultural fertilizers and pesticides on a massive
scale is contaminating water supplies in many developing countries. While overall fertilizer
52 Naomi Oreskes, “Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change,” Science 306,
no. 5702 (December 2004): 1686. 53 Homer-Dixon and Blitt, “Introduction,” 4-5. 54 Klare, Resource Wars, 140. 55 Lonergan, “Water and Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 116; Elhance, Hydropolitics, 5.
25
consumption has either leveled off or begun to decline in most developed countries, demand is
steadily growing in the developing world. As Ashok Swain notes, drainage and runoff from
fertilized crops carry “high concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorous nutrients, and the
infusion of nitrates into drinking water leads to various human health hazards.”56
The growth of industry in the developing world also threatens water quality. De Villiers
discusses the impact of industrial pollutants on the developing world’s water supplies in the
following passage:
…[A]s development accelerates, the amount of water contaminated with
industrial pollutants such as petroleum and toxic metals rises sharply. Perhaps the
overall national water supply is no dirtier—but there’s very little clean water, and
the meticulous scrubbing that water gets in the cities of the developed world
simply doesn’t exist.57
An estimated 80 percent of China’s 50,000 kilometers of major rivers are so degraded they can
no longer support fish; discharges from paper mills, oil refineries, and other industrial plants
have rendered the waters of the Yellow River unfit even for irrigation.58 Approximately 70
percent of India’s rivers—including the Ganges—are now polluted with industrial waste.59
Furthermore, similar patterns of water degradation prevail in countries around the globe. While
the developed world possesses the economic and technological capacity to offset degradation of
its freshwater supply by industry, these advancements remain beyond the reach of many poorer
nations.
56 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 9. 57 de Villiers, Water, 102. 58 de Villiers, Water, 94. 59 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 10.
26
Economic, Technical, and Pragmatic Obstacles to Resolving Water Scarcity
Considering these threats posed to the world’s freshwater supply, what potential solutions
exist to the problem of water scarcity in the developing world and what are the difficulties in
implementing them? Of course, the most obvious solution is for states to consume less and
utilize what they already consume more efficiently. As the previous pages suggest, however,
this is far easier said than done. In turn, Ohlsson notes that when global water scarcity is
discussed on a popular level, two questions inevitably arise: “What about those plans to capture
icebergs in the Antarctic and tow them to places that need water? And how is desalination of sea
water coming along?”60 Although the iceberg-towing stratagem perhaps veers more in the
direction of science fiction than science fact, the topic of desalination merits further discussion.61
The end product of the roughly 8,000 desalination plants around the world currently
accounts for only one-tenth of one percent of total global water use. However, desalination is a
viable option, Ohlsson argues, “if the need is great enough and you are endowed with a lot of
capital, technical expertise, and preferably also large amounts of fossil fuel at low or no cost.”62
Considering the relative scarcity of water and the prevalence of low-cost petroleum, its no
surprise that the Persian Gulf states—Saudi Arabia in particular—account for the majority of
world’s desalination plants. Larbi Bouguerra notes, however, that desalination “is still too costly
and unsuitable for the great majority of countries in a state of hydric stress, and it is obviously
not feasible for landlocked countries such as Mali, Chad, or Niger.”63 Moreover, large-scale
desalination projects raise their own set of environmental externalities ranging from ecosystem
60 Ohlsson, Hydropolitics, 16. 61 When presenting an earlier version of this research, an audience member posed a fascinating question:
“If we increase the worldwide amount of desalination as water scarcity intensifies, what are we going to do with all that salt?” I responded that much of the salt produced as a by-product of desalination is used for various industrial purposes. “But still,” he countered, “that’s a lot of salt.” I agreed, suggesting this is perhaps an opportune time to invest in pretzel futures.
62 Ohlsson, Hydropolitics, 17. 63 Larbi Bouguerra, Water Under Threat, trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Zed Books, 2006), 52.
27
damage when installations dump saline brine back into the ocean following desalination to the
polluting effects of the fossil fuels required for the process.
Building dams along rivers to capture and more effectively utilize freshwater resources is
another commonly proposed solution to water scarcity. Dams serve a number of vital purposes
including the production of hydroelectricity, flood control, and water storage during times of
drought. Nevertheless, Saeijs and van Berkel argue, “The image of dams worldwide has sunk to
an all-time low in recent years.”64 Why have dams developed this bad reputation? The authors
cite a wide range of negative environmental, social, and economic effects associated with large-
scale damming projects—particularly in the developing world. First and foremost, the damming
of rivers frequently displaces large populations, negatively impacting their livelihoods. In fact,
Saeijs and van Berkel go so far as to suggest that the original inhabitants displaced by dams
seldom enjoy the long-term benefits of such projects.65 Dams can also wreck major havoc on the
environment. Dams built along the Amazon in recent decades, for example, have deprived the
rainforest from much needed water in some regions, while flooding it in others. Finally, there is
a basic geographic aspect to consider; when a dam is built upstream, there is an inevitable effect
on both the quality and quantity of water that flows downstream. When this water crosses
national borders and the damming project of an upstream state reduces the available freshwater
resources of its downstream neighbor, the issue becomes particularly complicated.
This brings us to the one of the most significant obstacles to resolving issues of water
scarcity: the inherently transnational nature of freshwater resources. Water flows irrespective of
national borders, and more than two hundred river basins around the world are shared by two or
more sovereign states. Estimates suggest, in fact, that between 40 and 50 percent of the world’s
64 Saeijs and van Berkel, The Scarcity of Water, 9. 65 Saeijs and van Berkel, The Scarcity of Water, 9.
28
population withdraws water from transboundary sources.66 Unfortunately, as I will discuss in the
following chapters, cooperation among riparian neighbors is often difficult to achieve. This is a
direct result of the nature of international relations and its core governing principle: sovereignty.
While many states in the developing world could benefit from equitable water-sharing
arrangements with their neighbors, the perceived right of upstream states to exploit resources
flowing across their territory serves as a potential obstacle. An anarchic system of sovereign
states gives rise, realists would have us believe, to states acting predominantly in their own self-
interests. Furthermore, rudimentary international law governing the sharing of transboundary
water resources only exacerbates the problem. Hence, like many possible solutions to the global
water crisis, “share and share alike” poses it own set of unique difficulties.
Conclusions
As the preceding pages illustrate, water scarcity is already a serious global problem, and
it is only likely to grow more acute in the decades ahead—particularly in the developing world.
A recent United Nations study estimates that by the year 2025, 800 million people will be living
in countries with absolute water scarcity. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the world’s total population
could be under water stress conditions in less than twenty years.67 Moreover, in a 2005
statement, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan discussed the challenges posed by
water shortages around the globe, acknowledging that the world “needs to respond much
better.”68 Taking into account the environmental, social, and economic pressures exerted by
66 Jörg Barandat and Aytül Kaplan, “International Water Law: Regulations for Cooperation and the
Discussion of the International Water Convention,” in Water in the Middle East: Potential for Conflicts and Prospects for Cooperation, ed. Waltina Scheumann and Manuel Schiffler (New York: Springer, 1998), 14; Elhance, Hydropolitics, 4-5.
67 United Nations, Coping with Water Scarcity, <ftp://ftp.fao.org/agl/aglw/docs/waterscarcity.pdf>. 68 Kofi Annan, “Water for Life Decade,” Message of the Secretary-General for World Water Day (22
March 2005), <http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/worldwaterday.html>.
29
water scarcity, are growing populations and ever-dwindling freshwater resources likely to
engender violent interstate conflict as competition intensifies? This is the central question of
Chapter 2. While the notion of widespread “water wars” may seem both deductively plausible
and logically consistent at first glance, I contend the empirical reality of how states actually cope
with water scarcity is a significant departure from such pessimistic speculation.
30
CHAPTER 2
WATER SCARCITY AND CONFLICT
Having discussed the global challenges posed by water scarcity in the previous chapter, I
will now shift focus to exploring the link between dwindling freshwater resources and violent
conflict. Scholars have produced a sizeable body of research in the past few decades warning of
impending “water wars”—both civil strife and interstate conflict resulting from water scarcity.
Moreover, policymakers share these concerns. For instance, Wally N’dow, director of the UN’s
Center for Human Establishments, made the following statement in March 1996:
I believe that if by 2010 great improvements are not undertaken to provide and
save water, we’ll have to face a monumental crisis…. Whereas the grounds for
the last century’s wars were oil, I am firmly convinced that many political and
social conflicts of the twenty-first century will focus on water.1
This metaphor of “water as the new oil” is common among both scholars and policymakers. For
example, Sandra Postel of the Worldwatch Institute asserts that water has become “a strategic
resource like oil, for which nations will compete fiercely as it becomes more scarce. And like
oil, it is likely to lead to warfare.”2 While not everyone takes such a pessimistic view (Kofi
Annan argued in 2005 that scarce water resources might serve as a “catalyst for cooperation”3),
the notion that water scarcity leads to conflict is clearly the dominant discourse.
Of course, states themselves do not go thirsty. While individuals require drinking water
for their survival, governments do not. That being said, states nevertheless demonstrate a range
1 Larbi Bouguerra, Water Under Threat, trans. Patrick Camiller (London: Zed Books, 2006), 65. 2 Sandra Postel, The Last Oasis: Facing Water Scarcity (London: Earthscan, 1992), 13. 3 Kofi Annan, “UN Water for Life” (2005), <http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/background.html>.
31
of both political and economic motivations that potentially make water a resource worth fighting
over—or, conversely, a possible catalyst for interstate cooperation. Drawing upon Chittick and
Freyberg’s typology of foreign policy decision-making, these motivations for resolving water
disputes can be grouped into three broad categories: security, prosperity, and community.4
In terms of security, water is a biological requirement of human populations—both in
terms of drinking water and the water required for sanitation and cultivating the food necessary
to survive. Water scarcity, after all, is closely linked with food insecurity. Thus, the acquisition
of freshwater resource is a matter of survival for a state’s population. As noted above, however,
governments do not run on water; a state is far more capable of compensating for water scarcity
and food insecurity than an individual. However, a state ignores widespread water scarcity at its
own peril. As I discuss later in this chapter, scarcity can generate domestic unrest as competition
for scarce resources becomes more intense and inequality within a given society grows. This
unrest can potentially undermine the authority of the state, thus threatening its security and
survival. While non-democratic regimes are arguably more insulated from these societal
pressures than democratic regimes, the potential for unrest, rebellion, and even civil war remains.
Moreover, these domestic water security issues can leap to the international stage either through
a demonstration effect or simply through the traditional security dilemma. As one state attempts
to increase its own water security—for instance, by damming a river—it has the potential to
make a neighboring state feel less secure in the process.
Prosperity is the second motivating factor that may generate conflict or cooperation over
scarce water resources. At an individual level, securing freshwater supplies has the potential to
significantly raise the standard of living in many developing countries suffering from scarcity.
4 William O. Chittick and Annette Freyberg, “Fear, Honor, and Profit: A Three-Dimensional Framework
for the Analysis of the Role of Motivation in Foreign Policy Decisionmaking,” 1ff.
32
In addition to providing the drinking water and agricultural capacity necessary for survival, water
contributes to the overall health and well-being of a society (as discussed in Chapter 1). Moving
from the individual to the state level of analysis, water also has the potential to increase a state’s
overall prosperity through spurring economic development. Water is a source of hydroelectric
power, as well as a necessary component in industrial processes ranging from manufacturing
steel to refining petroleum. Thus, from the perspective of prosperity as an underlying motivating
for policymaking, states have a clear incentive to acquire and secure freshwater resources.
Finally, issues of community also enter into the picture. In other words, the degree to
which a state values its relations with neighboring countries and its reputation as a “good actor”
on the world stage plays a role in motivating its foreign policy decision-making with regards to
water. It could be the case, for instance, that disputes over a shared water resource may serve as
a diplomatic “sticking point” for neighboring states, thus motivating policymakers to resolve this
issue in the interest of future relations. At the same time, a state’s concern for its reputation on
the world stage may motivate policymakers to seek peaceful solutions in lieu of violence. Of
course, some states may nevertheless choose to pursue their water-related interests unilaterally,
without concern for issues of the broader community of states—particularly in those cases where
the state’s security and/or prosperity may be at stake.
Thus, we can begin to envision these three fundamental concerns—security, prosperity,
and community—as a hierarchy, motivating a state’s foreign policy decision-making with
regards to water. This concept is somewhat similar to Maslow’s oft-cited hierarchy of needs. I
would argue that providing basic food security and ultimately ensuring the state’s survival is the
most immediate, pressing motivation. Questions of prosperity such as increasing the standard of
living, preventing disease, and promoting economic development are the next most powerful set
33
of motivations. Finally, once they have accounted for security and prosperity, states can begin to
act in the interest of community—building better relations with neighboring states and thinking
in terms of their reputation as a “good actor” with regards to water-related issues. This hierarchy
is depicted below in Figure 2.1, with the most basic security needs at the bottom of the pyramid:
Figure 2.1: Hierarchy of State Motivations to Resolve Water Disputes
In turn, in their research on water politics in the Middle East, Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim
Gray offer five basic approaches to understanding water scarcity: 1) as a security issue, 2) as an
economic issue, 3) as a legal issue, 4) as a technical issue, and 5) as an environmental issue.
Ultimately, they go on to argue that water scarcity is a multifaceted problem and that
approaching it from any single perspective—treating water scarcity solely as a security issue or
34
an environmental issue—will make it difficult to reach meaningful solutions.5 Drawing upon
this perspective, I will explore in this chapter the literature on water scarcity and conflict,
including work by both advocates of the popular “water wars” thesis, as well as those more
skeptical of these pessimistic predictions. It is my contention that while the notion that severe
water scarcity inevitably leads to violent conflict seems plausible at face value, the empirical
reality fails to bear out such a hypothesis.
Environmental Scarcity and Conflict
My literature review begins by taking a conceptual step back from the problem of water
scarcity and conflict and looking more broadly at environmental scarcity as a whole. We might
think of environmental scarcity as an umbrella term that incorporates not only water scarcity, but
also the depletion and degradation of such global resources as cropland, forests, fisheries, and the
stratospheric ozone.6 Since the publication of Garrett Hardin’s seminal article in 1968, Elinor
Ostrom notes that “the tragedy of the commons” has come into widespread use among scholars
to describe the trends of environmental degradation that typically result from those situations in
which many actors must use a scarce resource in common.7 Hardin famously describes the
tragedy of the commons as such:
The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to
all. It is to be expected that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as
possible on the commons. Such an arrangement may work reasonably
5 Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim S. Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East: A Context for Conflict or Co-
operation? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 15-17. 6 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, “Introduction: A Theoretical Overview,” in Thomas Homer-
Dixon and Jessica Blitt (eds.) Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Population, and Scarcity (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 2-5.
7 Elinor Ostrom, Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 2.
35
satisfactorily for centuries because tribal wars, poaching, and disease keep the
numbers of both man and beast well below the carrying capacity of the land.
Finally, however, comes the day of reckoning, that is, the day when the long-
desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. At this point, the inherent
logic of the commons remorselessly generates tragedy…. Each man is locked
into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world
that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each
pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the
commons. Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.8
In such a situation, if all actors practice restraint in their use of the commons, then the resource
can be sustained. However, as Dietz et al. note, this situation presents a fundamental dilemma:
“If you limit your use of the resources and your neighbors do not, then the resource still collapses
and you have lost the short-term benefits of taking your share.”9
The basic issues addressed by Hardin in “The Tragedy of the Commons” have been
further developed by scholars in the past three decades through research on what have become
known as “common pool resources” (CPRs). Ostrom defines a CPR along two basic dimensions:
non-excludability and subtractability. Non-excludability refers to the degree to which a given
resource is sufficiently large as to make it costly—but not impossible—to exclude or limit
potential beneficiaries from its access and/or use.10 On the other hand, subtractability (also
known as “rivalness” in the literature) refers to the degree to which the benefits consumed by one
8 Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162, no. 3859 (13 December 1968): 1244. 9 Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolšak, Elinor Ostrom, and Paul C. Stern, “The Drama of the Commons,” in The
Drama of the Commons, ed. Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolšak, Paul C. Stern, Susan Stonich, and Elke U. Weber (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2002), 3.
10 Elinor Ostrom, Roy Gardner, and James Walker with Arun Agrawal, William Blomquist, Edella Schlager, and Shui Yan Tang, Rules, Games, and Common-Pool Resources (University of Michigan Press, 1994), 6; Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 30.
36
actor deplete the benefits available to the others.11 For instance, if a farmer withdraws fifty
gallons of water from a river for his crops, that fifty gallons of water is depleted from the river
and no longer available to any other farmers. Therefore, CPRs are differentiated by definition
from public goods; although public goods are similarly non-excludable, their usage by an actor
does not subtract from the remaining benefits available to others.
Based on these fundamental attributes, scholars often think of CPRs in terms of the
widely applied Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game. In the “canonical” formulation of the PD game,
the police apprehend two criminals who they know are guilty of an unnamed crime. If neither
informs on the other, their respective sentences are light. If both criminals inform on one
another, both face long incarcerations. Perhaps most intriguingly, however, if one prisoner
informs and the other does not, the informer is set free and the noninformer receives a rather
heavy sentence.12 This PD scenario is depicted below in Figure 2.2 as a normal-form game with
the appropriate “payoffs” included. In this figure, Cooperate refers to the strategy of not
informing, whereas the Defect strategy denotes “finking.”
Cooperate Defect
Cooperate 2, 2 0, 3
Defect 3, 0 1, 1
Figure 2.2: CPRs and the Prisoner’s Dilemma
11 J. Samuel Barkin and George E. Shambaugh, “Hypotheses on the International Politics of Common Pool
Resources,” in Anarchy and the Environment: The International Relations of Common Pool Resources, ed. J. Samuel Barkin and George E. Shambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 3-6; Ostrom et al., Rules Games, and Common-Pool Resources, 6.
12 Dietz, Dolšak, Ostrom, and Stern, “The Drama of the Commons,” 4; Joel Watson, Strategy: An Introduction to Game Theory (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2002), 31-32.
Player 2
Player 1
37
Faced with these payoffs, one expects a rational actor to defect and inform on his or her co-
conspirator, reducing the risk of receiving the “sucker’s payoff” (the payoff received by a
cooperator when his or her partner defects) while settling for the suboptimal outcome
represented above in the lower-right quadrant. The criminals would derive greater utility if they
both cooperated and kept quiet, but by choosing this strategy, each opens him- or herself to the
possibility of a much worse outcome if the other criminal in fact chooses to defect. Hence, the
equilibrium in this game is both criminals defecting; due to uncertainty, they are unwilling to risk
cooperation despite its potentially greater payoff. As Ostrom and numerous other scholars have
argued, conditions similar to those represented by the PD prevail in the sharing of common pool
resources, effectively creating a collective action dilemma. In turn, as Hardin predicts in “The
Tragedy of the Commons,” we should ultimately expect to see actors rushing to pursue their own
interests at the expense of the common pool resource.
Clearly, such a scenario presents significant potential for competition and, should the
resource become too scarce, conflict. What can be done to avoid the potential for suboptimal
and ultimately deleterious outcomes and circumvent the dilemmas of collective action in the
sharing of CPRs? In Governing the Commons, Ostrom first identifies two “only” ways to
address this dilemma before ultimately introducing a more desirable “third way.” For instance,
those in Ostrom’s first camp argue that the only way to overcome the tragedy of the commons is
through a Leviathan. Borrowing their terminology from Hobbes, scholars such as Ophuls and
Hardin himself argue that actors must be responsive to an external coercive element to overcome
the fundamental problems of sharing common pool resources.13 On the other hand, those in
Ostrom’s second camp contend that privatization is the only feasible way to address the tragedy
of the commons. For instance, W. P. Welch argues in “The Political Feasibility of Full
13 Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 8-9.
38
Ownership Rights” that “the establishment of full property rights is necessary to avoid the
inefficiency of overgrazing.”14
Ostrom, on the other hand, advances a third way as an alternative to coercion and
privatization in addressing the sharing of CPRs. She argues that a coercive Leviathan is not
necessary to induce cooperation; instead, actors can enter into a contract “to commit themselves
to a cooperative strategy that they themselves will work out.”15 Such a contract is an example of
an institution, defined by Shepsle and Bonchek as a repository of authority intended to solve the
problems of collective action by establishing standard practices and providing actors with
“appropriate incentives to take the action necessary to provide a public good or control an
externality.”16 Ostrom does not presume that the formation of such institutions is necessarily
unproblematic, but she also disagrees with the perception that “individuals sharing a commons
are inevitably caught in a trap from which they cannot escape.”17 Instead, she argues that
individuals have been surprisingly inventive throughout history in terms of coping with—and, at
times, even circumventing—various commons dilemmas.18 Hence, cooperation and collective
action through the formation of institutions emerges as a viable alternative to the tragedy of the
commons. That being the case, however, what form should these agreements take? Ostrom
enumerates several key characteristics of effective institutions for managing CPRs in Governing
the Commons. These institutional features include: 1) clearly defined boundaries, 2) locally
devised arrangements, 3) easily enforced rules, 4) a graduated sanction structure, 5) the
14 W. P. Welch, “The Political Feasibility of Full Ownership Property Rights: The Cases of Pollution and
Fisheries,” Policy Sciences 16 (1983): 465, quoted in Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 12. 15 Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 15. 16 Kenneth A. Shepsle and Mark S. Bonchek, Analyzing Politics: Rationality, Behavior, and Institutions
(New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 299-300. 17 Ostrom, Governing the Commons, 14. 18 Shepsle and Bonchek, Analyzing Politics, 291.
39
availability of low-cost adjudication, 6) monitoring arrangements, and 7) freedom from external
governmental authorities.19
As suggested above, scholars often think of water—like many other natural resources—in
terms of a common pool resource, as it exhibits the defining characteristics of non-excludability
and subtractability. Hence, in order to avoid a situation similar to Hardin’s tragedy of the
commons, institutions play a significant role in governing the sharing of scarce freshwater
resources through such functions as defining the basic “rules of the game,” monitoring the
behavior of actors, reducing uncertainty, and so forth. In the context of the international system,
however, crafting the kinds of institutions described by Ostrom to govern the sharing of
freshwater resources is often a far more difficult undertaking due to such fundamental issues as
international anarchy and state sovereignty, as well as geopolitical concerns.
Scholars who focus on the inherently competitive nature of environmental resources as
described in Hardin’s tragedy of the commons and argue that conflict over such resources is
virtually inevitable are often called neo-Malthusians. In fact, the literature on environmental
scarcity and conflict is dominated by the neo-Malthusian school of thought. Colin Kahl
summarizes the neo-Malthusian worldview as follows: “enormous demographic and economic
changes have combined to place severe pressures on both the natural environment and the
world’s poor, lowering the quality of life for millions and threatening the political stability of
many developing countries.”20 In other words, these scholars contend that competition over
increasingly scarce environmental resources—including freshwater—creates a causal path that
19 Ostrom, Governing the Commons; Arun Agrawal, “Common Resources of Institutional Sustainability,”
in The Drama of the Commons, ed. Elinor Ostrom, Thomas Dietz, Nives Dolšak, Paul C. Stern, Susan Stonich, and Elke U. Weber (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2002), 50; Shepsle and Bonchek, Analyzing Politics, 291-292.
20 Colin H. Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2006), 4.
40
leads to violent civil and interstate conflict. The mechanism through which these conflicts arise
is summed up by two core neo-Malthusian theories: the deprivation hypothesis and the state
failure hypothesis.
The deprivation hypothesis draws on Ted Gurr’s research into relative deprivation21 to
argue that poverty and inequality arising from environmental scarcity and population growth
contribute to violent conflict within and between countries. The underlying concept is that
individuals deprived of an environmental resource to which they believe they are entitled feel
dissatisfied when they compare themselves to others who may have access to the resource in
question. In turn, such dissatisfaction and perceived deprivation may lead to political violence
ranging from rioting and terrorism to civil wars and even cross-border fighting. “As deprived
individuals and social groups engage in increasingly fierce competition for dwindling natural and
economic resources,” Kahl observes, “the deprivation hypothesis suggests that intergroup
violence becomes more likely.”22 Hence, the deprivation hypothesis provides what is essentially
a “bottom-up” explanation of resource conflict, outlining how scarcity may create frustration and
inequality at the individual and group level that may lead to violence.
The second neo-Malthusian perspective, the state failure hypothesis, instead takes a top-
down approach to understanding conflict over scarce environmental resources. This hypothesis
suggests that sustained periods of severe demographic and environmental stress weaken the state
if it cannot demonstrate a capacity to effectively address resulting scarcity-related hardships.23
As citizens begin to question the state’s “right to rule” due to its inability or unwillingness to
respond, the resulting crisis of legitimacy erodes state authority and breaks down its monopoly
on the legitimate use of force. If the state cannot resolve these issues, the state failure hypothesis
21 Ted Robert Gurr, Why Men Rebel (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1970). 22 Kahl, States Scarcity, and Civil Strife, 8-9. 23 Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife, 10-11.
41
argues that civil strife may occur, possibly spilling across borders in the most severe cases. This
view of environmental conflict is probably most closely associated with Thomas Homer-Dixon
and Jack Goldstone,24 although the underlying logic is also evident in Robert Kaplan’s widely-
read “The Coming Anarchy.”25 Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt summarizes the state failure
hypothesis as follows:
In some poor countries, the multiple effects of environmental scarcity increase the
demands on governmental institutions and the state, stimulate predatory elite
behavior, reduce social trust and useful group interaction, and depress tax
revenues. These processes in turn weaken the administrative capacity and
legitimacy of governmental institutions and the state.26
They go on to argue that this weakening of state capacity and legitimacy increases the likelihood
of ethnic conflict, insurgency, coup d’état, and may ultimately have significant effects on the
international community, as well.27 Thus, Neo-Malthusians incorporate both bottom-up and top-
down explanations for conflict over environmental resources.
Figure 2.3 summarizes the Neo-Malthusian perspective as a simple flowchart, combining
the deprivation and state failure hypotheses into an integrated model of environmental conflict.
24 See, for example, Jack A. Goldstone, “Population Growth and Revolutionary Crises,” in Theorizing
Revolutions, ed. John Foran (London: Routledge, 1997), 102-120; Jack A. Goldstone, “Demography, Domestic Conflict, and the International Order,” in International Order and the Future of World Politics, ed. T.V. Paul and John A. Hall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 352-372; Thomas F. Homer-Dixon, Environment, Scarcity, and Violence (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1999); Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, eds., Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Population, and Scarcity (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
25 Robert D. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy: How scarcity, crime, overpopulation, tribalism, and disease are rapidly destroying the social fabric of our planet,” The Atlantic Monthly (February 1994), accessed online at <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/199402/anarchy>.
26 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, “Key Findings,” in Thomas Homer-Dixon & Jessica Blitt (eds.) Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Population, and Scarcity (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 226.
27 Homer-Dixon and Blitt, “Key Findings,” 227-228.
42
Figure 2.3: A Neo-Malthusian Model of Environmental Conflict28 One should not assume, however, that neo-Malthusians hold a theoretical monopoly over
environmental conflict. Although the neo-Malthusian school arguably dominates the discourse
on environmental conflict, neoclassical economists have advanced competing theories to explain
the links between environmental resources and armed struggle.29 Intriguingly, many of these
theories deal with resource abundance rather than scarcity. For instance, according to the honey
pot hypothesis an abundant supply of a valuable natural or environmental resource may create an
incentive for groups to fight over its control. To this end, de Soysa argues that “greed rather than
grievance (at least in terms of the availability of natural resources is concern) is likelier to
28 Figure 2.1 draws upon a similar model in Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Armed Conflict and the Environment”
in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul F. Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 253. 29 Kahl offers a more thorough overview of these competing theories in States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in
the Developing World.
Inequality
43
generate armed violence.”30 Nevertheless, when discussing water in the developing world, “too
little” is typically a more vital concern than “too much.”
Water as a Security Issue
As Mark Twain once observed, “Whiskey is for drinking. Water is for fighting over.”31
With that in mind, I will now shift my focus from theories of environmental conflict in general to
the specific issue of violent clashes over freshwater scarcity. Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim Gray
identify the acquisition of water as “the principal challenge for humanity from the early days of
civilization.”32 Neo-Malthusian theories, such as the deprivation and state failure hypotheses
discussed above, offer perspectives on how water scarcity may result in civil strife. Furthermore,
scholars argue that dwindling freshwater supplies may also pose a significant threat to
international security. As Jörg Barandat and Aytül Kaplan observe, the world’s natural
watersheds do not typically coincide with artificially established national borders. More than
two hundred river basins around the world, for instance, are shared by two or more sovereign
states. In turn, these shared river basins cover roughly 47 percent of the Earth’s total landmass,
including the entire territory of countries like Paraguay and Uganda. Barandat and Kaplan
estimate that somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of the world’s population withdraws water
from international transboundary basins.33 In turn, due to its hypothesized potential for both
domestic and international conflict, numerous scholars have conceptualized water in security
terms as a key strategic resource in many regions of the developing world.
30 Indra de Soysa, “Natural Resources and Civil Conflict: Shrinking Pie or Honey Pot?” unpublished manuscript, 2000, quoted in Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife, 15.
31 Bouguerra, Water Under Threat, 65. 32 Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 6. 33 Jörg Barandat and Aytül Kaplan, “International Water Law: Regulations for Cooperation and the
Discussion of the International Water Convention,” in Water in the Middle East: Potential for Conflicts and Prospects for Cooperation, ed. Waltina Scheumann and Manuel Schiffler (New York: Springer, 1998), 14; Elhance, Hydropolitics, 4.
44
Alwyn R. Rouyer, arguing that concerns over environmental scarcity have gained
increasing prominence in the post-Cold War era, establishes a basic paradigm for contemporary
water wars. He argues that “rapid population growth, particularly in the developing world, is
putting severe stress on the earth’s physical environment and thus creating a growing scarcity of
renewable resources, including water, which in turn is precipitating violent civil and international
conflict that will escalate in severity as scarcity increases.”34 Furthermore, Rouyer goes on to
assert that this potential conflict over scarce resources will likely be most disruptive in those
states with rapidly expanding populations in which policymakers lack the political and economic
capability to minimize further environmental damage—i.e. the developing world.
Security concerns linked fundamentally to environmental scarcity, however, are far from
a contrivance of the post-Cold War era. Ulrich Küffner asserts that conflicts over water “have
occurred between many countries in all climatic regions, but between countries in arid regions
they appear to be unavoidable. Claims over water have led to serious tensions, to threats, and
counter threats, to hostilities, border clashes and invasions.”35 Moreover, as Miriam Lowi notes,
“Well before the emergence of the nation-state, the arbitrary political division of a unitary river
basin…led to problems regarding the interests of the states and/or communities located within
the basin and the manner in which conflicting interests should be resolved.”36 In turn, Lowi
frames the issue of water scarcity in terms of a dilemma of collective action and failed
cooperation among both states and individuals. In many regions of the world, however, the
34 Alwyn R. Rouyer, Turning Water into Politics: The Water Issue in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 7. 35 Ulrich Küffner, “Contested Waters: Dividing or Sharing?” in Water in the Middle East: Potential for
Conflicts and Prospects for Cooperation, ed. Waltina Scheumann and Manuel Schiffler (New York: Springer, 1998), 71.
36 Miriam R. Lowi, Water and Power: The Politics of a Scarce Resource in the Jordan River Basin (Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1.
45
international regimes and institutions necessary to lower the potential costs of cooperation are
either inadequate or altogether nonexistent.37
The arid states of the Middle East and North Africa serve as a valuable illustration of the
potential nexus between water scarcity and international conflict. Ewan Anderson notes that
resource geopolitics in this region “has long been dominated by one liquid—oil. However,
another liquid, water, is now recognized as the fundamental political weapon in the region.”38
Ecologically speaking, water scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa results from four
primary causes: dry climatic conditions, drought, desiccation/desertification (the degradation of
land due to the drying up of the soil), and water stress (the low availability of water resulting
from growing population).39 These resource scarcity problems are exacerbated in the Middle
East by such factors as poor water quality and inadequate—and, at times, purposefully
discriminatory—resource planning. As a result of these ecological and political trends, Nurit
Kliot states that “water, not oil, threatens the renewal of military conflicts and social and
economic disruptions” in the Middle East.40 In the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Rouyer
states that “water has become inseparable from land, ideology, and religious prophecy.”41
Martin Sherman echoes these sentiments in the following passage describing the Arab-Israeli
conflict:
[I]n recent years, particularly since the late 1980s, water has become
increasingly dominant as a bone of contention between the two sides. More
37 Lowi, Water and Power, 2ff. 38 Ewan W. Anderson, “Water: The Next Strategic Resource,” in The Politics of Scarcity: Water in the
Middle East,” ed. Joyce R. Starr and Daniel C. Stoll (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 1. 39 Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf, “Water, Geography, and Peace in the Middle East,” in Water in
the Middle East: A Geography of Peace, ed. Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2000).
40 Nurit Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict in the Middle East, London and New York: Routledge, 1994), as quoted in Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 9.
41 Rouyer, Turning Water into Politics, 9.
46
than one Arab leader, including those considered to be among the most
moderate, such as King Hussein of Jordan and former UN Secretary General,
Boutrus Boutrus-Ghali of Egypt, have warned explicitly that water is the issue
most likely to become the cause of a future Israeli-Arab war.42
Similarly, while Jochen Renger maintains that conflict waged explicitly over water may not lie
on the immediate horizon, he notes that “it is likely that water might be used as leverage during a
conflict.”43 As a result of such trends, managing these water resources in the Middle East and
North Africa—and throughout the developing world—should be considered a primary concern
of scholars and policymakers alike. Furthermore, while the particular climatic, geographic, and
political conditions of the Middle East and North Africa serve as a particularly illustrative
example of the importance of international water management, one should note that similar
trends are also at work to varying degrees throughout much of the developing world.
In the light of such pessimistic predictions, we arrive at a crucial question: how exactly is
fresh water different from other scarce natural and environmental resources? In an international
system where war is far from the norm, why does violent conflict over water seem inevitable to
so many scholars and policymakers? Elhance advances the following argument for the unique
status of water relative to other scarce resources:
By itself, the unequal distribution or scarcity of natural resources does not
necessarily lead to acute interstate conflict, because human beings have
historically shown an ingenious capability to survive by adjusting their lifestyles
42 Martin Sherman, The Politics of Water in the Middle East: An Israeli Perspective on the Hydro-Political
Aspects of the Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), xi. 43 Jochen Renger, “The Middle East Peace Process: Obstacles to Cooperation Over Shared Waters,” in
Water in the Middle East: Potential for Conflict and Prospects for Cooperation, ed. Waltina Scheumann and Manuel Schiffler (New York: Springer, 1998), 50.
47
to even the most resource-deficient environments on Earth, and by engaging in
trade in scarce resources as well as commodities produced from such resources.44
In the case of most natural resources, Elhance essentially contends that a combination of human
adaptability and comparative advantage should be enough to resolve issues of scarcity and avert
conflict. He argues, however, that water is different from other natural resources. Because it is
an “essential, nonsubstitutable, and shared resource,” Elhance makes the case that water is more
likely to engender conflict than other scarce resources.45 Critchley and Terriff likewise argue
that a particular resource is more likely to result in conflict when: 1) it is increasingly scarce in a
region, 2) it is essential for human survival, and 3) it can be physically seized or controlled.46 In
turn, water clearly fits these criteria—particularly in the developing world where the supply is
most acutely threatened by climatic conditions and growing populations.
Approaching the issue along similar lines, Thomas Naff identifies six characteristics that
distinguish water as an important and potentially contentious resource. First, Naff argues that
water is a vital resource with no viable substitute for human or animal use. Second, both in terms
of domestic and international policy, he notes that water issues are typically addressed by policy-
makers in a piecemeal fashion rather than comprehensively. Third, since countries typically feel
compelled by security concerns to control the ground on or under which water flows, by its
nature, water is also a terrain security issue with geopolitical implications. Fourth, water issues
are frequently perceived as zero-sum, as actors compete for the same limited water resources.
For every gallon of water I withdraw from a shared water source, that is one less gallon available
for others’ use. Fifth, as a result of the competition for these limited resources, water presents a
44 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 4. 45 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 4 (emphasis in original). 46 W.H. Critchley and T.Terriff, “Environment and Security,” in Security Studies for the 1990s, ed. R.
Shultz, R. Godson, and T. Greenwood (Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 1993), 332; Paul R. Hensel, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Thomas E. Sowers II, “Conflict Management of Riparian Disputes,” Political Geography 25 (2006): 386.
48
constant potential for conflict. Sixth, international law concerning water resources remains
relatively “rudimentary” and “ineffectual.”47 While international agreements such the Helsinki
Accords on Water Issues of 1966 and the International Law Commission’s Rules of 1991 have
arisen to address such issues, they have generally proven insufficient both in terms of monitoring
and “reining in” state behavior as it pertains to sharing scarce international waters. Many
scholars agree that this is due in large part to both the ambiguous provisions of such agreements,
as well as the overall lack of any effective enforcement mechanisms. Therefore, taken as a
whole, these factors certainly suggest that water is a particularly volatile strategic issue—
especially when it is a resource in severe shortage.
What forms might these struggles over water resources take? Peter Gleick offers a basic
typology of water conflict, dividing disputes into six categories:
• Conflicts over control of water resources, where water supplies or access to water is
at the root of tensions
• Conflicts in which water is used as a military tool—water resources, or water systems
themselves, are used as a weapon during a military action. This category includes
such actions as cutting off a city’s water supply during a siege or diverting water to
flood a region that provides enemy troops with food supplies.
• Conflicts in which water is used as a military target—water resources or systems are
targets of military actions by states.
• Conflicts in which water is used as a political tool—water resources are used by an
actor to achieve a political goal. For instance, Uzbekistan cut off downstream water
flows to Kazakhstan in 2000 for non-payment of debts.
47 Thomas Naff, “Conflict and Water Use in the Middle East,” in Water in the Arab World: Perspectives
and Prognoses, ed. Peter Rogers and Peter Lydon (Harvard University Press, 1994), 273.
49
• Terrorism—non-state actors use water resources or water systems as either targets or
tools of violent coercion.
• Conflicts centered on development disputes—water resources are a source of dispute
in the context of economic or social development.48\
Gleick goes on to note that water conflicts frequently cross over into multiple categories. Other
disputes simply defy classification. For example, in April 2000, an Australian man committed
presumably the first case of water-related cyberterrorism when he hacked into local wastewater
systems and released sewage into parks, rivers, and other property.49
Water Conflict: Domestic and International Disputes
It is worthwhile to examine in greater detail theories formulated to address both domestic
and international disputes arising from scarce water resources. Beginning with conflict within
states, numerous scholars have made the neo-Malthusian case that water scarcity may serve as a
significant source of civil strife. In the more arid regions of the developing world, individuals
must aggressively compete for the available freshwater resources within a state as populations
grow. In turn, scholars such as Thomas Homer-Dixon argue that if freshwater resources are
particularly scarce within a state, competition among individuals and groups for these resources
holds the potential for intrastate violence.
Figure 2.4 presents a basic model of water scarcity and conflict in the domestic context.
The figure incorporates elements of both the bottom-up deprivation hypothesis and the top-down
state failure hypothesis discussed in the preceding section.
48 Peter H. Gleick, “Environment & Security: Water Conflict Chronology Version 2004-2005,” in The
World’s Water: 2004-2005, ed. Peter H. Gleick (Washington: Island Press, 2005), 1. 49 Barton Gellman, “Cyber-Attacks by Al Qaeda Feared,” Washington Post (27 June 2002); Gleick,
“Environment & Security,” 249.
50
Figure 2.4: Population Growth, Water Scarcity, and Domestic Conflict50 As this figure suggests, population growth results in urbanization, expansion of agriculture and
irrigation, and industrialization—all of which place greater strains on water resources. Harsher
competition results as supplies dwindle. Combined with a weak institutional structure incapable
of managing disputes and the existing cleavages within a given society, many scholars argue
such competition increases the likelihood of violent conflict as dissatisfied groups mobilize both
against one another and/or against the state.
Homer-Dixon goes on to argue that conflict related to environmental scarcity—including
water scarcity—derives from one of three sources. The first, supply-induced scarcity, results
when a resource is either degraded (for example, when cropland becomes unproductive due to
overuse) or depleted (for example, when cropland is converted into suburban housing). The
second source of environmental scarcity, demand-induced scarcity, is caused by either an
increase in per-capita consumption or by simple trends of population growth. Simply put, if the
supply remains constant, and demand increases through existing users consuming more or more
users consuming the same amount, scarcity will eventually result as demand overtakes supply.
50 Figure adapted from Ashok Swain, Managing Water Conflict: Asia, Africa, and the Middle East
(London: Routledge, 2004), 20.
Population Growth
Urbanization
Agricultural Expansion
Industrialization
Increasing Scarcity of Freshwater
Supply
Increasing
competition Conflict
Existing social dichotomy
Weak institutional structure
51
The third type of environmental scarcity discussed by Homer-Dixon is structural scarcity, a
phenomena that occurs when resources are distributed unequally within a given state. In this
case, the “haves” in a given society generally control and consume an inordinate amount of the
existing supply, which results in the more numerous “have-nots” experiencing the scarcity.51
Hence, as discussed above, the state’s perceived inability to provide its citizens with adequate
water resources as a result of the factors described above creates the potential for a significant
crisis of legitimacy. If citizens believe their state as incapable of providing sufficient water—
whether as a result of actual scarcity or poor distribution—the state’s authority may be
undermined, increasing the potential for intrastate conflict.
According to Homer-Dixon, demand-induced, supply-induced, and structural scarcity
overlap and interact in two common patterns: resource capture and ecological marginalization.
Resource capture refers to cases in which both demand-induced and supply-induced scarcities
interact to effectively produce structural scarcity. In this pattern, for instance, powerful groups
within society foresee future shortages and act to insure the protection of their vested interests by
using their control of state structures to capture control of a valuable resource. An example of
resource capture occurred in Mauritania in the 1970s and 1980s when the countries bordering the
Senegal River built a series of dams to boost agricultural production. As a result of the new
dams, the value of land adjacent to the river rapidly increased—an economic development that
motivated Mauritanian Moors to abandon their traditional vocation as cattle grazers located in
the arid land in the north and migrate south onto lands alongside the river. However, black
Mauritanians already occupied the land on the river’s edge. As a result, the Moorish political
elites that controlled the Mauritanian government rewrote legislation on citizenship and land
51 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, “Introduction: A Theoretical Overview,” in Thomas Homer-
Dixon and Jessica Blitt (eds.) Ecoviolence: Links Among Environment, Population, and Scarcity (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998): p. 6.
52
rights that effectively blocked black Mauritanians from land ownership, sparking demonstrations
and civil strife. By declaring blacks as non-citizens, the Islamic Moors managed to capture the
land through nominally legal means. This case also presents an international dimension as high
levels of violence later arose between Mauritania and Senegal, where thousands of the black
Mauritanians fled as refugees after being driven from their land.52
The second pattern discussed by Homer-Dixon, ecological marginalization, occurs when
demand-induced and structural scarcities interact in a way that results in supply-induced scarcity.
An example of this pattern comes from the Philippines, a country whose agricultural lands have
traditionally been controlled by a small group of dominant landowners who, prior to the election
of former President Joseph Estrada in 1998, had controlled Filipino politics since colonial times.
Population growth in 1960s and 1970s forced many poor peasants to settle in the marginal soils
of the upland interior. This more mountainous land could not sustain the lowland slash-and-burn
farming practices that they brought with them. As a result, the Philippines has suffered serious
ecological damage in the form of water pollution, soil erosion, landslides, and changes in the
hydrological cycle that led to further hardship for the peasantry as the land’s capacity shrank.
Thus, this pattern of ecological marginalization resulted in significant degradation of freshwater
resources. Moreover, due to their economic marginalization, many upland peasants became
increasingly susceptible to the revolutionary rhetoric promoted by the communist-led New
People’s Army, and/or they supported the “People Power” movement that ousted US-backed
Ferdinand Marcos from power in 1986.53
52 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Valerie Percival, “The Case of Senegal-Mauritania,” in Environmental
Scarcity and Violent Conflict: Briefing Book (Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science and the University of Toronto, 1996), pp. 35-38.
53 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Valerie Percival, “The Case of the Philippines,” in Environmental Scarcity and Violent Conflict: Briefing Book (Washington DC: American Association for the Advancement of Science and the University of Toronto, 1996), 49.
53
Thus, as shown in the Philippines, social pressures created by environmental scarcity
have direct influence on the ruling legitimacy of the state, and may cause state power to crumble.
Indeed, reductions in agricultural and economic production can produce objective socioeconomic
hardship; however, objective deprivation does not necessarily produce grievances against the
government that result in serious domestic unrest and/or rebellion. One can simply look to
relative stability in famine-stricken North Korea is a poignant example of a polity whose citizens
have suffered widespread physical deprivation under policies of the existing regime, but who are
unwilling or unable to risk their lives challenging the state. As noted above, this phenomena is
partially explained by conflict theorists who argue that individuals and groups have feelings of
“relative deprivation” when they perceive a gap between what they believe they deserve and
what in reality they actually have achieved.54 Thus, in the case of water scarcity, the question
becomes who do the people perceive as being responsible for their plight? If the answer is the
people’s own government—whether as a result of supply-induced, demand-induced, or structural
resource scarcity—then social discord is likely, as citizens challenge the ruling legitimacy of the
state itself. If the answer is someone else’s government, then war between states or interstate
conflict may result.
While Homer-Dixon’s neo-Malthusian theories focus primarily on civil strife, he goes on
to argue that the consequences of environmental scarcity—water scarcity included—may also
increase the likelihood of “resource wars” between states. He and co-author Jessica Blitt suggest
that, at a minimum, environmental scarcity in the developing world “can cause [transboundary]
refugee flows and produce humanitarian disasters that call upon the military and financial
resources of developed countries and international organizations.”55 Other scholars are willing
54 Ted Gurr, Why Men Rebel (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970). 55 Homer-Dixon and Blitt, “Key Findings,” 228.
54
to take the argument a step farther and predict full-scale water wars between states over
increasingly scarce freshwater supplies. Michael Klare, for instance, offers a concise summary
of the interstate water wars hypothesis in his recent work, Resource Wars. Speaking specifically
about the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, Klare argues:
Because many key sources of water in this area are shared by two or more
countries and because the states involved have rarely agreed on procedures for
dividing up the available supply, disputes over access to contested resources will
become increasingly heated and contentious…. Any increase in utilization by one
country in the system will result in less water being available to the others—a
situation that could lead to the outbreak of war.56
Scholars have advanced similar arguments not just about the Middle East and North Africa, but
concering the developing world as a whole. Klare goes on to make the case that “where water is
plentiful, conflict is unlikely. In areas where water is rarely sufficient, however, its availability
is considered a matter of national survival…. Under these conditions, any threat to the continued
delivery of water supplies will be considered a justifiable cause of war.”57
Grounds for disagreements among states over a cross-border river may include issues
ranging from pollution to excessive irrigation to dam construction by an upstream neighbor.58 In
Managing Water Conflict, Swain notes that developmental needs may also contribute to the
emergence or escalation of conflict between states over shared freshwater resources. As the
development needs of a state increase, he argues that it may begin to perceive the acquisition
and/or exploitation of a larger share of jointly-owned freshwater resources as necessary to fuel its
growing population and economy. These changes in transboundary water withdrawals, Swain
56 Klare, Resource Wars, 139-140. 57 Klare, Resource Wars, 141. 58 Hensel, Mitchell, and Sowers, “Conflict Management of Riparian Disputes,” 384.
55
contends, “might result in a spiral of events: subsequent actions by the affected states to protect
their interests might escalate conflicts.”59 In turn, this perspective is similar to early theoretical
work by scholars like Choucri and North that suggests increasing internal demands on resources
may ultimately push states toward outward expansion.60
Many scholars, including Ostrom, also cite the inherently geographic nature of water as
yet another factor that complicates cooperation over shared freshwater resources and potentially
increases the likelihood of interstate conflict. These geographic factors are particularly salient in
the case of riparian relationships, where upstream and downstream neighbors must cooperate to
share a particular transnational river basin. For instance, Lowi notes that upstream riparians hold
what amounts to a hegemonic power over water resources in such a relationship. She goes on to
observe, “Only reluctantly will states relinquish control over land or resources that lie, even
partially, within their borders. Furthermore, the concern to maximize individual benefits
provides a powerful incentive to exploit resources unilaterally.”61 Hence, as Lowi suggests, an
upstream state facing water stress may choose to dam the river that it shares with its downstream
counterpart for its own purposes, reducing or completely terminating water flows to the
downstream neighbor in the process. Perhaps most distressingly, and as I discuss in greater
detail below, international law governing the sharing of transboundary water resources offers
few provisions to avert such a regrettable turn of events.
The contemporary dispute over the sharing of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers among
Turkey, Syria, and Syria presents a clear illustration of this upstream/downstream geographic
dynamic at work. Michael Schulz observes that these three states have long faced problems of
management, apportionment, and development planning along the Tigris-Euphrates basin,
59 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 24-25. 60 N. Choucri and R.C. North, Nations in Conflict (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company, 1975). 61 Lowi, Water and Power, 1.
56
leading to numerous disagreements between them. He goes on to argue that, “This risk of future
water shortage therefore constitutes one of the most strategically important issues for the above-
mentioned states.”62 All three states depend heavily on the Tigris-Euphrates basin in this case;
Turkey relies on the basin primarily for industrial purposes and to increase agricultural output,
whereas Syria and Iraq use the basin largely for domestic consumption and irrigation. In this
riparian relationship, Turkey is the headwater state to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, with Syria
and Iraq respectively lying farther along downstream. As such, Schulz notes that it is easier for
an upstream state such as Turkey to deal with water scarcity “since the possibility of controlling
the supply for irrigation is not dependent on the goodwill of other states.”63
Through building dams and other methods of so-called “resource capture,” Turkey can
effectively control the output of the Tigris and Euphrates and limit the availability of this
resource to its downstream neighbors. As a result, Syria is dependent on Turkey’s use of the
river basin for its own water needs, and Iraq is highly dependent on the goodwill of both Turkey
and Syria for its water supply. In turn, as Turkey’s basic energy demands have dramatically
risen as a result of its ongoing industrialization and population growth in the past fifty years, the
state has increasingly made use of the Tigris-Euphrates basin unilaterally in its own self-interest.
Meanwhile, the populations of both Syria and Iraq are also growing rapidly, increasing the water
requirements of these states.64 With little recourse under international law for Syria and Iraq,
this situation has led to numerous disputes between these states. Schulz notes the following:
Unfortunately, since World War II the disputes over water in the region have
escalated. The step to war over water is close. Syria and Iraq were very close to
62 Michael Schulz, “Turkey, Syria and Iraq: A Hydropolitical Security Complex,” in Hydropolitics:
Conflicts over Water as a Development Constraint, ed. Leif Ohlsson (London: Zed Books, 1995), 92. 63 Schulz, “Turkey, Syria and Iraq,” 95-96. 64 Schulz, “Turkey, Syria and Iraq,” 95.
57
full-scale war in 1975 because of a disagreement over the use of the Euphrates
water. Disputes between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq were quite common during the
1980s, especially after the Turkish presentation of the Güneydogu Anadolu
Projesi (GAP) project at the end of the 1970s. Its centerpiece, the Atatürk Dam,
was initiated in 1983 when construction began.65
The relationship between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq over the sharing of the Tigris-Euphrates basin
clearly demonstrates the complexity of water scarcity when placed in an international context.
Moreover, it is notable that these states have failed to develop any meaningful institutions to
govern the sharing of the basin or mediate potential disputes, a fact I will discuss in greater detail
in Chapter 4.
In essence, the geographic dimension of upstream/downstream riparian relations
significantly alters the strategic elements of conflict and cooperation as identified by Ostrom and
others in regards to averting the tragedy of the commons. In fact, the capacity of an upstream
riparian to reduce, degrade, or altogether halt water flows to its downstream counterpart through
overuse, dam-building, or other forms of resource capture effectively transforms a transnational
river basin from a common pool resource into a private good controlled by the upstream riparian.
As noted above, the two key characteristics of a CPR are subtractability and non-excludability.
However, under these circumstances, the upstream state clearly has the capacity to exclude the
downstream state from access to freshwater resources. In this sense, as a good with relatively
easy exclusion and high subtractability, transnational river basins effectively become a private
good in the hands of the upstream riparian. As such, the formation of effective water-sharing
institutions between states in an upstream/downstream riparian relationship is decidedly more
complex. After all, what incentive does an upstream state facing water scarcity have to share
65 Schulz, “Turkey, Syria and Iraq,” 96.
58
freshwater resources with its downstream counterpart when the former wields the capacity to
exclude the latter from these resources and instead reserve them for itself—all without facing any
form of sanctioning under international law? Should an upstream state embark upon such an
effort, and its downstream neighbor lacks the water necessary to feed its people and grow its
economy, advocates of the water wars thesis argue that the potential for conflict is high as the
downstream state finds itself with relatively few alternatives.
Water as a Legal Issue
As noted above, most scholars consider the existing framework for mediating disputes
over shared water resources inadequate to forestall conflict in the most severe cases.
Nevertheless, due to the international context of water scarcity, it is relevant to couple any
analysis of water-related conflict with at least a brief overview of the relevant principles of
international law pertaining to such issues. Stephen McCaffrey, for instance, identifies two
principal roles that international law can play relative to problems of water scarcity: “(a) to
ensure the stability and facilitate the implementation of effective strategies for dealing with water
scarcity; and (b) to prevent and resolve disputes, both within and between countries, over
increasingly scarce water resources.”66 Most scholars consider the Helsinki Accords on Water
Issues of 1966 to be the cornerstone of international law pertaining to water resources
management, planning, and sharing. Specifically, the second section of the Helsinki Accords
addresses the fair and equitable distribution of international basin water among riparians sharing
a river and, to this end, presents eleven factors for consideration in disputes over water resources.
These factors include the consideration of: 1) the basin’s geography; 2) the basin’s hydrology; 3)
66 Stephen McCaffrey, “Water Scarcity: Institutional and Legal Responses,” in The Scarcity of Water:
Emerging Legal and Policy Responses, ed. Edward H. P. Brans, Esther J. de Haan, André Nollkaemper, and Jan Rinzema (London: Kluwer Law International, 1997), 52.
59
the basin’s climate; 4) the extent of the riparians’ use of the river water; 5) the economic and
social needs of each riparian; 6) the resource dependency of each riparian; 7) the cost to develop
alternative means of meeting these needs; 8) the availability of non-water resources; 9) the level
of water waste exhibited; 10) the ability to provide compensation for ceded water; and 11) the
possibility of meeting one riparian’s needs without causing serious injury to another when
attempting to settle international water disputes.67
In theory, none of these factors outlined in the Helsinki Accords should take precedent
over another. Most scholars agree, however, that these guidelines are insufficient for the purpose
of mitigating serious interstate disputes over water resources. First and foremost, the Helsinki
Accords make no provisions for enforcement measures of their eleven guidelines. Moreover,
Barandat and Kaplan note that these static rules “fail to sufficiently define the utilization of
water, establish binding criteria for equitable utilization or consumption of water, establish
binding criteria for equitable utilization, and clearly fix priorities with respect to different kinds
of utilization.”68 The Helsinki Accords are also rather vague in terms of establishing precisely
who will settle disputes over international waters (de facto mediation typically falls to the
International Court of Justice) and how the eleven principles listed above should be applied. In
fact, as Theodore Parnall and Albert Utton argue, the Helsinki Accords are generally more
platitudinous than operational and, at best, offer recommendations rather than actual solutions.69
Of course, the problems inherent in the Helsinki Accords reflect the problems inherent in
international laws as a whole, and both have a common source: sovereignty. Arguably, the goal
67 Arnon Soffer, Rivers of Fire: The Conflict over Water in the Middle East, trans. Murray Rosovsky and
Nina Copaken (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1999), 12-14. 68 Barandat and Kaplan, “International Water Law: Regulations for Cooperation,” 16. 69 Theodore Parnall and Albert Utton, “The Senegal Valley Authority: A Unique Experiment in
International River Basin Planning,” Indiana Law Journal 51, no. 2 (1976), as quoted in John Waterbury, “Transboundary Water and the Challenge of International Cooperation in the Middle East,” in Water in the Arab World: Perspectives and Prognoses, ed. Peter Rogers and Peter Lydon (Harvard University Press, 1994), 47.
60
of the Helsinki Accords is to protect downstream riparians by promoting a doctrine of absolute
territorial integrity—a doctrine implying that a country’s use of a shared river basin should not
negatively impact its downstream neighbors. By not taking steps to actively protect downstream
riparians through meaningful channels of conflict resolution and enforcement, however, such
international laws effectively favor upstream states. As such, upstream states are in a position to
invoke absolute territorial sovereignty, empowering them to exploit a shared freshwater resource
in any way they please, even to the detriment of other countries.70 In turn, Tony Allan argues
that international law and other water management institutions effectively preserve “the interests
of those who have achieved access to water.”71
Since 1996, various international organizations have attempted, with mixed results, to
further hone and develop the principles put forth by the Helsinki Accords. One of the more
notable attempts came in 1991, when the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC)
submitted a report both revisiting and extending the 1966 Helsinki Accords. These ILC Rules
stressed the obligation not to cause harm to other watercourse states, to regularly exchange data
and information, and also gave priority to the human consumption of water over other uses, once
again attempting to emphasize a a doctrine of territorial integrity over territorial sovereignty.72
Further reform of the ILC Rules in the mid-1990s, however, fell to the wayside as many
upstream riparian states became increasingly concerned with potential threats to their
sovereignty as a result of the revised laws. Finally, in 1997, the United Nations Convention on
International Watercourses offered four basic propositions—which closely mirror those of the
70 Steve C. Lonergan, “Water Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul F. Diehl
and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 116. 71 J. A. Allan, “The Political Economy of Water: Reasons for Optimism but Long-term Caution,” in Water,
Peace and the Middle East, ed. J. A. Allan and J. H. Court (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996), 83. 72 Nurit N. Kliot, “A Cooperative Framework for Sharing Scarce Water Resources: Israel, Jordan, and the
Palestinian Authority,” in Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace, ed. Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2000), 207-208.
61
1991 ILC report—for dealing with the sharing of scarce international water resources. These
include: “1) the obligation not to cause significant harm; 2) the duty of reasonable and equitable
use; 3) the duty to cooperate; 4) the obligation of prior notification and negotiation.”73
Dolatyar and Gray argue that “international law per se cannot serve as a complete
solution to the water crisis because…while international lawyers can formulate advanced legal
arrangements, their formulas must be translated into effective institutions…a task for diplomats
and politicians.”74 Furthermore, despite the existence of such international agreements, as noted
above, the primary weakness of the existing body of international water law—and international
law in general—remains the fact that it is not coupled with an effective incentive or sanctioning
structure. Therefore, enforcing compliance proves particularly difficult when the only
immediate cost of noncompliance at stake in most cases is a state’s reputation in the international
system. Moreover, to borrow the terminology of Jeffrey W. Legro concerning effective norms,
international water law is typically deficient in terms of specificity, durability, and
concordance—and I would add adaptability to his list of criteria.75 As Dolatyar and Gray argue,
“without appropriate legal channels and adequate rules, the potential for conflict over water
increases both at local and international levels.”76
Speaking generally about the waters of the Middle East and North Africa, Aaron Wolf
makes a number of observations concerning “whether the future will take the shape of
increasingly riparian disputes and perhaps armed hostilities, or, alternatively, of greater
73 Rouyer, “Turning Water into Politics,” 182-183. 74 Dolatyar and Gray, “Water Politics in the Middle East,” 39-40. 75 Jeffrey W. Legro, "Which Norms Matter? Revisiting the 'Failure' of Internationalism," International
Organization 51, no. 1 (Winter 1997): 35. 76 Dolatyar and Gray, “Water Politics in the Middle East,” 39.
62
cooperation and regionwide planning.”77 In turn, Wolf argues that the primary overriding
impediment to water resources planning in the region is the lack of any meaningful international
water authority or institution. Speaking specifically in terms of the Jordan River Basin, he also
observes that no dispute “between Arabs and Israelis, on water or any other issue, has ever been
resolved without third-party…sponsorship and active participation.”78 While his second
observation perhaps tends toward hyperbole, Wolf certainly calls attention to the fundamental
difficulty of water resources planning in the region and the need for effective international
institutions. As he further notes, however, “The more complex a proposal is technically, the more
complex it is politically.”79 Encouraging cooperation among many states of the Middle East and
North Africa is, at the risk of understating matters, technically complex. Furthermore, similar
situations exist throughout much of the developing world.
In 1967, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe argued, “Water knows no
frontiers; as a common resource it demands international cooperation.”80 In the absence of
effective international law, institutional agreements between and among states are crucial to
governing the sharing of scarce freshwater resources. Given the need for such institutions,
however, it is perhaps surprising to discover that relatively few exist. For instance, according to
the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database, only five international institutions pertaining to
water supply have been established during the last twenty years.81 Furthermore, as suggested
above, many of the water-sharing institutions currently operating throughout the world are
ultimately rather ineffective in terms of producing desired state behavior and mediating disputes.
77 Aaron T. Wolf, “A Hydropolitical History of the Nile, Jordan and Euphrates River Basins,” in
International Waters of the Middle East: From Euphrates-Tigris to Nile, ed. Asit K. Biswas (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1994), 38.
78 Wolf, “A Hydropolitical History,” 38. 79 Wolf, “A Hydropolitical History,” 39. 80 Barandat and Kaplan, “International Water Law: Regulations for Cooperation,” 14. 81 International Freshwater Treaties Database, <http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/>.
63
Water Wars and International Relations Theory
Stepping back for a moment, a more fully formed version of the water wars thesis begins
to emerge. The argument begins as various demographic and socioeconomic pressures interact
with dwindling freshwater supplies, particularly in the developing world. Since water is a vital,
nonsubstitutable resource, scarcity leads to competition and competition leads to conflicts. In
some cases, this conflict may take the form of civil strife, as conflict groups mobilize against
weakened states. In other cases, conflict may spread across borders when, in the absence of
effective international laws or cooperative institutions, states resort to violence to seize control of
water resources controlled by other countries. The latter interstate conflicts clearly fall under the
domain of international relations; therefore, it is valuable to situate such water wars within the
broader theoretical context of the subfield.
Paul Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch note that environmental security studies in general,
while abundant in speculation, have been “notably limited in their theorizing about conflict.”82 In
fact, one finds surprisingly few references to the dominant theories of international relations—
realism, liberalism, and constructivism—in the research on water security. Nevertheless, it is not
difficult to detect the direct influence of the realist school of thought83 on the water wars thesis.
As Dolatyar and Gray affirm, “A realist view of world politics suggests a positive relationship
between resource scarcity and conflict. From this perspective, human history is an account of
resource wars.”84 Classical realism thus depicts an international system wherein, as Morgenthau
82 Paul F. Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Controversies and Questions,” in Environmental Conflict, ed.
Paul F. Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 3. 83 Here, the term “realism” refers to both classical realism and neorealist varieties—that is, theories of
international relations centered on the accumulation of power by states. While the classic realism of Morgenthau focuses on human nature as the source of this drive for power, Kenneth Waltz’s neorealism instead emphasizes the role of international anarchy in creating a competitive, self-help system.
84 Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 18.
64
argues, national interest defined in terms of power guides the decisions of policymakers.85 In
turn, states fundamentally seek power to ensure their continued survival as a sovereign unit—a
task identified by former Secretary of State Kissinger as the first and ultimate responsibility of
all statesmen. Placed in the context of hydropolitics, a classic realist would contend that severe
water scarcity is contrary to a given state’s national interest and, in fact, threatens its survival. In
turn, acquiring additional water resources—even through militarized conflict—is a justifiable
course of action if it reflects the national interest.
The neorealist school of thought sheds additional light on the water wars literature and its
place in international relations theory. Neorealists such as Kenneth Waltz cite the absence of a
central, sovereign power in the international arena—a state of affairs they term anarchy—as the
driving force of world politics. Under anarchy, there is no higher authority in the international
system to prevent and counter the use of force. Neorealists argue that states can only achieve
security through self-help—that is, a state cannot assume others will come to its defense and
therefore must provide for itself.86 This self-help system has clear consequences for international
affairs. First, under a system of anarchy and self-help, states face what it known as the security
dilemma. For example, when State A attempts to increase its own security, it makes State B feel
less secure in the process. In turn, State B will attempt to increase its security, creating a cycle of
jockeying for power that may ultimate make both states less secure. A second consequence of
anarchy according to neorealists is that states will seek relative gains when choosing whether to
cooperate with other actors. That is, rather than judging cooperation from the standpoint of “Are
we better off than before?” (absolute gains), they instead consider, “How much have we gained
85 Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations; The Struggle for Power and Peace, 6th edition (New York,
Knopf, 1985), 5. 86 First outlined in Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (McGraw-Hill, 1979).
65
compared to those with whom we are cooperating?”87 As such, meaningful cooperation is
difficult to achieve and occurs only with the state’s self-interest foremost in mind.
Once again, the implications for the water wars literature are apparent. In the absence of
a sovereign or meaningful international law, states find themselves in a self-help system when
faced with severe water scarcity. In such a system, a state may hypothetically decide to build a
dam to increase its water security. Doing so, however, potentially creates a security dilemma
when downstream riparians feel their water security is under threat as a result of the dam.
Despite the fact that institutions could potentially resolve this dispute, the difficulty of achieving
meaningful cooperation due to states seeking relative gains poses yet another obstacle; states will
only cooperate when the resulting balance of power is in their favor. Lowi offers a thorough
exploration of the neorealist approach to water scarcity and the resulting challenges posed by
interstate cooperation in Water and Power. Driven chiefly by concerns over power and
capabilities, she argues:
Even under favorable circumstances, states may shy away from cooperating,
when they can afford to. Hence, the challenge in international river basins
remains the achievement of cooperation solutions to the provision of a common
property resource, and avoidance of the tragedy of the commons.88
Taken as a whole, the realist school of thought that forms the theoretical basis for much of the
water wars literature presents a pessimistic outlook on the issue of water scarcity and conflict.
While realism may dominate environmental security studies, it is not the only relevant
theoretical perspective on the subject. Liberal scholars, for instance, hold a more optimistic view
87 This is a very simplified presentation of the relative/absolute gains debate. For a more detail summary,
please see Robert Powell, “Absolute and Relative Gains in International Relations Theory,” The American Political Science Review 85, no. 4 (Dec., 1991): 1303-1320
88 Miriam R. Lowi, Water and Power: The Politics of a Scarce Resource in the Jordan River Basin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 2.
66
of water scarcity and conflict.89 While they concede that states fundamentally pursue self-
interest, liberals believe that institutions can foster meaningful cooperation among states.
According to liberal theories, conflicts arise not from imbalances of power as realists argue, but
rather from “misperception inadequate knowledge, and poorly design or undemocratic
administrative and political structures.”90 Liberal perspectives also assert that markets can
produce efficient trade for scarce resources. States that lack vital resources can simply trade for
these goods on the international market. While the notion of trading for water sounds far-fetched
(one perhaps imagines tanker ships filled with Evian docked off the coast of the Persian Gulf), I
will discuss in Chapter 3 how international markets can play an important role in mediating
conflict over scarce freshwater resources.
Liberal perspectives on water and conflict begin with the proposition that conflict over
scarce water resources is not inevitable. Well-constructed international regimes and institutions
may allow states to achieve meaningful cooperation on shared freshwater resources. In turn,
much of the liberal literature focuses on crafting effective international law and institutions.
Dolatyar and Gray’s Water Politics in the Middle East is an excellent example of these liberal
theories applied to water conflict and cooperation. The authors contend that water scarcity,
rather than inevitably leading to conflict, “creates a mutual hostage situation between riparian
states of shared river basins, and this leads such states to avoid conflict by pursuing mutually
beneficial solutions to the problems. In other words, water is too vital a resource to be put at risk
89 “Liberalism” is a broad categorization, encompassing literature ranging from the idealism of early
liberals like Woodrow Wilson to advocates of the democratic peace theory to commercial liberals who advocate free trade as a pathway to cooperation to neoliberal institutionalists in the vein of Keohane and Nye. Given common threads such as optimistic view of international relations and a belief in meaningful cooperation between states, the blanket term of “liberalism” should suffice for our present purposes.
90 Jan Selby, Power and Politics in the Middle East: The Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (London: I.B. Tauris, 2003), 54.
67
by war.”91 Hence, the liberal perspective offers a more optimistic stance on water scarcity;
cooperation, while not necessarily easy to achieve, is possible.
Constructivism takes many forms in the study of international relations, but this emerging
school of thought is perhaps best captured by Alexander Wendt’s now-famous maxim: “Anarchy
is what states make of it.”92 For constructivists like Wendt, the realist notion of self-help is not
an inherent consequence of international anarchy. Instead, from a constructivist perspective,
ideas and norms matter. Actors shape the system through their interaction with one another,
which in turn constructs their own behavior within that system. In the context of water scarcity,
that means that how states choose to think about and approach the issue of water scarcity has a
lot to do with whether norms of competition or cooperation ultimately emerge.
For example, in Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East, Jan Selby identifies three
fundamental ways of thinking about water crises. The ecological discourse, he argues, focuses
on growing populations and ever-dwindling freshwater resources as the core problem underlying
water disputes. The technical discourse, on the other hand, emphasizes technological, economic,
and policy mismanagement and inefficiency as the root cause. Finally, the political discourse
cites uneven distributions of power and capabilities as the source of conflict.93 Figure 2.1 briefly
summarizes these discourses, as well as the potential solutions and likely outcomes with which
each is associated:
91 Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim Gray, “The Politics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East,” Environmental
Politics 9, no. 3 (2003): 67. 92 Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy is what States Make of it: The Social Construction of Power Politics,”
International Organization 46, no. 2 (Spring, 1992): 391-425. 93 Selby, Power and Politics in the Middle East: The Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 21-32.
68
Table 2.1: Selby’s Three Discourses on Water Crisis94
Discourse Problems Solutions Likely outcomes
Ecological Scarce resources,
growing populations
Limit population growth Water wars
Technical Mismanagement and inefficiencies
Improve management and
efficiency Progress
Political Uneven distribution
of power and resources
Reduce power and resource
inequalities Winners and losers
Hence, Selby argues that whether states approach water scarcity as an ecological, technical, or
political problem has significant impact on the likely outcome of water-related disputes. While
the literature on water scarcity and conflict remains dominated by realism and, to a lesser degree,
liberal challenges, Selby is not the only scholar to apply a constructivist perspective to the issue.
For instance, Jack Kalpakian examines issues of identity and how they relate to conflict in shared
river basins such as the Nile and the Euphrates.95
Quantitative Studies of Environmental and Water Conflict: An Overview
“Neither in the environmental literature,” Gleditsch observes, “nor in studies of the
causes of war or civil war has there been much systematic research (quantitative or comparative)
on the relationship between conflict, resources, and environmental factors.”96 On the topic of
demographic pressure and interstate conflict, Jaroslav Tir and Paul H. Diehl concur:
Although there has been a fair amount of theorizing about the connections
between population pressures and international conflict, the empirical evidence in
94 Adapted from Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East, 21. 95 Jack Kalpakian, Identity, Conflict, and Cooperation in International River Systems (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2004). 96 Gleditsch, “Armed Conflict and the Environment,” 383-384.
69
support of any of the propositions is scant, in large part because of the limited
systematic research available on the subject.97
Along with Diehl, Gleditsch further criticizes the bulk of the environmental security literature for
offering “insights without evidence” and describes the body of research as “underdeveloped” in
terms of empirical analysis.98 Meanwhile, quantitative analysis of the specific linkages between
water scarcity and conflict are especially rare. Writing in 2001, Steve C. Lonergan identified
only a single statistical study in the entire body of research that focuses on shared rivers and the
probability of armed conflict.99 While these quantitative studies are relatively few, it is
important to review at least a cross-section of their results in order to gauge the degree to which
theories of environmental and water conflict match the empirical reality.
In an early empirical study of forty-five developing countries, Choucri explored the link
between demographic pressure and conflict and found a positive correlation between population
variables such as distribution and composition and an increased likelihood of conflict.100 More
recently, Tir and Diehl find population growth pressure to have “a significant impact on the
likelihood that a state would become involved in military conflict.”101 Moving from demography
to environmental security, Hauge and Ellingsen offer what Diehl and Gleditsch describe as “one
of the first large-N, multivariate studies of environmental degradation and civil conflict.”102
Although Hauge and Ellingsen’s findings suggest that countries suffering from environmental
degradation—particularly land degradation—are more prone to civil conflict, they also note that
environmental factors remain less important to the equation than economic and political
97 Jaroslav Tir and Paul F. Diehl, “Demographic Pressure and Interstate Conflict,” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul F. Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 66.
98 Diehl and Gleditsch, “Controversies and Questions,” 2-3. 99 Lonergan, “Water Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 122. 100 Nazli Choucri, Population Dynamics and International Violence (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books,
1974). 101 Tir and Diehl, “Demographic Pressure and Interstate Conflict,” 78. 102 Diehl and Gleditsch, “Controversies and Questions,” 5.
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factors.103 Similarly, in 2006’s States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife, Kahl also finds a correlation
between demographic and environmental stress (that is, population growth, environmental
degradation, and unequal distribution of resources) and violence in developing countries.104
Turning to quantitative analyses of water-related conflict, we find even fewer studies. In
their 2000 study of shared rivers and conflict, Toset, Gleditsch, and Hegre find that countries that
share a river have a higher probability of conflict with one another.105 As Lonegran argues,
however, their study “does not address the issue of water scarcity directly”—only the presence of
rivers that either form or cross state boundaries.106 A more recent study by Gleditsch, et al.,
attempts to rectify this shortcoming, but support for scarcity-driven conflict over shared water
resources remains ambiguous.107 Hensel, et al., provide arguably the most substantial support for
the water wars hypothesis in their 2006 study, arguing that regions “with high levels of water
scarcity will experience more frequent conflicts over cross-border rivers, and the development
and effectiveness of institutions to manage riparian conflicts will be lacking.”108 This study
utilizes the Issue Correlates of War data, however, and its dependent variables therefore
represent only cases in which disputes over river claims are present. By failing to account for
cases wherein frequent cross-border disputes do not occur, the authors miss a critical piece of the
puzzle concerning conflict and cooperation over water resources.
103 Wenche Hauge and Tanja Ellingsen, “Causal Pathways to Conflict,” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul
F. Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 54 104 Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife. 105 Hans Petter Wollebæk Toset, Nils Petter Gleditsch and Håvard Hegre, “Shared Rivers and Interstate
Conflict,” Political Geography 19, no. 8 (2000): 971–996. 106 Lonergan, “Water and Conflict,” 122. 107 Nils Petter Gleditsch, Kathryn Furlong, Håvard Hegre, Bethany Ann Lacina & Taylor Owen, “Conflicts
over Shared Rivers: Resource Wars or Fuzzy Boundaries?”, Political Geography 25, no. 4 (2006): 361–382. 108 Paul R. Hensel, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Thomas E. Sowers II, “Conflict Management of Riparian
Disputes,” Political Geography 25 (2006): 408.
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Is the Water Wars Thesis All Wet?
Having explored the severe water scarcity faced by many countries in the developing
world, as well as the bevy of theories predicting both intrastate and interstate conflict over these
dwindling supplies, an important question remains: where are the water wars? Despite such dire
Malthusian predictions, it is difficult—if not impossible—to cite specific examples in which two
states have gone to war explicitly over water-related issues. Certainly, scholars have argued that
water was a major contributing cause of the Six-Day War in 1967 between Israel and its Arab
neighbors.109 As I will discuss in Chapter 3, however, calling the Six-Day War a war “about”
water is akin to calling World War I a war “about” an assassinated archduke. Water was only a
contributing cause—not the driving force. While states have often disagreed over shared water
resources and even been pushed to the brink of war (e.g. Syria, Turkey, and Iraq in 1975), the
kind of violent conflict described in much of the literature are far from the norm. Given the
preponderance of theoretical literature that suggests a link between water scarcity and conflict,
why have we not seen such “water wars” to this point? This is central puzzle of my project: how
have states avoided war over scarce water resources? Why have the neo-Malthusian predictions
of scholars and policymakers alike not come to pass? I argue that much of the theoretical work
in the “water wars” literature stems from a faulty conceptualization of the actual nature of water
scarcity, a topic I will discuss at greater length in the following chapter.
109 Leif Ohlsson, “The Role of Water and the Origins of Conflict,” in Hydropolitics: Conflicts Over Water
as a Development Constraint (London: Zed Books, 1991), 20.
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CHAPTER 3
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF HYDROVULNERABILITY
Certainly, the core arguments underlying the water wars thesis are compelling. If water
truly is the vital, nonsubstitutable, zero-sum resource that neo-Malthusians claim, and it is in
severe shortage throughout much of the developing world, it seems plausible that states might in
fact go to war to secure its supply. Nevertheless, the fundamental question remains: where are
the water wars? This is the puzzle, so to speak, the present project seeks to unravel. How can
we resolve the basic discrepancy between the dire predictions of the water wars literature and the
empirical reality? In this chapter, I turn a critical eye to theories of water scarcity and conflict
and argue that reconceptualizing water as an economic resource in a globalized economy helps
explain how states have thus far avoided major conflict over dwindling supplies.
Skeptical Voices in the Water Wars Debate
Where are the water wars? Aaron Wolf offers a concise answer: “As near as we can find,
there has never been a single war fought over water.”1 In the case of the Middle East, Mostafa
Dolatyar and Tim S. Gray concur, stating that “water resources have never been a source of
strategic rivalry or the root cause of military conflict in this region.”2 When one examines the
empirical reality of interstate relations concerning shared water resources, Jan Selby argues that
the spectre of water wars is just that—a spectre, not real. Selby goes on to suggest the notion of
1 Aaron Wolf, “Water Wars and Water Reality: Conflict & Cooperation Along International Waterways” in
Environmental Change, Adaptation, and Human Security, ed. Steve C. Lonergan (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1999), 262. Emphasis in original.
2 Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim S. Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East: A Context for Conflict or Co-operation? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 210. Emphasis in original.
73
water wars in the Middle East “seems to carry with it traces of simplistic ‘Orientalist’ stereotypes
about the Middle East. As an idea, it no doubt appeals to Western images of barren deserts and
dangerous Arab dictators.”3 In fact, Colin Kahl argues there is scant evidence supporting a link
between international violence and environmental scarcity of any kind.4
Tony Allan observes that the pessimistic neo-Malthusian outlook is rather persuasive if
we assume the following:
• Static patterns of food consumption by individuals (or worse, greater consumption in
terms of water usage);
• A pessimistic estimate of population growth rates;
• Static technology;
• Totally inflexible political and international institutions;
• Ineffective trading systems.5
When we begin to loosen these assumptions—allowing for the possibility that population growth
will level off, that technology will improve, that effective institutions can emerge—conflict over
scarce freshwater resources seems decidedly less certain. That being said, blind optimism is no
better than misinformed pessimism. Certainly, political disputes over international waters have
occurred throughout history in both the developing and developed worlds. The fact that states
signed over 3,600 treaties relating to international water resources between AD 805 and 1984
serves as a testament to this fact.6 These disputes are very seldom violent, however, and have
3 Jan Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East: The Other Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (London:
I.B. Tauris, 2003), 51. 4 Colin H. Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife in the Developing World (New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 2006), 255. 5 Tony Allan, The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2001), 11-12. 6 Steve C. Lonergan, “Water Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul F. Diehl
and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2000), 119. Of course, the vast majority of the 3,600 treaties pertain to the navigational use of rivers rather than issues of supply or distribution.
74
never escalated to the point of war. As Steve Lonergan argues, cooperation—or, at the very
least, coexistence—at the international level seems to be “much more standard than conflict.”7
In fact, some scholars suggest that water scarcity is more likely to generate cooperation
than conflict among states. Dolatyar and Gray argue that, instead of leading to war, “increasing
water scarcity will concentrate in the minds of those involved to find sustainable solutions
and…increasingly resort to coordinated, cooperative, and conciliatory arrangements.”8 Leif
Ohlsson expands upon this notion:
Since water is such an essential necessity for which there is no substitution,
countries perceiving an increased scarcity of water will opt for a negotiated
solution of differences over water allocation rather than unilateral annexation,
because continued conflict is at best a zero-sum game, while negotiations would
in most cases lead to more of a scarce resource for all.9
This statement perhaps lends weight to a constructivist understanding of conflict and cooperation
over scarce water resources. If a state approaches the issue of water from a self-interested, zero-
sum perspective, conflict is the likely outcome. On the other hand, if decision-makers approach
water scarcity from the standpoint that “we’re all in this together,” they may begin to conceive of
potential rivals as a potential partners, making cooperative outcomes more likely.
Setting aside the issue of cooperation for the moment, the central weakness of the water
wars literature is a wealth of speculation combined with a dearth of empirical evidence. The
problems with this perspective, however, go beyond a lack of cases to support its hypothesis of
7 Lonergan, “Water Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 119. 8 Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 9. 9 Leif Ohlsson, “The Role of Water and the Origins of Conflict,” in Hydropolitics: Conflicts Over Water as
a Development Constraint, ed. Leif Ohlsson (London: Zed Books, 1991), 23.
75
water scarcity leading to interstate conflict. For instance, Thomas Homer-Dixon discusses the
difficulty of applying the precepts of realism to questions of environmental scarcity and security:
Realism induces scholars to squeeze environmental issues into a structure of
concepts including “state,” “sovereignty,” “territory,” “national interest,” and
“balance of power.” The fit is bad, which may lead theorists to ignore, distort,
and misunderstand important aspects of global environmental problems.10
Nevertheless, as discussed in Chapter 2, much of the water wars literature—even Homer-Dixon’s
own research—is built upon a realist understanding of international conflict and cooperation.
Like most theories that rely on large-scale structural factors as constraints on state
behavior, the water wars literature is simultaneously overly deterministic in its predictions and
reductionist in its scope. This approach arguably exaggerates the causal importance of
environmental factors while downplaying the roles of intervening social, political, and economic
variables. If scarce water was, in fact, the only variable in play, the idea that states might go to
war over it seems plausible. However, placed in the context of international institutions, the
global economy, historical rivalries, border disputes, treaties, and countless other factors,
water—while vital to a state’s survival—is a small piece of the larger puzzle of interstate
relations. The idea that severe water scarcity inevitably leads to interstate conflict is overstated
and, simply put, wrong.
Furthermore, the water wars literature does not correspond to the basic principles of
rational choice theory—the underlying decision-making rationale of realism. If one assumes that
states act in such a way as to maximize gain and minimize loss, water wars seem highly
implausible. Given the destructive capacity of modern weapons, Kahl notes that warfare is an
10 Thomas Homer-Dixon, “On the Threshold,” in Global Dangers, ed. Sean M. Lynn-Jones and Steven E.
Miller (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995), 52-53
76
incredibly costly and risky undertaking, creating a strong incentive to resolve disputes over
scarce resources peacefully.11 Avraham Tamir, a military officer who oversaw Israel’s strategic
planning in the 1967 and 1982 Arab-Israeli Wars, offers a similar cost-benefit analysis: “Why go
to war over water? For the price of one week’s fighting, you could build five desalination plants.
No loss of life, no international pressure, and a reliable supply you don’t have to defend in
hostile territory.”12 Water pessimists would likely counter that water is a vital resource and, as
noted in Chapter 1, that desalination is not a cure-all for all cases of severe scarcity.
Nevertheless, as Kahl argues, even when vital resources are in severe demand, “it is almost
always cheaper to obtain them through trade or bilateral and multilateral agreements than to fight
for them.”13 A decision-making model based on rational choice would produce an outcome of
war, it seems, only after exhausting all other less-costly channels of acquisition and dispute
resolution.
Nils Petter Gleditsch identifies another weakness of the water wars literature—and
environmental security literature in general—when he notes that it tends to use the future as
evidence of its claims. That is, much of the research focuses on future wars that may happen. As
Gleditsch notes, “There is a lack of empirical study of armed conflicts in the past as well as a
lack of explicit theorizing for if and why resource scarcities should have a higher violence-
generating potential in the future than in the past.”14 While it is the ultimate goal of social
scientific inquiry to make predictions about the future, such predictions should be based on
observation of past and present conditions. Too much of the water wars literature, however, does
11 Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife, 255. 12 Aaron T. Wolf, “’Hydrostrategic’ Territory in the Jordan Basin: Water, War, and Arab-Israeli Pace
Negotiations,” in Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace, ed. Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2000), 92.
13 Kahl, States, Scarcity, and Civil Strife, 255. 14 Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Armed Conflict and the Environment” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul F.
Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 266.
77
not predict—in the social scientific understanding of the term—so much as speculate. Speaking
about the future without empirical evidence, as Gleditsch argues, is akin to standing on the street
corner with a sign reading “The End is Nigh!” If states are not going to war over water today,
why should we expect them to go to war tomorrow?
I would argue, however, that the most significant weakness of the water wars literature is
its fundamental understanding of freshwater scarcity. As noted in the previous chapter, scholars
such as Thomas Naff and Arun Elhance have argued that water is a unique resource among other
environmental resources.15 Its unique nature is typically attributed to the idea that water is
essential for human life, nonsubstitutable, and a zero-sum resource; for every gallon of water that
I consume, one less gallon is available for everyone else. Due to these characteristics, pessimists
argue that cooperation over shared water resources is difficult to achieve and, as populations
place greater pressure on dwindling supplies, conflict is likely. I argue that approaching water
scarcity as a sui generis phenomenon—an island unto itself, not subject to existing theories of
conflict and cooperation—is the most significant shortcoming of the water wars literature. While
I certainly agree that water is essential for human life and economic development, I question the
assumption that it is necessarily a nonsubstitutable, zero-sum resource. As I discuss in greater
detail below, reconceptualizing water in economic terms—thinking in terms of hydropolitical
economy, if you will—allows us to reintegrate the literature on water scarcity into the broader
scope of international relations as a whole, thus explaining how states have thus far avoided war
over water-related issues.
15 Thomas Naff, “Conflict and Water Use in the Middle East,” in Water in the Arab World: Perspectives
and Prognoses, ed. Peter Rogers & Peter Lydon (Harvard University, 1994), 273; Arun P. Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World: Conflict and Cooperation in International River Basins (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1999), 4.
78
The Six-Day War: A War over Water?
As noted above, Selby essentially dismisses the so-called “spectre” of water wars, while
Dolatyar and Gray firmly state that water resources have never been a source of strategic rivalry
or the root cause of military conflict—at least in the Middle East. Nevertheless, advocates of the
water wars hypothesis frequently cite the Six-Day War of 1967 as the most prominent example
of the kind of scarcity-driven conflict they describe. In fact, John Cooley goes so far as to claim
that the “constant struggle for the waters of the Jordan, Litani, Orontes, Yarmuk and other life-
giving Middle East rivers…was the principal cause of the 1967Arab-Israeli War.”16 However, as
I discuss below, such a perspective greatly exaggerates the importance of water-related issues in
the conflict and downplays the significance of the broader Arab-Israeli political context. If the
Six-Day War is truly the preeminent historical example of a water war, the historical record is
unconvincing, to say the least.
To briefly summarize the conflict, the Six-Day War (also known as the Arab-Israeli War
of 1967, the Third Arab-Israeli War, or the June War) was fought between Israel and its Arab
neighbors: Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Although tensions among the states had steadily escalated
over the course of several years (arguably since the 1948 establishment of the Israeli state), we
can trace the triggering causes of the conflict to May 1967. On May 18, Egypt expelled United
Nations peacekeeping forces from the Sinai Peninsula and began to mobilize troops and increase
military activity near the Israeli border. Shortly thereafter, Egypt also moved to blockade the
Straits of Tiran to any and all ships flying the Israeli flag. Fearing an imminent invasion by
Egypt and the possibly of a three-front war against its neighbors, Israel launched a preemptive
attack on the Egyptian airforce on the morning of June 5, destroying over 300 of Egypt’s 340
total combat aircraft in the process. The following day, Israel attacked Syrian airfields, severely
16 John K. Cooley, “The War over Water,” Foreign Policy 54 (Spring 1984): 3.
79
crippling its airforce, as well. Jordan responded to Israel’s preemptive strike by launching shell
and mortar attacks on the Israeli cities of Jerusalem and Netanya. When the dust settled a few
days later, Israel had seized control of and occupied the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West
Bank, and the Golan Heights, dramatically altering the geopolitical landscape of the Middle East
with repercussions that last to this day.
How does water enter into the story of the Six-Day War? Advocates of the water wars
thesis cite the completion of Israel’s National Water Carrier project in 1964 as a key precursor to
the 1967 conflict. Israel constructed this system of aqueducts, reservoirs and pumping stations to
divert water from the Jordan River. Israel’s increased utilization of the Jordan River waters was
an immediate source of tension for its riparian neighbors, Syria and Jordan, and in November
1964, the Arab states began construction of their competing Headwater Diversion Plan. Upon
completion, this plan would have prevented the Jordan headwaters from reaching Israel,
diverting flows to Syria and Jordan instead. On three occasions in 1965, Israeli tanks attacked
diversion works in Syria, and a final incident in July 1966 stopped Syrian construction and eased
water-related tensions between the two states.17 Nadav Safran nevertheless argues that these rare
examples of actual cross-border, water-related skirmishes set in motion “a prolonged chain
reaction of border violence” that eventually led to the Six-Day War.18
Other scholars, including Thomas Naff and Ruth Matson, note that the outcomes of the
1967 war had significant hydropolitical implications for the states involved. For instance, they
make the case that Israel’s postwar occupation of the Golan Heights and the West Bank made it
impossible for Arab states to engage in future attempts to divert the Jordan headwaters. The
17 Wolf, “’Hydrostrategic’ Territory in the Jordan Basin,” 88. 18 Cooley, “The War over Water,” 16.
80
cease-fire also extended Israel’s control over the Yarmuk River.19 Whether it was Israel’s
intention or not, the reestablished boundaries following the 1967 war arguably improved its
“hydrostrategic” position vis-à-vis its Arab neighbors.
Based on such hydropolitical considerations, Cooley boldly proclaims that water was the
“principal cause” of the Six-Day War.20 John Bulloch and Adel Darwish agree that the war was
caused “largely by competition for the waters of the River Jordan,” while Naff and Matson
contend that the “increase in water-related Arab-Israel hostility was a major factor leading up to
the 1967 June War.”21 Such perspectives, however, overstate the importance of water-related
issues in the buildup to the Six-Day War. As Steve Lonergan argues, and I agree, “There is little
evidence—other than hearsay—that water played a major role in the 1967 war.”22 Munther J.
Haddadin, Jordan’s former Minister of Water and Irrigation, confirms that the outbreak of war in
June 1967 was not related to water or the diversion projects on either side of the Jordan River.23
In fact, disputes over the National Water Carrier and the Headwater Diversion Plan ended nearly
a year before the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967. Any attempt to draw a direct causal
link between these border skirmishes and the Six-Day War is simply a misrepresentation of
historical events. Israel’s initial target in its preemptive strike—Egypt—was not even involved
in these earlier quarrels. Meanwhile, not a single resolution issued by the United Nations
Security Council pertaining to the Six-Day War mentions water resources or any river diversion
19 Thomas Naff and Ruth Matson, Water in the Middle East: Conflict or Cooperation? (Boulder:
Westview, 1984), 44. 20 Cooley, “The War over Water,” 3. 21 John Bulloch and Adel Darwish, War Wars (Gollancz, 1993), 34; Naff and Matson, Water in the Middle
East, 44. Quoted in Selby, Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East, 49. 22 Lonergan, “Water Conflict: Rhetoric and Reality,” 119. 23 Munther J. Haddadin, Diplomacy on the Jordan: International Conflict and Negotiated Resolution
(Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2002), 202.
81
projects.24 At the very least, this suggests that the international community at the time did not
view the conflict as the end result of an ongoing struggle over water either.
As noted in the previous section, any structural explanation for state behavior based on
large-scale forces constraining state behavior—e.g. Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria went to war
in 1967 based on some vaguely defined hydropolitical imperative—tends toward reductionism.
In other words, it inflates the significance of one variable at the expense of other intervening
factors. “For the causes of the [Six-Day War],” Alwyn R. Rouyer argues, “one must look more
broadly to the inter-Arab disagreement over how to deal with the existence of Israel.”25 Selby
expands on this political context in the following passage:
Israel launched “preemptive” attacks on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria not because of
water resource disputes, but in an attempt to shatter Nasser’s Arab Nationalist
prestige, to enhance the country’s strategic depth, and to fulfil longstanding
territorial ambitions; more broadly the war was the product of Cold War
bipolarity, of poor intelligence information, of the political rivalries between Arab
states, and of the political insecurities of Israel’s Eshkol-led government.26
A Central Intelligence Agency memo prepared the day after the war began lends further credence
to a non-hydraulic understanding of the Six-Day War. This memo summarized Israeli objectives
in the conflict as including: 1) the destruction of the center of power of the Nasser regime, 2) the
destruction of Soviet weapons in Arab hands, and 3) the elimination of Syria and Jordan as
sovereign nation-states.27 A similar policy brief on the objectives of the Arab states also fails to
24 United Nations Security Council Resolutions 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 240, and 242. Accessed online at
<http://www.un.org/documents/sc/res/1967/scres67.htm>. 25 Alwyn R. Rouyer, Turning Water into Politics: The Water Issue in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 131 26 Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East, 50. 27 “Talking Paper Prepared for a Meeting of the Control Group at State by Richard Helm, the Director of
the CIA (6 June 1967), cited in Haddadin, Diplomacy on the Jordan, 200-201.
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mention any dispute over water. Like the Security Council, historical documentation suggests
that analysts at the CIA did not approach the Six-Day War as a conflict about, over, or even
remotely concerning water-related interests.
If we accept that water was not the cause of the Six-Day War, did concerns over the
control of hydrostrategic assets affect the war’s actual conduct? Aaron Wolf is skeptical: “Water
resources were not a factor for strategic planning in the [Arab-Israeli] hostilities of 1948, 1967,
1978, or 1982. By this, I mean that the decision to go to war and the decisions made during the
fighting…were not influenced by water scarcity or the location of water resources.”28 For
instance, even after Syria attacked Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan was reluctant to
launch a counter attack on the Golan Heights. It was only after several days of artillery barrages
and sniper attacks that Dayan relented and ordered a counterattack on the Syrian forces. In turn,
Wolf describes any water sources seized in the Golan Heights as a result were merely “incidental
conquests” as Israeli forces moved east.29 Furthermore, Wolf goes on to cite the example of the
Syrian town of Ghajar as evidence that Israeli was not motivated by hydrostrategic concerns in
its conduct of the Six-Day War. Ghajar directly overlooks the Wazzani Srpings, a tributary of
the Hasbani and Jordan rivers and, at the time, was the site of the proposed dams for the Arab
states’ Headwater Diversion Plan. Nevertheless, Israeli did not lay siege to Ghajar; instead, its
troops stopped directly outside of the town.30 If Israel’s strategy in the war was truly driven by
its hydrostrategic interests, as some have argued, such a decision is puzzling to say the least.
Taking these factors into consideration, the notion that Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan
fought the Six-Day War over water—or that concerns over water played a significant role in the
buildup to war—simply does not match the historical record. Accounts that downplay the role of
28 Wolf, “’Hydrostrategic’ Territory in the Jordan Basin,” 94. 29 Wolf, “’Hydrostrategic’ Territory in the Jordan Basin,” 89. 30 Wolf, “’Hydrostrategic’ Territory in the Jordan Basin,” 89.
83
“high politics” (e.g. ongoing Arab-Israeli tensions, longstanding territorial ambitions, the Cold
War bipolarity of the region) and instead emphasize hydropolitics misrepresent the causes of the
war and, as Selby argues, end up “grossly exaggerating the international political significance of
water scarcities.”31 As the saying goes, if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, everything
starts looking like a nail. Along similar lines, if you only consider hydropolitical factors at the
expense of other important variables, before long, every conflict starts looking like a water war.
Why No Water Wars? Three Possibilities
Having reoriented the Six-Days War in its proper political context, even a cursory glance
at modern history reveals that while dire predictions of water wars are increasingly common, it is
nearly impossible to cite cases in which substantial interstate violence has occurred over a shared
water resource. Does a causal link exist between water scarcity and interstate conflict, or is the
water wars literature all wet? As noted above, this is my project’s core theoretical puzzle: how
can we reconcile an existing body of literature that predicts conflict over water with an empirical
reality in which such conflicts are rare if not virtually nonexistent?
Attempting to explain the nonoccurrence of any event—in this case, the absence of water
wars—is problematic from a methodological standpoint. Attempting to do so is comparable to
explaining the mystery of the dog that did not bark; any number of factors can explain why an
event does not occur.32 While conclusively explaining the absence of water wars is admittedly
beyond our capabilities, we can nevertheless explore possible explanations for the discrepancy
between the predictions of the water wars literature and the reality of water relations in
31 Selby, Water, Power and Politics in the Middle East, 50. 32 In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s short story “Silver Blaze,” the following exchange takes place between
Sherlock Holmes and a Scotland Yard detective: “Is there any point to which you wish to draw my attention?” “To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.” “The dog did nothing in the nighttime.” “That was the curious incident.”
84
international politics. In this sense, it is a theoretical puzzle—a departure from expectations—
that I seek to unravel in the remainder of this chapter.
I propose there are three possible explanations for the inconsistencies between theory and
reality in the water wars literature. First, it could be that water scarcity is simply not severe
enough yet to lead to conflict. Second, perhaps water contributes to violent interstate conflict
less directly than the water wars literature suggests. It could be the case that while few wars are
fought explicitly over contested water resources, disputes over water may heighten existing
tensions among states or cause other violent conflicts to escalate. Finally, the third possibility is
that the existing research fundamentally errs in its conceptualization of water as a unique
nonsubstitutable, zero-sum resource. If we instead conceive of water as an economic resource—
that is, more fungible and not necessarily zero sum—does conflict remain the most likely
outcome?
The first possibility discussed above—that water scarcity is simply not “bad enough” yet
to generate war—poses its own methodological problems. If we extend the shadow of the future
in the water wars debate indefinitely and assume that water scarcity will have a higher violence-
generating potential in the future than in the past, we once again encounter Gleditsch’s criticism
of using the future as evidence of our present theoretical claims. While it is frankly impossible
to disprove unempirical speculation about the future, what we know about the present and the
past does not suggest water wars lurk on the horizon.
Furthermore, since the literature does not establish a “tipping point” at which conflict
over scarce water resources becomes more likely, it is difficult to evaluate whether scarcity is
severe enough in any given case to generate violence. If we accept that these wars have not
occurred, but will occur at some uncertain point in the future when scarcity is sufficiently acute,
85
the water wars hypothesis is fundamentally untestable. What is certain, however, is that water
shortages are already severe in many developing countries—and have been for decades in some
cases. Chapter 1 already explored the state of global water scarcity at the turn of the twenty-first
century, and I need not reemphasize the challenges faced by many developing countries. While
scarcity may intensify in the future, it is already a significant constraint on state behavior in the
present. Yet, no two states have gone to war with one another over water. Again, I return to a
seemingly straightforward question: if states have not gone to war over water yet, why should we
expect them to go to war over water in the future?
While it is impossible to conclusively reject this first explanation of water wars forever
lurking a few short years in the future, there is no doubt that water scarcity is already a problem
in the present. Moreover, as I discussed above, the underlying notion that water scarcity will
significantly worsen in the future itself is based on a set of assumptions about population growth
rates, consumption patterns, and technological capacity that may or may not hold true. With no
clearly defined tipping point at which pessimists expect water war to erupt, there is little reason
to believe that the nature of water relations between states will diverge significantly in the future
from water relations today. With that in mind, I will turn to my second and third explanations in
the following sections.
An Indirect Link?
Is it possible that water contributes to interstate violence less directly than much of the
water wars literature suggests? In other words, while states may not go to war explicitly over
water-related issues, is it possible that water disputes exacerbate existing tensions between states
and perhaps contribute indirectly to the outbreak of war? If we accept such a hypothesis, then a
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casual link does exist between water and interstate violence; it is just difficult to observe against
the “noisy” international backdrop of political disputes, economic competition, ethnic struggles,
and so forth. While the historical record fails to supply us with formal declarations of war to
reclaim control of a transboundary river basin, perhaps quantitative analysis can elucidate any
indirect role water-related might play in interstate conflict.
As noted in Chapter 2, quantitative studies of the linkages between water scarcity and
conflict are quite rare. This is due in large part to the poor availability of reliable longitudinal
data on water scarcity—particular on transboundary flows.33 To recap some of the existing
studies, Wenche Hauge and Tanja Ellingsen offer a large-N, multivariate study of environmental
degradation and civil conflict. Their findings indicate that countries facing environmental
degradation—particularly land degradation but also, to a lesser degree, water degradation—are
more prone to domestic conflict. They emphasize, however, that environmental variables remain
less important than competing economic and political factors.34
Turning to studies of interstate violence, a 2000 study by Toset, Gleditsch and Hegre
finds that sharing a common river increases the probability of militarized interstate disputes
between countries over and above mere geographic contiguity. However, the authors ultimately
question whether their results might be spurious, as countries with long common boundaries not
only have a greater propensity for interstate conflict, but also a higher geographic likelihood of
sharing a river.35 Furlong, Gleditsch, and Hegre set out to rectify this weakness in a 2006 study,
finding evidence that suggests boundary length is not a significant determinant of conflict when
33 One also wonders if the lack of quantitative analysis of water conflict is related to the fact that the data
do not tend to bear out researchers’ pessimistic assumptions about water’s conflict-generating capacity. 34 Wenche Hauge and Tanja Ellingsen, “Causal Pathways to Conflict,” in Environmental Conflict, ed. Paul
F. Diehl and Nils Petter Gleditsch (Boulder: Westview Press, 2001), 54 35 Hans Petter Wollebæk Toset, Nils Petter Gleditsch and Håvard Hegre, “Shared Rivers and Interstate
Conflict,” Political Geography 19, no. 8 (2000): 971–996.
87
controlling for various Neomalthusian factors. Their study also offers some evidence to suggest
that water scarcity increases the likelihood of interstate conflict. Everything else being equal, the
authors estimate that dyads in which at least one members suffers from water scarcity are 41
percent more likely to experience a militarized dispute. As a caveat, however, they observe that
such disputes remain extremely low-probability events in any case. Moreover, their data do not
distinguish between upstream/downstream riparian relationships and cases in which rivers form
“fuzzy” boundaries between states. In turn, such “fuzzy” boundaries could be the source of
interstate conflict rather than upstream/downstream relations or water scarcity.36 Meanwhile, a
follow-up study by Gleditsch, Furlong, Hegre, Lacina, and Owen finds that support for a scarcity
theory of conflict is “somewhat ambiguous.”37 Drought was found to have no effect whatsoever
on the likelihood of conflict, and while dry countries were more likely to experience conflict, the
presence of a shared river basin tended to mediate the outbreak of militarized disputes.
Hensel, et al., provide arguably the most substantial support for the water wars hypothesis
in their 2006 study, arguing that regions with high levels of water scarcity will experience more
frequent conflicts over cross-border rivers.38 As I discussed in the previous chapter, however,
significant questions persist about this study’s methodology. Specifically, the study only
considers cases in which disputes occur, omitting the vast majority of cases in which coexistence
or cooperation are the status quo.
Meanwhile, a handful of quantitative studies have examined the issue of cooperation over
shared water resources. For example, Gleditsch and Hamner find in a 2001 study that shared
36 Kathryn Furlong, Nils Petter Gleditsch, and Havard Hegre, “Geographic Opportunity and Neomalthusian
Willingness: Boundaries, Shared Rivers, and Conflict,” International Interactions, 32:79–108, 2006. 37 Nils Petter Gleditsch, Kathryn Furlong, Havard Hegre, Bethany Lacina, and Taylor Owen, “Conflicts
over shared rivers: Resource scarcity or fuzzy boundaries?” Political Geography 25 (2006): 378. 38 Paul R. Hensel, Sara McLaughlin Mitchell, Thomas E. Sowers II, “Conflict Management of Riparian
Disputes,” Political Geography 25 (2006): 408.
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rivers and water scarcity are somewhat paradoxically associated with both increased cooperation
between countries, as well as interstate conflict.39 In their 2004 study, Tir and Ackerman suggest
that while factors such as economic development, democracy, and IGO membership tend to
increase the chances of a treaty between riparian states, an upstream/downstream geographic
configuration tends to work against cooperation. With regards to the issue of water scarcity,
however, Tir and Ackerman conclude the following: “Given that water scarcity has the ability to
unleash both cooperative and conflictual influences, the overall impact of this factor on treaty-
signing propensity may be negligible.”40 This suspicion is confirmed in their quantitative
analysis, in which their measures of water demand fail to achieve statistical significance.
Meanwhile, Brochmann and Gleditsch find in a 2006 study that water scarcity increases the
likelihood of both cooperative and conflictive events between riparian states. Furthermore, they
argue that both conflictive and cooperative water events tend to “stimulate treaties and treaties in
turn contribute to water cooperation.”41 Taken as a whole, these studies suggest that the
evidence supporting a causal connection—either direct or indirect—between water scarcity and
militarized interstate conflict remains, at best, inconclusive. Therefore, in the absence of more
robust data, it is difficult to assert with any degree of certainty that water scarcity serves as an
underlying cause of interstate conflict.
39 Nils Petter Gleditsch and Jesse Hamner, “Shared Rivers, Conflict, and Cooperation.” Paper presented at
the 42nd Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, Chicago, IL, February 21–24 2001 and The Fourth European International Relations Conference, University of Kent, Canterbury, September 8–10 2001.
40 Jaroslav Tir and Ackerman, Lt. Col. John. “To Share or Not to Share: Politics of Cooperation Between Riparian States.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mar 04, 2004. 41 Marit Brochmann and Nils Petter Gleditsch, “Conflict, Cooperation, and Good Governance in International River Basins,” Paper presented at a meeting in CSCW Working Group 3, Environmental Factors in Civil War. PRIO, Oslo, 21 September 2006.
89
Water as an Economic Resource
Therefore, I now turn to my third—and, I believe, most compelling—explanation for why
the predictions of the water wars literature correspond so poorly to the reality of interstate water
relations. Once again, the notion that water scarcity inevitably leads to conflict derives from the
assumption that water is fundamentally different than other scarce resources. There is relatively
little discussion, for instance, of mineral wars or timber wars,42 but the literature assumes water
is somehow unique—an island unto itself. Arus P. Elhance summarizes this perspective in the
following passage:
By itself, the unequal distribution or scarcity of natural resources does not
necessarily lead to interstate conflict because human beings have historically
shown an ingenious capability to survive by adjusting their lifestyles to even the
most resource-deficient environments on Earth, and by engaging in trade in scarce
resources…. It is when severe scarcities of an essential, nonsubstitutable, and
shared resource, such as freshwater, are experienced or anticipated…that states
may become prone to conflict.43
If nonviolent solutions like cooperation, lifestyle adjustment, and trade work for other resources,
why not for water? If we accept the basic notion that freshwater is a nonsubstitutable, zero-sum
resource, such a conclusion is perhaps logical and deductively plausible. However, does such an
assumption reflect the empirical reality?
42 Michael T. Klare includes a chapter on domestic conflict over minerals and timber in Resource Wars:
The New Landscape of Global Conflict (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001). That being said, disputes over oil are probably the most frequently cited source of resource-driven conflict. While it is not uncommon to hear claims of states supposedly going to war “over oil”—including arguments by critics of the current U.S. occupation of Iraq—such assertions are difficult to substantiate.
43 Arun P. Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World: Conflict and Cooperation in International River Basins (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1999), 4.
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I argue that much of the existing research on water scarcity and conflict fundamentally
errs in its conceptualization of water as a strictly environmental resource. If we instead think of
water as an economic resource—that is, more fungible and not necessarily zero sum—we can
assess water scarcity in the same context that we understand other natural resources. Therefore,
nonviolent solutions to severe water scarcity should be, and are, quite possible. The freshwater
supplies of a given state may seem like an inherently fixed quantity, but we will see in the
following pages that freshwater is, in fact, a surprisingly liquid asset.
“Water, water everywhere—but at a price.” Dolatyar and Gray propose this as a slogan
for those who look at water scarcity from an economic perspective.44 This competing view
thinks of water as a commodity, subject to the same forces of supply and demand as any other.
Hirshleifer, et al., argue the fact that water is vital for human survival and economic development
does not make it unique among other resources. In fact, they contend that the “alleged unique
importance of water disappears upon analysis.”45 The economic treatise emphasizes that water is
a renewable, reusable resource—not zero sum—and in point of fact is present in surplus at the
global level. From an economic perspective, Selby notes, “water scarcity is not problematic in
and of itself; scarcity, to the contrary, it is a necessary condition of economic activity, without
which there would be no need for economic exchange. The problem, claim those of an economic
bent, is that water…is allocated in an economically inefficient manner."46 This is not to suggest
that a more equitable distribution of global water is easily—or inexpensively—achieved; it
simply opens the door to a competing understanding of water scarcity that does not necessarily
44 Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 22. The authors present a concise, insightful
treatment of water as an environmental issue in their text, and their work provided much of the groundwork for the arguments that follow in the present project.
45 Jack Hirshleifer, James C. De Haven, and Jerome W. Milliman, Water Supply: Economics, Technology, and Policy (Chicago: Universiyt of Chicago Press, 1960, 5 cited in Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 23.
46 Selby, Water, Power, and Politics, 27.
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involve intense competition and conflict. Hence, if we reevaluate water as a renewable, reusable
resource at the global level, we have already loosened the “zero sum” stricture at the core of the
literature on water scarcity and interstate violence.
Taking this economic understanding of water scarcity a step further, scholars like Terry
L. Anderson and Pamela Snyder advocate the role of water markets in resolving disputes over
scarce water resources.47 Here, water markets simply refer to “a situation where the forces of
supply and demand determine the price of the good: in this case, water.”48 The underlying idea
is that a move to a market system—would promote water conversation and efficiency of use. In
fact, Lonergan notes that the World Bank has advocated higher water prices in countries such as
Jordan, where the provision of water is highly subsidized. He goes on to argue, however, that
such market-based solutions are unlikely to succeed, due in large part to a lack of clearly defined
water property rights and the fact that markets emphasize efficiency at the expense of equity.49
Putting aside the issue of water markets, if we accept the proposition that water sharing is
not a zero-sum game, how do we resolve the unequal distribution of global freshwater resources?
After all, a surplus of water in Pennsylvania is of little use to a drought-stricken farmer in Oman.
We turn again to the market for an answer; this time, however, we look to the global agricultural
market instead of domestic water markets.
Virtual Water: Buffering Against Water Scarcity
As noted in Chapter 1, hydrologists estimate a per capita need of 100 cubic meters of
water per year for personal consumption and sanitation and an additional 1,000 cubic meters to
47 Terry L. Anderson and Pamela Snyder, Water Markets: Priming the Invisible Pump (Washington: Cato
Institute, 1997). 48 Steve C. Lonergan, “Forces of Change and the Conflict over Water in the Jordan River Basin,” in Water
in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace, ed. Hussein A. Amery and Aaron T. Wolf (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2000), 57.
49 Lonergan, “Forces of Change and the Conflict,” 57-58.
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grow the food necessary to feed and individual for a year.50 While most countries in the
developing world can meet the minimum requirement for personal consumption, many cannot
presently meet the agricultural requirements needed to feed their own growing populations. If
water resources are this scarce and scarcity leads to conflict, how have states in arid regions like
the Middle East and North Africa survived without major violent conflict over water scarcity?
Tony Allan argues that the answer lies in an extremely important commodity—what he
describes as “virtual water.” Allan defines virtual water as the water embedded in the food that a
region imports and notes that “use of this virtual water obtained in the global trading system has
enabled the political leaderships of the region to augment their respective inadequate water
resources” and forestall potential conflict.51 In turn, those states that can afford to import both
agricultural and other food products from abroad are in a position to significantly offset the 1,000
cubic meters of fresh water per capita required to feed their populaces each year. In other words,
water-scarce countries can import food products that require large quantities of water to produce
rather than producing them domestically. Trading in virtual water enables these countries to
conserve actual water, relieving scarcity and making water available for other purposes. In turn,
as Allan contends, “water shortages are not determining constraints because there is a ready
supply of water, albeit ‘virtual water,’ available. This water is contained in the imports of staple
foods which are for the moment readily available and massively subsidized on the international
market.”52
That being said, why not import actual water directly as opposed to importing the virtual
water embedded in food products? As Allan notes, it is much easier to move a ton of grain than
50 Tony Allan, “Watersheds and Problemsheds: Explaining the Absence of Armed Conflict over Water in
the Middle East,” in MERNIA: Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal (Vol. 2 no.1. March 1998), <http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/1998/issue1/jv2n1a7.html>.
51 Allan, “Watersheds and Problemsheds.” 52 Cited in Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 24.
93
the 1,000 tons of water required for its production. Furthermore, as discussed above, grain on
the world market has been heavily subsidized by exporting states, “so water deficit countries
enjoy a double benefit when they import such grain” as opposed to loading up tanker ships with
water and sailing them around the globe.53 In this regard, trade in virtual water represents an
efficient, cost-effective way to offset water scarcity.
As noted above, an estimated 1,000 tons of water is required to grow a single ton of
grain. Table 3.3 summarizes the estimated virtual water value of various food products—i.e. the
amount of water required to produce a given quantity of that product:
Table 3.1: Virtual Water “Value” Embedded in Common Food Products54
Food product Virtual water “value”
1 kg of wheat 1,300 liters of water
1 kg of rice 3,400 liters of water
1 kg of maize 900 liters of water
1 kg of beef 15,000 liters of water
1 liter of milk 1,000 liters of water
1 kg of eggs 3,300 liters of water
1 cup of coffee 140 liters of water
Conversion: 1,000 liters = 1 m3 = 264 gallons
How do these numbers translate to the individual level? Nutritionists maintain that the per capita
consumption of virtual water contained in a survival diet is approximately 1,000 liters per day.
This number increases to 2,600 liters of virtual water per day for a vegetarian diet and 5,300
liters per day for a Western-style meat-based diet.55
53 Tony Allan, “Preface,” in Water in the Middle East: A Geography of Peace, ed. Hussein A. Amery and
Aaron T. Wolf (Austin: The University of Texas Press, 2000), xiv. 54 Data in Table 3.2 adapted from “Water Footprint and Virtual Water,” <http://www.waterfootprint.org/>. 55 World Water Council, “Virtual Water in Brief,” <http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/index.php?id=866>.
94
Moving toward a more economic understanding of water as a commodity, the concept of
virtual water is as simple as applying Ricardo’s theory of comparative advantage to what is
typically considered a nonsubstitutable environmental resource. If, as a result of water scarcity,
food production is costly for a given state relative to other economic activities, comparative
advantage dictates that the state should focus on other aspects of its economy and import food
from abroad. Israel, for instance, discourages the export of oranges, a crop that requires
particularly large quantities of water to grow. To do so would amount to exporting water—a
rather poor decision for an already water-scarce country. From the standpoint of comparative
advantage, it makes more sense for Israel to acquire oranges on the international market than to
produce them domestically.
By dedicating a significant portion of its water resources to food production, a water-
scarce country suffers extraordinarily high opportunity costs—i.e. the water used to produce food
is no longer available for personal consumption, industry, or any number of other purposes. In
turn, trade in virtual water enables countries to effectively sidestep agricultural production as a
component of its overall “water footprint,” and in doing so, transform water into a substitutable
good. As noted in Chapter 1, agriculture makes the greatest demands on the global water supply,
constituting over 70 percent of total water withdrawals annually. Moreover, water embedded in
food represents roughly 90 percents of an individual’s water needs.56 By substituting virtual
water in the form of imported food products, a state can significantly relieve the pressures of
water stress and free up water for other purposes. By relieving these pressures, I argue, virtual
water plays a vital role as a buffer against potential water-related disputes and conflict.
Israel provides an illustrative example of how a state can take advantage of virtual water
to offset severe water scarcity. With a population of 6.5 million people, Israel requires roughly
56 Allan, “Preface,” xiii.
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7,300 million cubic meters of fresh water per year to cover household, agricultural, and industrial
needs. Taking into account rivers, lakes, aquifers, groundwater, and desalinized/recycled water,
Israel’s freshwater availability per year is closer to 4,200 million cubic meters, leaving a 3,100
million cubic meter gap. How does Israel feed its population with this water deficit? As one
might expect, it imports an estimated 4,200 million cubic meters of virtual water embedded in
food products each year.57 This not only allows Israel to overcome its water deficit, but also puts
the country well above subsistence levels. As such, there is a substitute for the water of the
Jordan River, making disputes and conflict over these transboundary resources far less likely.
Having seen the role virtual water can play in a country like Israel, what does the global
virtual water trade look like? Figure 3.1, developed by A. Y. Hoekstra, et al., offers an overview
of the major importers and exporters of virtual water around the world.
Figure 3.1: Global Virtual Water Flows58
57 Yoav Kislev, “The Water Economy of Israel,” in Water in the Middle East: Cooperation and
Technological Solutions in the Jordan Valley, ed. K. David Hambright, F. Jamil Ragep, and Joseph Ginat (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2006), 132-133.
58 A. Y. Hoekstra, A. K. Chapagain,P. Q. Hung and H.H.G Savenije, “Global Virtual Water Flows,” <http://www.waterfootprint.org/virtualWaterFlows.htm>
96
As we see in Figure 3.1, North and South America serve as the primary net exporters of virtual
water in the global economy. As one might expect, developing countries in the Middle East and
Asia are among the biggest importers. It is perhaps surprising to see Western Europe as one of
the largest net importers of virtual water, but it is important to note the map presents information
at the regional level. On a country-by-country basis, while European countries such as Belgium,
Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain are net importers of virtual water, France and Germany export
large quantities of virtual water.
Turning specifically to the Middle East and North Africa, Allan argues that more virtual
water flows into the region each year than actual water down the Nile River.59 Table 3.4 breaks
down these virtual water flows on a country-by-country basis, both in terms of grain imports and
food imports as a percent of total merchandise imports:
Table 3.2: Virtual Water Flows into the Middle East and North Africa60
Country Grain imports, 2000
(in metric tons)
Food imports as a percent of total
merchandise imports Algeria 7,508,927 28.2% Bahrain 123,035 9.7 Cyprus 655,134 18.7 Egypt 9,654,784 25.1 Iran 9,928,299 19 Iraq 4,589,056 -- Israel 2,998,815 5.4 Jordan 1,536,663 21.3 Kuwait 740,357 17.6 Lebanon 830,470 18.9 Morocco 5,215,046 13.7 Oman 578,077 22.5 Palestinian Territories 493,594 -- Qatar 142,747 11.7 Saudi Arabia 7,581,698 18.5
59 Allan, “Watersheds and Problemsheds.” 60 Data in table derived from World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,”
<http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
97
Syria 1,730,718 19 Tunisia 2,490,342 8.3 Turkey 2,681,679 3.9 United Arab Emirates 1,826,515 11.1 Yemen 2,635,389 35.6
While there is variation between countries within the region, virtual water clearly plays a vital
role in the hydropolitical economy of the Middle East and North Africa. At the same time, it
does create a regional dependency on the food trade. This is no different, however, than the
West’s dependency on Middle Eastern oil, and as Israeli scholar Yoav Kislev notes, “without
imports we could not have fed our populations. Starving people would have then fought
ceaselessly over every drop of water. Here is globalization contributing to peace.”61
Virtual water also presents political advantages over actual water. As Allan argues, not
all waters are equal—some are more political, more conflictual, more negotiable, and more prone
to litigation than others.62 Virtual water is, in essence, politically invisible. Food trade is simply
another part of the state’s economy—as it has been since before the time of the Roman Empire.
Negotiations over a shared river basin or strict conservation policies, on the other hand, are quite
visible from a political standpoint. As such, there is significantly more room for dispute among
parties with conflicting interests. “Miraculously and above all silently,” Allan argues,
“governments have been able to avoid the apparently inevitable consequences of their local
water deficits”—that is, domestic and regional frictions—as a result of virtual water.63 He goes
on to note the political advantages of virtual water in the following passage:
61 Kislev, “The Water Economy of Israel,” 133. 62 Tony Allan, “‘Virtual Water’: A Long Term Solution for Water Short Middle Eastern Economies?”,
paper presented at the 1997 British Association Festival of Science, Water and Development Session (9 September 1997), <http://www.soas.ac.uk/waterissues/occasionalpapers/OCC03.PDF>.
63 Allan, “Watersheds and Problemsheds.”
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The political advantages of virtual water are substantially greater than their
economic ones for peoples and politicians in the MENA region. The reason is
that the importation of virtual water is not a political problem provided that
attention is not drawn to the water, food and trade nexus. Virtual water has the
immense advantage of being non-stressful if it remains as political invisible in the
political system as it is economically invisible in national and international
economic systems. Water reform policies on the other hand, such as regulatory
regimes, water markets, privatization, and care for the environment, inspired by
economic principles and by principles of environmental sustainability, confront
Southern politicians with political problems with high associated political costs.64
Thus, as an “invisible” economic solution to the issue of water scarcity, virtual water sidesteps
the difficulties of political and environmental solutions. It is when water becomes politicized
that disputes arise and the likelihood of conflict increases.
Virtual Water and Hydrovulnerability
To reiterate, while the arguments linking water scarcity to interstate conflict may seem
plausible, evidence of such a causal connection is, at best, scant. The water wars literature
argues that as more and more people compete for fewer and fewer freshwater resources, the
likelihood of interstate conflict increases. Were this the case, however, one would expect to find
examples of violent conflict over scarce water resources in many regions of the developing
world—especially in the arid countries of the Middle East and North Africa. Nevertheless, the
reality remains that violent conflicts centered explicitly on issues of water scarcity have been few
64 Allan, The Middle East Water Question, 33.
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and far between both in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as throughout the developing
world. Again, we return to our central puzzle: where are the water wars?
In an attempt to unravel this puzzle, I hypothesize that water scarcity itself is not the key
structural constraint on state behavior, but rather a given state’s economic capacity to address
the challenges of water scarcity. In other words, as a state’s economic capacity increases, its
ability to address and compensate for problems of water scarcity also increases, therefore serving
as a buffer against potential violent interstate conflict over scarce resources. In this sense, my
approach deviates from much of the existing literature on water scarcity, placing the onus more
squarely on the state’s ability to cope with water scarcity rather than water scarcity itself. In that
regard, I am moving toward a concept “hydrovulnerability,” rather than simply looking at the
number of cubic meters of freshwater available in a given state. In an increasingly globalized
world economy, I argue that the traditional approach to water scarcity oversimplifies what is in
fact a far subtler phenomenon.
Therefore, drawing upon Allan’s concept of virtual water, I make the case that a given
state’s vulnerability to water scarcity is a more basic constraint on state behavior than the state’s
actual freshwater resources. In other words, the amount of water a state has is not nearly as
important as its economic capacity to cope with scarcity. This understanding of vulnerability
draws on theories of international political economy developed by Keohane and Nye in Power
and Interdependence. In this work, the authors differentiate between the fundamental concepts
of sensitivity and vulnerability. Sensitivity, they argue, deals with how costly changes to a given
structure are to the actors involved. With regards to water scarcity, I suggest that sensitivity
would refer to precisely how costly changes in the supply of freshwater resources are to a given
state. On the other hand, Keohane and Nye argue that the “vulnerability dimension of
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interdependence rests of the relative availability and costliness of the alternatives that various
actors face.”65 These alternatives to water scarcity, in the context of the present study, include
both technological innovation and the aforementioned importation of virtual water.
At its simplest level, hydrovulnerability is a function of a given state’s actual water
resources and its ability/willingness to pursue virtual water on the global market.
Figure 3.2: The Relationship between Virtual Water and Hydrovulnerability
Drawing upon this basic understanding, while both Israel and Yemen are sensitive to the
challenges of water scarcity (with an estimated 148 cubic meters and 241 cubic meters of
freshwater per capita, respectively), I contend that Israel is fundamentally less vulnerable to
water scarcity than Yemen.66 Israel’s stronger economy (GDP per capita, $18,900) theoretically
gives the state the capacity to acquire the necessary virtual water resources from abroad, whereas
65 Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence (New York: Longman, 2001), 10-11. 66 “Freshwater,” The World Bank (2000), <http://www.worldbank.org/data/wdi2001/pdfs/tab3_5.pdf>.
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Yemen faces far greater limitations (GDP per capita, $820) in this regard.67 In fact, as noted
above, grain imports are a key characteristic of Israel’s hydropolitical economy. Clearly, the
concept of hydrovulnerability has significant implications for the fundamental understanding of
issues of water scarcity and potential violent conflict over these scarce resources.
To test the hypothesis that a state’s economy ability to tackle issues of water scarcity is a
greater constraint than its actual freshwater resources, I will compare the relative effects of
economic and environmental variables on a state’s water availability. If my theory is correct, the
correlation between a given state’s economic capacity and its success in providing its citizens
with water should be stronger than the correlation between actual renewable resources and water
provision. Hence, economics—not ecology—becomes the driving force behind water relations.
My dependent variable is a state’s success in addressing issues of water scarcity and,
theoretically speaking, forestalling potential interstate and intrastate conflict over scarce water
resources (this second aspect of my hypothesis is explored in greater detail through the case
studies in Chapters 4 and 5). I have operationalized my dependent variable as the percentage of
the state’s population with “adequate” access to an improved water source, using data acquired
from the EarthTrends environmental database.
I examine two independent variables in the study—variables that I will compare in terms
of how well they predict deviation in the dependent variable. The first independent variable is
the state’s total freshwater resources, measured in cubic meters per capita and acquired from the
EarthTrends database. As noted above, hydrologists estimate that individuals need a minimum
of 1,100 cubic meters of water per year to cover drinking water, sanitation, and growing enough
food to feed themselves. My second independent variable is economic capacity, operationalized
as a given state’s GDP per capita in current U.S. dollars. I am utilizing economic capacity as a
67 The World Factbook 2001, CIA, <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook>.
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simplified indicator of hydrovulnerability for the sake of parsimony, attempting to capture both
the state’s ability to acquire virtual water internationally and to implement domestic policies
such as desalination and irrigation projects to address water scarcity. Those states with low GDP
per capita are expected to be more sensitive to problems of water scarcity than those with
stronger economies.
My sample consists of 88 countries identified as “developing countries” by the World
Bank. These data are summarized in Appendix 2. While the notion of hydrovulnerability does
not apply only to the developing world, including the developed world—where countries have
high GDP per capita and, across the board, nearly 100 percent access to water—would only lend
further support to my hypothesis. If traditional theories concerning water scarcity hold true, a
given state’s total freshwater resources should serve as a stronger predictor of the percentage of a
state’s population with adequate access to an improved water source than GDP per capita. On
the other hand, if my rival hypothesis holds true instead, GDP per capita should show through as
a more powerful force in terms of predicting who drinks and who does not.
In order to test my hypothesis, I will compare simple statistical measures of correlation
between each independent variable, respectively, and the dependent variable. Figure 3.3 shows a
scatterplot of the relationship between the percentage of the population with adequate access to
water, and the first independent variable, water resources per capita in cubic meters.
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40000.020000.00.0
Total Freshwater Resources (cubic meters)
100
80
60
40
20
% o
f pop
ulat
ion
with
acc
ess
to w
ater
R Sq Linear =0 003
Figure 3.3: Water Resources per Capita and Adequate Access to Water
As Figure 3.2 suggests, is little relationship (r = -.05) between the freshwater resources per capita
available in a state and the percentage of its population with adequate access to an improved
water source. The observed relationship also fails to achieve statistical significance (p = .64, full
results are presented in Appendix III). This is perhaps surprising from a neo-Malthusian
perspective on water scarcity. If we think of water strictly as an environmental resource, we
should see a strong correlation between these variables. After all, we are essentially using water
as a predictor of water. Yet, no statistically significant relationship exists. It seems the question
of water availability goes beyond a simple zero-sum understanding of local freshwater resources.
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We now turn to my hypothesis—that economic capacity is a stronger predictor of water
availability than actual water resources. Figure 3.4 depicts the relationship between GDP per
capita and the percentage of the population with adequate access to an improved water source.
Figure 3.4: GDP per Capita and Adequate Access to Water
Here, we observe a clearer pattern. The relationship is positive (r = .538) and statistically
significant (p < .01). Thus, I would argue that these findings lend at least preliminary support to
a theory of hydrovulnerability. The data suggest that economic capacity is most a stronger
predictor of who drinks and who does not in a given state than the actual amount of freshwater
resources available in that state. In other words, a state’s economic capacity to address issues of
14000120001000080006000400020000
GDP per capita
100
80
60
40
20
% o
f pop
ulat
ion
with
acc
ess
to w
ater
R Sq Linear =0 289
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water scarcity appears to be a more powerful structural constraint than actual water resources.
Approaches to water scarcity that rely solely on non-economic measures of freshwater supplies
miss out on a crucial piece of the puzzle and, in turn, exaggerate water crises.
Measuring Hydrovulnerability
Drawing upon these findings, it is valuable to develop a measure of hydrovulnerability.
Perhaps the most parsimonious way to do so is to construct a simple multiplicative index that
combines economic and environmental indicators. The following equation produces a simple
measure of hydrovulnerability ranging from 0 to 100 (with 0 representing a highly vulnerable
country and 100 representing a country with sufficient economic capacity to address all but the
most severe water shortages):
hydrovulnerability = economic capacity × freshwater availability
In constructing my index, I will again measure economic capacity as a state’s GDP per capita in
current U.S. dollars. This variable is, in turn, transformed into a three-tiered indicator of a state’s
economic capacity. I award a score of “1” to those countries classified by the World Bank as
low-income (a GDP per capita of less than $875), a “2” to middle-income countries (between
$876 and $10,725), and a 3 to high-income countries ($10,726 and greater). For my indicator of
freshwater availability, I rely on the percentage of the population with access to an improved
water source. This measure of freshwater availability is multiplied by freshwater availability and
then divided by 3 to create an index score that ranges from 0 to 100.
For example, imagine a state with a highly developed economy and a population with
comprehensive access to an improved water source. As a high-income country this hypothetical
state would receive a score of 3 for its economic capacity. Assuming access to water is 100
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percent, we would multiply economic capacity by freshwater availability for a total of 300.
Dividing by 3 (to adjust the scale from 0 to 100), this hypothetical state has a perfect score of
100 on the hydrovulnerability index. In other words, the state possesses the economic capacity
to easily address any water shortages that may arise, either through the importation of virtual
water or through technological innovation. On the other hand, if we consider a low-income state
in which only 45 percent of the population have adequate access to water, it receives a score of
15 on the hydrovulnerability index (an economic score of 1, multiplied by 45 and divided by 3).
This state, a worst-case scenario lacking both domestic freshwater resources and the capacity to
trade for them on the international market, is highly vulnerable to water shortages.
Table 3.5 summarizes fifteen countries and their scores on the hydrovulnerability index.
For a complete listing of hydrovulnerability scores around the globe, please see Appendix IV.
Table 3.3: Hydrovulnerability in Fifteen Countries
Country Hydrovulnerability index (0-100)
High income countries: United States of America 100 United Arab Emirates 100 Israel 100 Qatar 100
Middle income countries: Egypt 65.3 Mexico 64.7 Turkey 64 Syria 62 Iraq 54
Low income countries: India 28.7 Sudan 23.3 Sierra Leone 19 Chad 14 Afghanistan 13 Somalia 9.7
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Looking at hydrological data on countries such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar
suggests high levels of water scarcity, but as the hydrovulnerability index illustrates, these states
have strong enough economies to offset these environmental constraints. On the other hand,
while a country like Afghanistan boasts approximately 2,000 cubic meters of freshwater per
capita—well above the “magical number” of 1,100 cubic meters per capita—its weaker economy
makes it a state significantly more vulnerable to water shortages.
This index of hydrovulnerability is a simple measure, but once we accept that water is a
resource like any other, it allows us to speak more meaningfully about the challenges of global
freshwater supplies. More importantly, however, this index allows us to compare states using a
standardized “yardstick.” To borrow from Allan, not all waters are equal. For instance, Israel’s
148 cubic meters of freshwater per capita are less of a constraint on its actions than Syria’s 1,293
cubic meters per capita. With a strong economy, Israel the capacity to offset these low domestic
supplies by trading for virtual water on the international market, as well as spending its funds to
improve irrigation and developing new technological in desalination and recycling. As a
developing state, however, Syria is far more vulnerable to the pressures posed by dwindling
water resources and growing populations.
Conclusions
By shifting our perspective away from a pessimistic view of water as a zero-sum,
nonsubstitutable resource and thinking of it instead as an economic commodity, we challenge the
central assumptions of the neo-Malthusian school of thought. They argue that water is different
from other resources because a state with very little water has few options to acquire additional
resources. In the most severe cases, they argue, these states will resort to war to ensure their
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hydropolitical security. As we have seen in this chapter, however, there are few—if any—
examples of states taking such drastic measures. Moreover, the presence of virtual water as an
“invisible” component in the global market gives states a means through which they can
supplement domestic water deficits and offset the effects of water scarcity. Conflict is not
inevitable; in fact, the historical record suggests it is very unlikely. By moving away from the
basic conceptualization of water as a uniquely conflictual resource, we reintegrate it into a
broader understanding of international relations—where interstate cooperation remains a viable
alternative to neo-Malthusian water wars.
Of course, that is not to argue that virtual water is a panacea for all the world’s water-
related problems. As discussed above, all states do not possess an equal capacity to pursue
virtual water. For instance, wealthier countries are in a far more advantageous position with
regards to importing food from abroad than poorer countries. Moreover, politics may impact a
state’s ability to procure virtual water. For example, a country facing heavy sanctions and
embargoes from the international community will find it significantly more difficult to trade for
virtual water on the world market. Finally, a state must be willing to pursue virtual water to
supplement its actual water resources. As I will discuss in the following chapter, Turkey is an
example of a state that, despite facing water shortages, has eschewed virtual water in favor of
agricultural self-sufficiency. Thus, variation remains in patterns of virtual water consumption
around the world. In turn, determining how these variations affect political outcomes is my
primary theoretical concern in the following case studies.
In this chapter, I have taken the first steps toward a more nuanced understanding of water
as an economic resource with the concepts of virtual water and hydrovulnerability. While I have
offered evidence to suggest that economics trump environmental factors, the second component
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of my theory remains unresolved. Does virtual water help forestall disputes between states over
shared water resources? Does reliance on virtual water over actual water increase the likelihood
of interstate cooperation among water-scarce countries? These questions are somewhat difficult
to resolve through quantitative analysis; therefore, in Chapters 4 and 5, I turn to case studies of
the Nile River Basin and the Tigris-Euphrates River Basin.
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CHAPTER 4
CASE STUDY: THE TIGRIS-EUPHRATES RIVER BASIN
In the previous chapter, I laid the groundwork for a more economic view of water as a
commodity. The neo-Malthusian perspective on water and conflict errs in its conceptualization
of water as a uniquely conflictual resource. As I discussed in Chapter 3, the evidence—historical
and statistical—that water contributes to conflict is, at best, scant. Moreover, I advanced the
notion that economics trump environmental scarcity as a constraint on state behavior. A state
with a relatively strong economy—the oil exporters of the Middle East, for instance—has the
capacity to offset any water deficits through the virtual water embedded in the food products it
imports. I further hypothesized that virtual water, by mitigating many of the pressures of severe
water scarcity, serves as a buffer against interstate disputes over shared water resources and
instead promotes the cooperation and the formation of institutions.
Figure 4.1: The Relationship between Virtual Water and Cooperation In Chapter 4 and 5, I will explore the role played by virtual water in two case studies: the Tigris-
Euphrates River Basin and the Nile River Basin. In the case of the Tigris-Euphrates, we observe
a relationship among the riparian states characterized by ongoing disputes and a failure to
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establish meaningful forms of cooperation. Along the Nile River, however, we see a greater
willingness among the riparian neighbors to work together to address issues of water quantity
and quality across state borders. While numerous political, social, and economic factors enter
into both cases, I argue that virtual water plays a significant contributing role in shaping these
river basin relations. By easing the pressures of water scarcity, virtual water allows states to
cooperate rather than compete over scarce water resources.
A Note on Case Selection
Comparing degrees of conflict and cooperation is difficult to achieve through quantitative
analysis—particularly considering the lack of reliable data available on riparian relationships in
the developing world. In turn, I will rely on qualitative case studies to test my hypothesis. In my
selection of the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile cases, I am striving for a “most similar systems”
research design. This approach is based on selecting a set of cases that are as similar as possible
with respect to as many features as possible. In this regard, we have effectively “controlled” for
these characteristics. In turn, if we observe a difference among our cases, Przeworski and Teune
note that the following theoretical implications:
1) The factors that are common to the countries are irrelevant in determining the
behavior being explained since different patterns of behavior are observed among
systems sharing these factors. 2) Any set of variables that differentiates these
systems in a manner corresponding to the observed differences of behavior (or
any interaction among these differences) can be considered as explaining these
patterns of behavior.1
1 Adam Przeworski and Henry Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry (Malabar, FL: Krieger
Publishing, 1982), 34.
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It is impossible in both quantitative and qualitative research to effectively control for all systemic
differences. Nevertheless, Przeworski and Teune offer the example that an observed variation in
political behavior between Sweden and Finland—two highly developed, northern European
countries with similar cultural and historical backgrounds—is attributable to a smaller number of
intersystem differences than a variation between Sweden and Japan.2
Lijphart further expounds on the most similar systems approach in the following passage
advocating the selection of what he describes as “comparable” cases:
In this context, “comparable” means similar in a large number of important
characteristics (variables) which one wants to treat as constants, but dissimilar as
far as those variables are concerned which one wants to relate to each other. If
such comparable cases can be found, they offer particularly good opportunities for
the application of the comparative method because they allow the establishment
of relationships among a few variables while many other variables are controlled.3
Lijphart goes on to observe that this approach effectively addresses the “too many variables”
problem often faced in comparative social inquiry. Hence, in adopting a most similar systems
design, I am not “ignoring” alternative hypotheses; rather, I am controlling for them as
thoroughly as possible through case selection. While this approach arguably sacrifices a degree
of generalizability, I maintain that it does so in favor of overall explanatory power. As Lijphart
maintains, while analysis of the entire range of political systems is always ideal, “it is often more
practical to accord priority to the focus on a limited number of comparable cases and the
discovery of partial generalizations.”4
2 Przeworski and Teune, The Logic of Comparative Social Inquiry, 32. 3 Arend Lijphart, “Comparative Politics and the Comparative Method,” The American Political Science
Review, Vol. 65, No. 3. (Sep., 1971): 687. 4 Lijphart, “Comparative Politics,” 687. Emphasis in original.
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One possible alternative to the most similar systems methodology is Alexander George’s
method of “structured, focused comparison.” George describes this approach to case selection
and analysis as “structured” because the researcher essentially asks the same set of standardized
questions of each case in order to acquire data about the same set of variables across cases. The
method is “focused” in the sense that analysis of the cases emphasizes the variables that are
relevant to the researcher’s theory.5 In turn, the primary goal of structured, focused comparison
is to produce more generalizable findings than possible with a single case study. However, I
rejected this methodology in favor of a most similar system approach due to the weaknesses of
structured, focused comparison in terms of addressing alternative hypotheses. As noted above, a
most similar systems design effectively controls for alternative explanations by holding constant
as many intervening factors as possible. While a structured, focused comparison arguably allows
for a broader scope of analysis and generalization, it performs somewhat poorly with regards to
controlling for alternative hypotheses. For instance, if we observe variations in hydropolitical
outcomes across cases studies selected from the Middle East, Europe, North America, and Asia,
how can a researcher conclusively rule out the Middle East’s desert climate as a potential source
of these differences? Does the number of states sharing a given river affect relations? Or,
perhaps economic development plays a role. Or, is it different political systems? Maybe culture
is the true culprit. While structured, focused analysis may allow for greater generalizability, it
does so at the expense of explanatory power.
By utilizing a most similar systems design, my case studies remain “structured” in that I
pose the same set of theoretical questions to each case to test my hypotheses and achieve a better
understanding of hydropolitics, conflict, and cooperation. Furthermore, the most similar systems
5 Alexander George, “Case Studies and Theory Development: The Method of Structured, Focused
Comparison,” in Diplomacy: New Approaches in History, Theory, and Policy, ed. Paul Gordon Lauren (Free Press, 1979), 43-68.
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approach allows me to not only focus on the variables relevant to my theory, but also to control
for as many alternative explanations as possible in the process. Therefore, I believe that a most
similar systems approach will contribute a higher degree of validity to my findings than
structured, focused comparison—effectively allowing me to say with greater confidence that my
explanation is the right explanation.
It is with these considerations in mind that I select the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile river
basins as my case studies for the present project. I consider this selection a “most similar
systems” research design for the following reasons:
1. Both cases are drawn from the Middle East/North Africa (MENA), the region
most closely associated with conflict over scarce water resources.
2. Both cases exhibit similar climatic conditions, as the rivers under
consideration flow through subtropical, semi-arid, and arid climates.
3. The riparian states in each case experience similar levels of water stress
according to World Bank estimates.
4. In both cases, there are three “major players” under consideration. The Tigris-
Euphrates riparians are (moving downstream) Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. While
ten countries lie along the Nile River, Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt are the
dominant hydropolitical actors in the basin.
5. All the states lying along both the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile river basins are
developing countries.
6. In both cases, there is a dominant power—a regional hegemon. Turkey plays
this role in the Tigris-Euphrates case, whereas Egypt is the most powerful
Nile riparian.
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This case selection does not suggest that disputes over scarce water resources are limited to the
Middle East and North Africa. Choosing two cases from this region and controlling for as many
factors as possible, however, allows for more meaningful analysis than comparing, for instance,
disputes over the Rio Grande between the United States and Mexico to struggles over equitable
sharing of the Mekong River in East Asia or the Danube in Europe.
Moreover, a significant portion of the water wars literature has focused on the arid states
of the Middle East and North Africa—the geographic region where the problem of water scarcity
is undoubtedly most acute. By selecting cases from this region, I am entering the existing debate
on common ground with those scholars who have predicted interstate conflict over scarce water
resources. That being said, nothing about my theoretical approach limits its applicability solely
to the Middle East and North Africa; it is simply the most logical and appropriate region to
consider in terms of initial theory-building and testing.
Organization of Case Studies
The purpose of the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile case studies is to explore the role played by
virtual water in buffering against interstate conflict and promoting cooperation. We observe a
significant variation in riparian relations between these two cases, and I argue that patterns of
virtual water consumption serve as at least a partial explanation for this divergence. Before
proceeding, however, it is important to define two key terms under consideration: conflict and
cooperation. As demonstrated in Chapter 3, violent conflict over water resources, while widely
predicted by scholars and policymakers alike, simply does not occur with any observable
frequency in the international system. Therefore, in the following case studies, “conflict” refers
primarily to nonviolent interstate disputes—differences in state goals that result in diplomatic
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standoffs, unresolved disputes, hostile relations, open threats, military mobilization, and so forth.
On the other hand, “cooperation” on water-related issues includes signing treaties, forming
institutions, working together on joint resource management projects, submitting to third-party
arbitration, and other collaborative efforts among riparian neighbors. To simplify matters, the
primary dependent variable under consideration in the following case studies is the formation of
institutions to address water-related issues—a key indicator of cooperation among riparian states.
Each case study will begin with a brief overview of the geography and hydrology of the
river basin under consideration. Next, I will offer a brief historical overview of riparian relations
in the river basin with a focus on water-related interactions over the course of the past century.
Then, I will turn to a survey of cooperative efforts in the river basin. Have the riparians signed
treaties or formed institutions to promote the equitable sharing of water resources? If so, are
they effective? Finally, I will turn to the role played by virtual water in each case. I hypothesize
that an increased reliance on virtual water will promote the formation of institutions, in turn
leading to less conflictive relations in a given river basin. In other words, when actual water
becomes less vital due to the presence of virtual water, the likelihood of states engaging in
disputes over these scarce resources should decline.
The Troubled Waters of the Tigris-Euphrates
The Euphrates and the Tigris—the two largest rivers in the Middle East—form a basin
that historians have traditionally considered the cradle of civilization, where prehistoric man is
believed to have first turned to agriculture.6 In fact, Mesopotamia—literally, “land between the
rivers”—derives its name from the presence of the Tigris-Euphrates basin. Both rivers originate
6 While the Tigris-Euphrates is most commonly cited as the “cradle of civilization,” scholars identify five
possible locations for the historical birthplace of human civilization: the Tigris-Euphrates in modern day Iraq, the Halil roud in modern day Iran, the Nile in Africa, the Indus in South Asia, and the Huang-He-Yangtze in China.
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in the mountainous Anatolian highlands of southeastern Turkey and eventually merge into a
single waterway (the Shatt al-Arab) before emptying into the Persian Gulf. On its way to the
Persian Gulf, the Euphrates River travels some 1,875 miles, of which approximately 40 percent
lie in Turkey, 25 percent in Syria, and 35 percent in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Tigris is 1,164 miles
long; roughly 20 percent of the river flows through Turkey, 78 percent in Iraq, and 2 percent
along the northeastern corner of Syria.7 Although the basin formed by these rivers and their
tributaries technically extends into southwestern Iran, scholars typically identify Turkey, Syria,
and Iraq as the central actors in the hydropolitical system of the Tigris and Euphrates since Iran
is not heavily dependent on these waters.
Figure 4.2: The Tigris-Euphrates River Basin8
Hydrologists estimate that 98 percent of the Euphrates’ annual water flow originates in Turkey.
By comparison, only 45 percent of the Tigris’ waters derive from Turkish sources; its tributaries
contribute the remainder further downstream.9
7 Daniel Hillel, Rivers of Eden: The Struggle for Water and the Quest for Peace in the Middle East (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 92; Arnon Soffer, Rivers of Fire: The Conflict over Water in the Middle East, trans. Murray Rosovsky and Nina Copaken (Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), 73; Michael T. Klare, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001), 173.
8 CIA World Factbook, <https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/refmaps.html>.
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The climate of the Tigris-Euphrates basin varies significantly from its headwaters in
southeastern Turkey to its mouth in the Persian Gulf. Taken as a whole, the Tigris-Euphrates
experiences a sub-tropical Mediterranean climate characterized by wet winters and dry summers.
While southeastern Turkey and parts of northern Syria and Iraq enjoy a somewhat milder climate
and adequate annual rainfall, harsher conditions prevail farther south in the Mesopotamian Plain.
For instance, more than half of Syria and almost two-thirds of Iraq are desert, receiving less than
250 mm of rainfall per year.10 Although the rivers flood during the winter, very little rain falls in
the hot summer months when demand for water is at its highest. In turn, during the months of
August and September when midday temperatures soar above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, there is
often little or no water flowing in the Euphrates riverbed by the time it reaches Iraq.11 With such
high temperatures during much of the year, the evaporative rate is very high and crops require
intensive irrigation to thrive.
How acute is water scarcity among the Tigris-Euphrates riparians? In the case of Turkey,
de Villiers argues that the country is water-rich by Middle East standards, “but in truth it doesn’t
have much water to spare.”12 In 2006, hydrologists estimated Turkey’s actual renewable water
resources: per capita at 2,800 m3—well above the recognized “water stress” benchmark of 1,700
m3 per person. Nevertheless, Turkey’s relative abundance of water is somewhat misleading.
Much of the country’s surface water is not easily accessible, and effectively conveying it to
where it is needed most—including major cities like Ankara—presents its own set of difficulties.
Moreover, Turkey has rapidly growing water demand in its agricultural and industrial sectors, as
9 Arun P. Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World: Conflict and Cooperation in International River Basins (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1999), 127.
10 Mostafa Dolatyar and Tim S. Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East: A Context for Conflict or Co-operation? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000), 119-120.
11 Nurit Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict in the Middle East (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 108; Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 77-79.
12 Marq de Villiers, Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2003), 221.
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well as its urban sector. Perhaps most distressing, however, is Turkey’s growing population. As
of 2007, Turkey’s population is approximately 75 million. By 2025, this number is expected to
exceed 90 million. Such population growth, combined with increasing demand from the
agricultural, industrial, and urban sectors, is likely to place significant pressures on Turkey’s
water supply in the decades ahead. Ilter Turan, a Turkish political scientist, summarizes his
country’s water needs in the following passage:
It is anticipated that consumption of water will rise rapidly in coming years.
First…the government is pursuing a set of irrigation programs, the completion of
which will increase demands on the country’s water resources. Second, the
population is growing…. Third, the country is urbanizing rapidly…. Finally, the
rapidly expanding industrial base creates new and additional water
requirements.13
By the time its per capita income rises to $10,000 a year, Turan goes on to predict that Turkey’s
growing needs could exhaust any water surpluses currently available.14
Roughly half of Syria’s total territory is classified as arid or semi-arid, and hydrologists
estimate the country’s annual freshwater resources per capita at 1,345 m3. This places Syria well
within the “water stressed” category and quite close to the 1,100 m3 “water scarce” benchmark.
As a result, seasonal water shortages are endemic in many parts of the country—particularly the
deserts of southern Syria. In addition to the Euphrates and a small section of the Tigris, Syria’s
primary freshwater sources include the Khabour, Orontes, and Yarmuk rivers—all of which are
international waterways, making Syria a hydropolitical nexus for the region.15 Like Turkey,
Syria uses the bulk of its freshwater resources in the agricultural sector. In fact, much of the
13 Quoted in de Villiers, Water, 222. 14 De Villiers, Water, 222. 15 Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 96; Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 137-138.
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Syrian economy’s growth in the past fifty years is attributable to gains in agricultural output
through increased irrigation.16 However, only a small portion of Syria’s territory is actually
useful for agricultural purposes, and its population is growing rapidly at an annual rate of 2.36
percent—well above average growth rates for the developing world. At present, Syria’s
population is approximately 20 million. This number is expected to increase to 28 million by the
year 2025, placing even greater demands on agriculture. In addition to increased water demand
in the agricultural sector to feed its rapidly growing population, Syria also exhibits increasing
industrial and urban needs tied to its developing economy. Moreover, as Nurit Kliot observes,
Syria is in “an unfavorable hydrological position within the Euphrates because of its midstream
location and high dependence on the Euphrates and its tributaries.”17 Syria is just barely meeting
its freshwater needs given its present population. In turn, any future developmental projects
carried out upstream by Turkey could negatively impact both the quality and quantity of water
flows down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, creating severe water shortages in Syria.
Iraq is the farthest downstream riparian of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Due to its arid
climate, Iraq is highly dependent on these rivers, as they comprise roughly 98 percent of the
country’s total surface water.18 Use of the Euphrates and Tigris for irrigation in what is today
known as Iraq dates back over 6,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia. Furthermore, Iraq was also
the first of the Tigris-Euphrates riparians to build modern waterworks on the rivers with the
construction of the Hindiya Barrage along the Euphrates in 1913.19 For an arid Middle Eastern
country, Iraq seemingly exhibits an abundance of water at approximately 2,500 m3 per capita.
As a result of corruption and inefficiency under the Saddam Hussein regime and the subsequent
16 Thomas Naff and Ruth C. Matson, Water in the Middle East: Conflict or Cooperation (Boulder, CO:
Westview Press, 1984), 90. 17 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 143. 18 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 143. 19 Naff and Matson, Water in the Middle East, 89.
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chaos of the U.S. occupation, however, water distribution in Iraq is problematic at best. In early
2007, an estimated 2.5 million Iraqis living in Baghdad were without running water.20 Outside
the capital, water distribution varies significantly from community to community. Although an
estimated 97 percent of Iraqis living in urban areas have access to an improved water source, this
number drops to 50 percent in rural areas of the country.21 Despite a population that is growing
at nearly 2.5 percent annually, Iraq also faces difficulties in the agricultural sector. While the
country has great agricultural potential, Soffer notes that Iraq does not exploit it because of soil
salinity, which has caused between 20 and 30 percent of the land to be abandoned in recent
decades.22 Moreover, irrigation in Iraq is inefficient with water losses up to 40 percent as a
result of high evaporation rates, leaky pipes, and inadequate drainage systems.23 Finally, since it
relies almost entirely on the Tigris-Euphrates river system for its water, Iraq is highly dependent
on the goodwill of its upstream neighbors to maintain adequate flows in the decades ahead.
Hence, water scarcity is a vital issue among the Tigris-Euphrates riparians. Table 4.2
presents several key indicators related to the hydropolitical economy of this river system:
Table 4.1: Hydropolitical Economy in the Tigris-Euphrates River System24
Total water resources per
capita
Population growth rate (2000-2010)
GDP per capita (current US
dollars)
Hydro-vulnerability index (0-100)
Turkey 2,879 m3 1.29% $2,920 64
Syria 1,345 m3 2.36% $1,073 62
Iraq 2,552 m3 2.43% $1,031 54
20 Ryan Lenz, “U.S. Troops Face Social Ills in Iraq,” Washington Post, 14 March 2007; Eyal Benvenisti
offers a fascinating overview of water-related issues in occupied Iraq in “Water Conflicts during the Occupation of Iraq,” The American Journal of International Law 97, no. 4. (October 2003): 860-872.
21 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 22 Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 110. 23 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 146. 24 Data in table derived from World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,”
<http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
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Drawing upon the hydrovulnerability index constructed in the previous chapter, we find that Iraq
is the most vulnerable due to its relatively weak economy and difficulties in water distribution,
whereas Turkey is in the strongest position to use its economic capacity to offset water scarcity.
Taking these statistics into account, to how much does each country depend on the waters
of the Tigris-Euphrates basin as a percentage of its total freshwater resources? Klare summarizes
their relative reliance on these rivers in the following passage:
Together, the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers are absolutely essential to the
economies and domestic needs of Syria and Iraq….Syria obtains about 85 percent
of its total renewable water supply from the Euphrates, while Iraq obtains nearly
100 percent of its supply from the two rivers combined. Turkey is much less
dependent on the Tigris-Euphrates system for its basic water requirements: at
present, it derives about 30 percent of its supply from these rivers.25
As noted above, however, Turkey’s reliance on the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates is
only expected to increase in the decades ahead as a result of population expansion and
continued industrialization.
Hydropolitics along the Tigris-Euphrates
We now turn to the issue of hydropolitics in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. How
have Turkey, Syria, and Iraq interacted with regards to their shared freshwater resources? What
disputes have arisen among these states? Through what means have they sought to resolve these
conflicts of interest? By way of introduction, it is worth noting that water is far from the only
point of contention among the Tigris-Euphrates riparians. As Elhance notes, interstate relations
in the basin “have been plagued by border disputes, transboundary ethnic and religious
25 Klare, Resource Wars, 175.
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affiliations and loyalties, and allegations of support for each ruling regime’s opponents by one or
more of the neighboring states.”26 For instance, Syria and Turkey have clashed over the disputed
province of Hatay, as well as Syria’s support for the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)
in Turkey. Moreover, prior to the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, Iraq and Syria
quarreled over leadership of the Ba’ath Party. Meanwhile, Turkey and Iraq routinely find
themselves on opposing sides of various political issues, including the Persian Gulf War of the
early 1990s. These factors, combined with a restructuring of power in the Middle East following
the collapse of the Soviet Union, rising ethnic tensions, an upswing in religious fundamentalism,
and other geopolitical factors arguably make the Tigris-Euphrates basin a veritable powder keg.
With so many issues of “high politics” already on the table in the basin, what role do the
“low politics” of water management and development play in relations among Turkey, Syria, and
Iraq? A historical survey of the Tigris-Euphrates river system reveals a series of disputes among
the riparian states—many of which remain unresolved—over questions of equitable utilization of
shared water resources. While these disputes have not resulted in actual violence among Turkey,
Syria, and Iraq, Elhance makes the case that “the Euphrates-Tigris basin has been driven to the
brink of war in the recent past by unresolved conflicts over its transboundary water resources.”27
As long as the riparian states along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers insist on implementing plans
to divert and develop the basin’s waters in a unilateral, ad hoc manner, the prospect of realizing
an equitable distribution of freshwater and achieving cooperative solutions to future water
management issues is rather low. Before moving on to explore the role of virtual water in this
river system, I will offer a brief historical overview of major disputes over transboundary water
resources in the modern era among the Tigris-Euphrates riparians, as well as their attempts at
26 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 135. 27 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 124.
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interstate cooperation. Ultimately, I argue that a failure to capitalize on virtual water resources
on the part of these countries—particularly Turkey—is a significant determinant of conflictual
relations in the basin.
Waltina Scheumann observes that it was not until the 1970s when current patterns of
conflict emerged over the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.28 Aysegül Kibaroglu and
I.H. Olcay Ünver concur, describing relations among the three riparians between 1920 and 1960
as “harmonious” due in large part to manageable populations and consistent annual river flows.29
It was not until the three riparians began to embark upon large-scale river development projects
for energy and irrigation purposes that tensions began to rise. An early example of an interstate
dispute over such a development project took place not over the Tigris or Euphrates rivers, but
rather in 1956 when Syria began construction of a dam on the nearby Orontes River to provide
additional water for irrigation. Turkey, lying downstream from Syria on the Orontes, criticized
the Syrian plan, making the case that it would cut off vital water supplies to Turkish farmers.
Syria proceeded with building the dam anyway and disputes over water discharges from the dam
remain unresolved—and frequently debated—fifty years later.30
The next major water-related dispute in the Tigris-Euphrates basin took place in 1964
when Turkey announced plans to build what is now known as the Keban Dam on the Euphrates
River. Turkey made clear the fact that the project was intended to generate hydroelectricity and
would not change the water balance of the basin for its downstream neighbors. In fact, the dam
would help prevent seasonal flooding along the banks of the Euphrates in Syria and Iraq.
28 Waltina Scheumann, “Conflicts on the Euphrates: An Analysis of Water and Non-Water Issues,” in
Water in the Middle East: Potential for Conflicts and Prospects for Cooperation, ed. Waltina Scheumann and Manuel Schiffler (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998), 119-120.
29 Aysegül Kibaroglu and I. H. Olcay Ünver, “An Institutional Framework for Facilitating Cooperation in the Euphrates-Tigris River Basin,” International Negotiation 5 (2000). 312.
30 Scheumann, “Conflicts on the Euphrates,” 120.
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Nevertheless, the downstream states—Iraq in particular—insisted Turkey establish a guaranteed
minimum release of at least 350 m3 per second once the dam was in place.31 Turkey countered
that it could not guarantee specific flow amounts until after construction on the Keban project
was completed and the dam was filled. Even though the Keban Dam was not an irrigation
project, Ashok Swain notes that Syria was “anxious” about Turkey’s control of river flows, while
the project brought “serious worries” to Iraq.32 The three riparians spent the next decade
debating the technical implications of the Keban Dam without reaching any significant
agreement on the project. In turn, unilateral development continued on the Euphrates.
In response to the construction of the Keban Dam, Syria embarked on its own unilateral
hydraulic project: the Tabqa Dam (also known simply as the Euphrates Dam). Located in
northern Syria, construction of the Tabqa Dam began in 1968—four years after Turkey first
announced plans for the Keban Dam. Like Turkey’s project, the Tabqa Dam’s primary purpose
was the provision of hydroelectric power for Syria. However, the Lake Assad reservoir formed
by the dam would effectively double Syria’s irrigated land. Questions concerning the Tabqa
Dam’s effect on downstream flows of the Euphrates to Iraq entered into the preexisting disputes
over Turkey’s Keban Dam. Syria eventually completed construction of the Tabqa Dam in 1973.
Turkey finished and filled the Keban Dam a year later, touching off what Naff and Matson refer
to as the Syrian-Iraq Water Crisis of 1974.33
As Turkey and Syria filled their new dams, downstream flows of the Euphrates into Iraq
fell to a fraction of their usual levels—as low as one-quarter of the norm, affecting three million
Iraqi farmers who relied on these waters for irrigation.34 Syria denied any change in flow as a
31 Kibaroglu and Ünver, “An Institutional Framework for Facilitating Cooperation, 313-314. 32 Ashok Swain, Managing Water Conflict: Asia, Africa & the Middle East (London: Routledge, 2004), 86. 33 Naff and Matson, Water in the Middle East, 93. 34 De Villiers, Water, 229-230; Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 87.
126
result of the Tabqa Dam and blamed Turkey’s damming project for Iraq’s water shortage.
Tensions escalated between Syria and Iraq as both sides withdrew their military attachés and
closed off their respective airspaces to one another. By 1975, both states had deployed forces to
their mutual border and Iraq openly threatened to bomb the Tabqa Dam. With the situation
rapidly deteriorating, Saudi Arabia and the Soviet Union intervened in late August 1975, cajoling
Syria into releasing additional water from the Tabqa Dam and convincing Iraq to call down its
forces.35 While Syria and Iraq proved unwilling to declare war over the dispute, the two
riparians arguably came to the brink of military conflict in 1975.
Disputes among the states of the Tigris-Euphrates river system continued into the 1980s.
When Turkey began building a second major dam on the Euphrates at Karakaya, Syria lodged
complaints with both Turkey and the international community. In 1986, Turkey claimed to have
uncovered a Syrian plot to blow up the unfinished Atatürk Dam and threatened a year later to cut
off the water supply to Syria because it had allegedly provided assistance to Kurdish insurgent
groups in Turkey.36 However, the next major flare-up in the ongoing riparian disputes over the
Tigris-Euphrates waters would occur in 1990 when Turkey impounded the flow of the Euphrates
River to fill its Atatürk Dam.
The Atatürk Dam is one of the largest dams in the world, completed at a cost of over $3
billion and with a storage capacity of 48.8 billion cubic meters—enough to irrigate 500,000
hectares of cropland each year in southeastern Turkey.37 In late 1989, Turkey announced plans
to begin filling the dam the following year, notifying Syria and Iraq in November of the pending
event. Moreover, and to its credit, Turkey provided a detailed program for making up for the
35 Klare, Resource Wars, 176-177. 36 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 87. 37 Hillel, Rivers of Eden, 106.
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losses in water flow its downstream neighbors would suffer during the filling.38 These warnings
did not prepare Syria and Iraq for the fact that Turkey would shut off the flow of the Euphrates
entirely for one month—from January 13 to February 13, 1990—to fill its sizable new reservoir.
Michael Klare puts Turkey’s actions into context in the following passage:
Because this occurred in winter (before the onset of the regular growing season)
and because Turkey poured higher-than-normal water supplies into the river in the
months that followed, the closure had little effect in practical terms. By
demonstrating Turkey’s ability to control the flow of the river, however, it
aroused considerably resentment in both Syria and Iraq.39
Nevertheless, the consequences of filling the Atatürk Dam for Turkey’s downstream neighbors
went beyond mere symbolism. As Soffer argues, Syria’s power station at the Tabqa Dam
produced only 12 percent of its total capacity due to the month-long cut-off of the Euphrates.
Meanwhile, the country reported widespread shortages of drinking water. Both Syria and Iraq
also suffered significant damage to their winter crops. Although Turkey honored its promise to
increase water flows in the months following the shut-off, Syria and Iraq were not able to take
advantage of this excess water flow with their existing agricultural infrastructure, resulting in
unused run-off rather than manageable surpluses.40
Both Syria and Iraq sent ministers to Iraq to protest the reduced flow of the Euphrates.
Turkey maintained that the reduced water flow was essentially a technical issue; after all, as
Turkish officials argued, it is impossible to fill a dam without at least partially restricting
downstream flows.41 The Syrian and Iraqi governments insisted that Turkey restore the flow of
38 Kibaroglu and Ünver, “An Institutional Framework for Facilitating Cooperation, 319. 39 Klare, Resource Wars, 177-178. 40 Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 92-93. 41 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 87-88; de Villiers, Water, 225.
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the Euphrates. Turkey disregarded its downstream neighbors’ demands and even threatened that
the water cutoff would last longer than a month if Syria did not comply with several political
conditions unrelated to the water dispute.42 Quarrels continued even after Turkey finished filling
the Atatürk Dam and restored the flow of the Euphrates in mid-February 1990 and only subsided
with the outbreak of the Gulf War the following year. In the wake of the 1990 crisis, Iraq and
Syria called for the signing of an agreement to share the waters of the Euphrates more fairly in
the future. These efforts did not come to fruition, however, and after several consecutive seasons
of scarce rainfall left its dams at low levels, Turkey used the Atatürk Dam to cut off the flow of
the Euphrates once again three years later.43
While the Atatürk Dam has already generated significant controversy among the Tigris-
Euphrates riparians, it is but a single installation in the massive Turkish hydraulic scheme known
as the Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi (Southeastern Anatolia Project, or GAP). In a June 2006
status report, the Turkish government summarized GAP’s mission statement as follows:
The Southeastern Anatolia Project seeks to uplift the income levels and living
standards of people in the region by mobilizing and utilizing resources existing in
this region, to remove interregional development disparities and to contribute
nationwide goals of economic development and social stability. As such, it is a
very important and comprehensive project with international implications.44
Consisting of 21 dams and 19 hydroelectric plants along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, GAP is
among the most ambitious development projects in the world—and certainly the largest in
42 Tony Allan, The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics and the Global Economy (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2001), 73; Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 93. 43 Kibaroglu and Ünver, “An Institutional Framework for Facilitating Cooperation,” 319; de Villiers,
Water, 225. 44 The Regional Development Administration of Turkey, Latest Situation on Southeastern Anatolia
Project: Activities of the GAP Administration (June 2006), <http://www.gap.gov.tr/English/Genel/sdurum.pdf>.
129
Turkey’s history.45 Envisioned as early as the 1930s by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the
Republic of Turkey, GAP’s actual planning and implementation began decades later in the 1960s
and 1970s. As of 2007, the project is approximately 50 percent complete (several years behind
schedule) and has already cost Turkey approximately $36 billion. With an estimated 19 years
remaining until the project’s completion and despite numerous delays, Turkey remains
undeterred in its ongoing quest to finalize the project.46
The Turkish government identifies four principal goals for the completed GAP scheme:
1) irrigating over 1.7 million hectares of farmland and turning Anatolia into the “breadbasket”:
of Turkey, 2) generating 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, 3) increasing per capita
income in southeastern Turkey by 219 percent, and 4) employing an estimated 3.8 million
people.47 As Lorenz and Erickson note, the program transcends politics in Turkey, symbolizing
hope for the country’s future and serving as a source of great national pride. In fact, Atatürk’s
own words are emblazoned across the massive dam that bears his name: “No Mutlu Turkum
Diyene—Lucky is the one who says he is a Turk.”48 Turkey’s downstream neighbors, however,
feel decidedly less fortunate regarding the consequences of the project.
As discussed above, the filling of the Atatürk Dam in 1990 provoked a near-crisis among
the Tigris-Euphrates riparians. As one might expect, the Syrian and Iraqi governments have
expressed concerns that the completed GAP will drastically reduce the total flow of water into
their territories.49 Turkey claimed the project would not significantly impact downstream flows
and, in an attempt to ease tensions with its neighbors, entered into an informal agreement with
45 Frederick M. Lorenz and Edward J. Erickson, The Euphrates Triangle: Security Implications of the
Southeastern Anatolia Project (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1999), 6. 46 Murat Metin Hakki, “Turkey, Water and the Middle East: Some Issues Lying Ahead,” Chinese Journal
of International Law 5, no. 2 {2006), 443-444. 47 Regional Development Administration of Turkey, Latest Situation on Southeastern Anatolia Project. 48 Lorenz and Erickson, The Euphrates Triangle, 6. 49 Hakki, “Turkey, Water and the Middle East,” 444.
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Syria in 1987 to guarantee a water supply of 500 m3 per second. Unsatisfied with this resolution
and skeptical of Turkey’s capacity to deliver such flows, the issue remains a point of contention
among the three riparians. While Syria and Iraq continue to seek a guaranteed flow of 700 m3
per second through diplomatic channels, Hakki notes that no final treaty agreement governing
the sharing of the rivers was ever ratified.50 Moreover, even if Turkey releases the promised 500
m3 per second of the Euphrates’ waters, and Syria uses one-third of that flow (a relatively modest
estimate), Hillel observes that the amount remaining to Iraq would be only a fraction of its
historical share.51
Despite Turkey’s numerous claims to the contrary, Swain asserts that completion of the
GAP project will not only bring further water shortages to Turkey’s downstream neighbors, but
will also cause significant deterioration in water quality as a result of upstream agricultural
usage.52 Along similar lines, Lorenz and Erickson offer their perspective on the downstream
consequences of the GAP project in the following passage:
The GAP itself is unlikely to cause a water shortage in the next ten years, under
conditions of normal and anticipated use…. However, a combination of drought
conditions, increasing demand, and other factors during the next ten years could
still create severe hardship on the downstream riparians.53
Considering the ecology of the region and global warming trends, this is a less than ringing
endorsement of the GAP’s potential repercussions for Syria and Iraq.
Perhaps the greatest fear of the downstream riparians, however, is that Turkey might
ultimately use the GAP as an instrument of foreign policy. Could Turkey dramatically alter the
50 Hakki, “Turkey, Water and the Middle East,” 444. 51 Hillel, Rivers of Eden, 110. 52 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 88. 53 Lorenz and Erickson, The Euphrates Triangle, 46.
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flow of the Euphrates River once the GAP is complete? Although Turkish officials claim such
control over the river exceeds the GAP’s capabilities, the shutoff of water flows during the filling
of the Atatürk Dam in 1990 suggests otherwise. Of course, impounding the river’s flow as a
political tool also presents significant opportunity costs for Turkey. In doing so, Turkey weakens
its own capacity for hydropower generation and irrigation. Therefore, most experts agree that
the likelihood of Turkey using water as a weapon in response to perceived aggression on the part
of its southern neighbors is relatively low.54 Nevertheless, disputes continue to the present day
over equitable sharing of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin—disputes that seem unlikely to
subside as the GAP project inches steadily toward completion.
To summarize the situation, numerous unresolved disputes and a succession of near-crisis
events characterize hydropolitical relations in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin. Turkey continues
to embark on unilateral development projects along the rivers (most notably in the form of GAP),
while Syria and Iraq lodge regular complaints and make threats against their militarily superior
upstream neighbor. As such, it is no mere coincidence that the Atatürk Dam is among the most
heavily fortified hydraulic installations in the world today (not to mention the target of a fictional
attack by Syrian Kurds in Tom Clancy’s Acts of War).55 In turn, Hillel describes hydropolitical
relations in the Tigris-Euphrates basin as follows:
The situation of the three riparians along the twin rivers exemplifies how tangled
and how fateful the rivalry over shared waters among neighboring nations can be.
It is a classic dispute, pitting the prerogatives of an upstream country against those
of a midstream and a downstream country, the territorial sovereignty of one
54 Lorenz and Erickson, The Euphrates Triangle, 46. 55 Lorenz and Erickson, The Euphrates Triangle, 24.
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county against the historical rights of another…the need for economic
development against the requirement to protect the environment.56
As a result of these factors, the Tigris-Euphrates basin is a hydropolitical system typified by
fundamentally conflictual relations among its riparian states. Although the U.S. occupation of
Iraq has overshadowed many of these water-related issues in recent years, several vital questions
concerning fair and equitable use of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers remain unresolved among
these three countries.
Looking at these ongoing disputes through the lens of international relations theory, the
Turkey-Syria-Iraq hydropolitical system exemplifies the classic security dilemma recast in terms
of water security. Turkish leaders feel compelled to increase their country’s water security in the
interest of economic development. By taking action to increase its own security through river
development projects, however, Turkey threatens the water security of its downstream neighbors.
Although this security dilemma has not yet escalated into violent conflict—and, for reasons
discussed in Chapter 3, it is unlikely to take such a turn in the future—it has nevertheless
generated ongoing disputes that have made meaningful cooperation on water management
virtually impossible to achieve. Likewise, former Turkish Prime Minister Süleyman Demirel
discounts the likelihood of violent conflict over the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but
borrows the language of realism all the same in declaring, “I do not believe in worrying about
threats of war resulting from development projects in Turkey. If there is a threat we will repel it.
Turkey has deterrence; we will have more deterrence in the coming period.”57
Turkey has approached and continues to approach water management in the Tigris-
Euphrates basin from a standpoint of absolute territorial sovereignty. In other words, Turkey has
56 Hillel, Rivers of Eden, 110. 57 Klare, Resource Wars, 179.
133
traditionally argued that the headwaters of both rivers lie within its territory and are therefore
Turkey’s to exploit as its leaders see fit. In turn, former Prime Minister Demirel’s bellicose
comments in the following quotation speak to such an understanding of sovereignty:
Neither Syria nor Iraq can lay claim to Turkey’s rivers any more than Ankara
could claim their oil. This is a matter of sovereignty. We have a right to do
anything we like. The water resources are Turkey's; the oil resources are theirs.
We don't say we share their oil resources, and they cannot say they share our
water resources.58
As we might expect, Syria and Iraq instead advocate a doctrine of territorial integrity, implying
that a country’s use of a shared river basin should not negatively impact its downstream
neighbors. In turn, this perspective is evident in the downstream riparians’ ongoing petitions to
establish a guaranteed flow regime in response to GAP implementation.
Iraq in particular has historical claims to the waters as the first county to engage in
development projects along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Elhance observes, however, that Iraq
“now seems to be the most vulnerable to any manipulation of the river regimes in the basin,”
whereas Turkey seems to have all the advantages in hydropolitics.59 Theoretically, international
law could help the riparians address any conflicts of interest with regard to sharing the waters of
the Tigris-Euphrates basin. As discussed in Chapter 2, however, the ad hoc body of international
law addressing river issues is simply not up to the task. International institutions might also play
an important role, but as I highlight in the following section, such cooperative arrangements have
failed to emerge in the basin.
58 John Bulloch and Adel Darwish, Water Wars: Coming Conflicts in the Middle East. (London: Victor
Gollancz, 1993), 74 59 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 129.
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The Failure of Cooperative Efforts along the Tigris-Euphrates
De Villiers offers the following metaphor to describe the fate of most cooperative water
management efforts in the Tigris-Euphrates river basin: “Shoot an arrow of peace into the air,
and get a quiverful of suspicions and paranoia in return.”60 In turn, since disputes over the twin
rivers began in earnest during the 1960s, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq have failed to develop any
effective institutions to govern the sharing of the basin or mediate any potential disputes. Lowi
notes that these states have made several attempts through the decades to promote a tripartite
accord on the Tigris-Euphrates waters; however, conflicts of interest and already tense political
relations have impeded such cooperative efforts.61 That being said, a brief overview of these
attempts at basin-wide cooperation, as well as bilateral agreements among the Tigris-Euphrates
riparians, offers potential insight into the difficulties of establishing effective water management
regimes in the region.
After decades of ongoing disputes, the Tigris-Euphrates riparians have failed to establish
any formal legal agreement concerning water allocation.62 In fact, Elhance argues that the only
seemingly legal regime in place in the basin is the Treaty of Friendship and Neighborly Relations
signed between Iraq and Turkey in 1946.63 The water-related provisions of the treaty address
issues ranging from flood control to the installation of water-flow observation stations along the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Its most critical sections, however, deal with future development in
the basin. Protocol 1, Article 5 includes the following pledge: “Turkey shall keep Iraq informed
of her plans for the construction of conservation works on either of the two rivers or their
tributaries, in order that these works may…be adapted, by common agreement, to the interests of
60 De Villiers, Water, 218. 61 Miriam R. Lowi, “Rivers of Conflict, Rivers of Peace,” Journal of International Affairs 49, no. 1
(Summer 1995): 136-138. 62 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 160. 63 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 141.
135
both Turkey and Iraq.”64 While Turkey has typically honored its obligation under the treaty to
inform Iraq of new development projects on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, ongoing disputes
over the GAP call into question the upstream state’s actual commitment to pursue development
with Iraq’s interests in mind.
Although the 1946 Treaty of Friendship and Neighborly Relations is theoretically still in
force, Elhance argues that it “falls far short” of representing an effective legal regime to govern
water sharing or to resolve disputes among the riparian states. This is due not only to a lack of
compliance on Turkey’s behalf, but also to the treaty’s rather vague terms and Syria’s exclusion
from the agreement.65 In turn, Robert A. Hager describes the present-day legal framework of the
Tigris-Euphrates basin as “a chaotic regime of claim and counter-claim governed more by
political than legal concerns.”66
As such, Turkey, Syria, and Iraq spent most of the second half of the twentieth century
embarking on unilateral plans to develop the Euphrates and Tigris rivers with virtually no legal
framework to resolve disputes. In fact, the three riparians remain unable to agree even on a legal
definition of their shared river system. Turkey has defined the river system as a “transboundary
watercourse”—that is, a river that crosses national borders. Syria and Iraq, on the other hand,
categorize the Tigris-Euphrates system as an “international watercourse”—or, legally speaking,
a river that has opposing banks under the sovereignty of different countries. These conflicting
definitions have significant implications under international law. Turkey argues that the status of
the river system as a transboundary watercourse gives it the right to utilize these waters in what
64 Treaty of Friendship and Neighborly Relations Between Iraq and Turkey Relative to the Regulation of
the Waters of the Tigris and Euphrates and of Their Tributaries (29 March 1946), <http://www.internationalwaterlaw.org/RegionalDocs/Iraq-Turkey%20Treaty%20of%20Friendship%201946.pdf>
65 Elhance, Hydropolitics, 141. 66 Robert A. Hager, “The Euphrates Basin: In Search of a Legal Regime,” Georgetown International
Environmental Law Review 3, no. 1 (Summer 1990): 215, quoted in Elhance, Hydropolitics, 141.
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it considers a reasonable and optimal manner. On the other hand, riparians are obliged under the
Helsinki Accords to share equally the waters of an international river system based on each
country’s needs.67 As Kliot points out, however, Turkey’s classification of the Tigris-Euphrates
“clearly contradicts the definition of international river basins” under international law.68 Again,
such disputes have significantly impeded efforts to establish a basin-wide legal framework to
address water-sharing issues.
Attempts to establish international institutions to oversee water-sharing arrangements
have also produced mixed results. In 1980, for instance, Turkey and Iraq established the Joint
Technical Committee for Regional Waters, or the JTC. Syria joined three years later. The JTC’s
central mandate was defined as the deciding the appropriate amount of water each country would
need from both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Although the JTC did not provide a forum for
dispute resolution among the riparians, it at least called for the sharing of information regarding
the construction of dams and irrigation schemes. Ultimately, however, the JTC proved itself to
be yet another paper tiger. Despite what one assumes were sincere attempts at trilateral, basin-
wide management of the Tigris-Euphrates, the JTC could not fulfill its objectives. After only
sixteen meetings, the JTC became deadlocked and failed to produce even outlines of its talks.69
While the Joint Technical Committee continues to meet periodically, Lowi observes that that
Syrian representative typically does not attend if he knows the Iraqi ambassador will be present,
as vice versa.70 In turn, the JTC fails to realize its potential as a basin-wide water management
regime for the Tigris-Euphrates riparians.
67 Ali Çarkoğlu and Mine Eder, “Domestic Concerns and the Water Conflict over the Euphrates-Tigris
River Basin,” Middle Eastern Studies 37, no. 1 (January 2001): 58. 68 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 162-163. 69 Kibaroglu and Ünver, “An Institutional Framework for Facilitating Cooperation,” 318. 70 Lowi, “Rivers of Conflict, Rivers of Peace,” 138.
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Meanwhile, the three riparians have continued to pursue informal bilateral agreements to
address various water-related issues. In 1987, for example, Turkey and Syria signed a Protocol
on Economic Cooperation that included provisions dealing with water sharing. Despite the fact
that Iraq was excluded from the agreement, the Protocol included a provision that the two
upstream riparians would “work together with [Iraq] to allocate the waters of the rivers
Euphrates and Tigris.”71 At the time, Turkey’s guaranteed 500 m3/second water flow into Syria
was considered a significant step forward for the basin. Within a year’s time, however, the
Turkish government had already threatened to “play the water card” and restrict downstream
flows when it suspected Syria of supporting Kurdish uprisings within its borders.72 Moreover, as
discussed above, the filling of the Atatürk Dam in 1990 only further called into question any
guarantees embodied in the informal 1987 agreement. Meanwhile, Syria and Iraq also signed an
informal agreement in April 1990 following the impounding of the Atatürk Dam. This bilateral
agreement allotted 58 percent of the Euphrates River’s flow after leaving Turkey to Iraq and the
remaining 42 percent to Syria. The Turkish government considered such an agreement by its
downstream neighbors an “unpleasant development,” but the issue soon fell to the wayside with
the onset of the 1991 Gulf War.73
With no legal framework or effective institutions in place, the Tigris-Euphrates riparians
have resorted to numerous alternatives for addressing water-related disputes. For instance,
former Turkish Prime Minister Turgut Ozal offered a rather unique approach to sharing Turkey’s
surplus freshwater resources when he proposed in 1987 to build the so-called Peace Pipelines.
These pipelines, if completed, would carry surplus water to countries throughout the Arabian
71 Protocol on Matters Pertaining to Economic Cooperation Between the Republic of Turkey and the Syrian
Arab Republic (17 July 1987), United Nations Treaty Series 87/12171. 72 Scheumann, “Conflicts on the Euphrates,” 122-123. 73 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 89-90.
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Peninsula, including its immediate downstream neighbors, at a cost significantly lower than
desalinated water. As one might expect, however, Turkey excluded Iraq and Syria—two
countries that depend heavily on Turkey’s surplus river discharge and have historically accessed
it free of charge—from the planning process. As a result of the high cost of building the Peace
Pipeline (estimated at $20 billion) and ongoing political disputes concerned Israel’s participation
in the project, it seems the project is a literal pipe dream at this point.74
With disputes over the “equitable” and “reasonable” sharing of the Tigris-Euphrates river
system still ongoing among the riparian states, a cooperative approach to water management
certainly holds significant potential for basin-wide progress. For instance, Dogan Altinbilek of
the International Hydropower Association identifies twelve areas in which cooperative efforts
could make a positive impact on the international development and management of the Tigris-
Euphrates basin, including:
• Formulating and implementing the most favorable water sharing plan for the
basin as a whole.
• Harmonizing conflicting demands through supply augmentation and improved
efficiency.
• Transferring water between rivers and between reservoirs on the same river
through technical cooperation.
• Realizing joint utilization of interconnected water and energy systems.
• Developing demand management plans for municipal and irrigation water
supplies, taking into account droughts and other possible structural changes.75
74 Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 237-238; Elhance, Hydropolitics, 150-151. 75 Dogan Altinbilek, “Development and Management of the Euphrates-Tigris Basin,” Water Resources
Development 20, no. 1 (March 2004), 31-32.
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Nevertheless, what Dolatyar and Gray describe as a fundamental “lack of trust and compatibility
between the three riparian states” of the Tigris-Euphrates basin has made cooperation elusive, if
not virtually impossible to achieve.76 Kibaroglu and Ünver, on the other hand, suggest that the
riparians have failed achieve basin-wide accords mainly due to incomplete information regarding
such technical issues as stream flow, precipitation, evaporation, and salinity.77 Hence, from this
perspective, the absence of information-sharing institutions and an independent epistemological
essentially impede multilateral cooperation. Regardless of how one chooses to interpret the
situation, the reality is that the riparian states of the Tigris-Euphrates river basin have failed to
establish any meaningful legal framework or institutional structure to govern, mediate, or resolve
water-related disputes.
Virtual Water and the Tigris-Euphrates
Returning to my earlier conceptualization of riparian relations lying along a continuum
with conflict and cooperation located at opposite extremes, it is evident that the Tigris-Euphrates
case tends toward the conflictual end of the spectrum. I have already reviewed the tumultuous
politics of water management in the basin, and I now turn to an important question in the context
of the present study. What role, if any, does virtual water play in riparian relations in the Tigris-
Euphrates river basin? I make the case that a failure to capitalize on virtual water as a potential
buffer against water-related disputes—particularly on the part of Turkey—is a key determinant
of conflictual relations in the river basin.
To recap the basic argument, virtual water embedded in food imports allows a country to
offset a significant portion of the freshwater necessary to grow the food necessary to feed its
76 Dolatyar and Gray, Water Politics in the Middle East, 146-147. 77 Kibaroglu and Ünver, “An Institutional Framework for Facilitating Cooperation,” 320.
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population. A country with a strong enough economy—and therefore a low degree of
hydrovulnerability—is in a position to alleviate the pressures of water scarcity appreciably by
substituting virtual water resources in place of its more costly actual water resources. I argue
that an international water system characterized by a reliance on virtual water should exhibit less
competition over water resources, fewer disputes, and therefore a greater likelihood of forming
institutions than a system in which virtual water is virtually absent. The Tigris-Euphrates river
basin serves as an example of the latter scenario—a conflict-driven river system in which the
major riparian states have failed to fully capitalize on virtual water resources.
As the system’s upstream riparian and its foremost economic power, the hydropolitical
economy of the Tigris-Euphrates basin effectively centers on Turkey. Investigating the Turkish
economy in recent decades, however, we observe a country that has by and large rejected—and
continues to reject—virtual water as a component of its import sector. Turkey is now the largest
producer of cereals in the Middle East. In fact, the country exported nearly as much grain as it
imported in 2000 (see Table 4.3 below), for a net virtual water gain of zero. Furthermore,
Turkey continues to expand its agricultural sector as GAP moves forward toward completion. In
1990, Turkey’s estimated irrigation needs were 1.62 billion m3 of freshwater per year. Demand
is expected to grow as high as a shocking 21.5 billion m3 per year in the coming decades.78
It is a curious decision for a country with a relatively strong economy and already facing
difficulties with its water supply to eschew virtual water and instead choose instead to grow its
agricultural sector. Nevertheless, this is the path Turkey has chosen in recent decades. With
annual food imports constituting less than 4 percent of its total imports (see Table 4.3), Turkey
falls below the worldwide average of 6.9 percent and well below the Middle Eastern/North
78 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 135.
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African average of 12.4 percent.79 For whatever reason, Turkey has chosen to strive for self-
sufficiency in food production, despite the challenges posed by hydrological and demographic
factors. For now, food production roughly matches population growth rates in Turkey.80
Whether these trends continue into the future remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is
that Turkey’s insistence on exploiting actual water resources as opposed to seeking substitutes
on the world market in the form of virtual water places an ever-increasing strain on the already-
scarce waters of the Tigris-Euphrates basin. Consequently, Turkey’s unilateral utilization and
development of these rivers has played a significant role in provoking ongoing disputes with its
downstream neighbors.
Despite the fact that Turkey has effectively rejected virtual water as a component of its
economy, this is not the case basin-wide. With smaller economies and significantly higher levels
of water stress, Syria and Iraq are far more vulnerable to changes in the Tigris-Euphrates water
supply than Turkey. Nevertheless, out of sheer necessity, they have pursued virtual water
resources as a supplement to dwindling domestic freshwater supplies in recent decades. In the
year 2000, for example, food imports constituted an estimated 19 percent of Syria’s total import
sector, and by the early 1990s, Iraq was importing almost 80 percent of its food.81 Table 4.2
summarizes virtual water flows both to and from the Tigris-Euphrates river system (in the form
of cereal imports and exports, respectively). The table’s data are derived from the EarthTrends
database.
79 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 80 Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 106. 81 Jack Kalpakian, Identity, Conflict and Cooperation in International River Systems (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2004), 112.
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Table 4.2: Virtual Water Flows to and from the Tigris-Euphrates82
2000 Cereal imports (metric tons)
2000 Food as share of total imports
2000 Cereal exports (metric tons)
Turkey 2,681,679 3.9% 2,503,007
Syria 1,730,718 19% 1,460
Iraq 4,589,056 14.9%* 0 *1976 estimate, no more recent data available.
These data illustrate Turkey’s path of agricultural self-sufficiency, exemplified in its staggering
levels of cereal exports and minimal reliance on imported food. How do these figures compare
with historic levels? Since 1990, cereal exports in Turkey have increased ten-fold, compared
with declining cereal exports in Syria and Iraq. In the same period, Turkey’s food imports as a
percentage of the total import sector have declined approximately 5 percent as the country has
moved ahead with GAP-related irrigation projects. Meanwhile, cereal imports to Syria have
declined roughly 46 percent since 1990, compared to a 46 percent increase in Iraq during the
same period.83 These statistics suggest that while Iraq continues to rely heavily on virtual water
to supplement its dwindling freshwater supplies, Syria seems to be following Turkey’s lead and
reducing its cereal imports in favor of domestic production. If, as I contend, virtual water in fact
serves as a buffer against water-related disputes, these trends do not bode well for future
relations in the river basin.
As I discussed earlier, Turkey’s location at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers places it in a position to dominate the hydropolitical economy of the basin. Compared to
their upstream neighbor, both Syria and Iraq have significantly weaker economies, making it
82 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 83 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>.
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somewhat more difficult to supplement actual water supplies with virtual water. While they
have relied heavily on them in the past, these waters are undoubtedly more costly to Syria and
Iraq than Turkey as a result of their smaller economies. Furthermore, the respective populations
of the downstream riparians are growing at a rate roughly twice that of Turkey’s. In turn, both
countries exhibit higher levels of hydrovulnerability and must therefore essentially rely—at least
in part—on Turkey’s goodwill in terms of maintaining annual water flows adequate to meet their
consumptive, agricultural, and industrial needs
As populations boom in Syria and Iraq, their lagging economies are pushed to the limit in
terms of their capacity to substitute virtual water for actual water resources. These pressures are
already evident in the fact that only 81 percent of Iraq’s population currently boasts access to an
improved water source, while Syria regularly reports water shortages in both urban and rural
regions of the country.84 Kazuhide Nagasawa, a representative of the Japanese International
Cooperation Agency, summarizes the Syrian situation in the following quotation:
In another 20 years, the water table could be down to 400 meters while the
population of Damascus could have risen from its current figure of 4 to 5 million,
to 10 million. At that point it will be difficult to survive on the limited water
resources. The Syrian government will have to decide whether they want to
transfer water to Damascus from the coast, or from the Euphrates.85
Can Syria and Iraq sustain their dependence on virtual water into the future? As Nagasawa
suggests above, Syria already faces significant challenges with regards to its domestic freshwater
supplies. Meanwhile, as a result of its weaker economy and a rather tumultuous series of events
in recent decades, Iraq has struggled to maintain historic levels of virtual water importation.
84 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 85 “Massive investment needed if Damascus to avert water crisis,” UN Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs, <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=61878>.
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During the 1990s, Iraq faced severe United Nations sanctions that made trading for food on the
world market difficult. Following the debacle of the UN Oil-for-Food Program and later being
pushed to the brink of civil war after the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime, Iraq finds itself
today a country in which both water and food security remain pressing concerns. Furthermore,
both Syria and Iraq rely on the waters of the Tigris-Euphrates basin for hydroelectric power and
other industrial purposes that virtual water cannot easily fulfill. Therefore, as long as Turkey
rejects virtual water resources in favor of large-scale development projects like the GAP, and its
downstream riparians continue to grow, develop, and industrialize, we can likely expect disputes
over these shared water resources to continue into the future.
Conclusions
In many regards, the Tigris-Euphrates case offers further support for the rejecting the
water wars hypothesis in earlier chapters. Here we find what is, in many regards, the proverbial
worst-case scenario. To summarize, three states that have suffered various political, economic,
and cultural differences in the past also share a river basin. As populations grow, competition
over these scarce waters increases. With no international institution in place to resolve disputes,
these countries are pushed on multiple occasions to the brink of war as a result of water-related
issues. Yet, the countries of the Tigris-Euphrates river basins have never gone to war over
water. Iraq and Syria may have mobilized troops during the 1974 crisis, but even under such
adverse conditions, the Tigris-Euphrates riparians have proven unwilling through the decades to
resort to war to secure freshwater resources. Once again, the spectre of water wars fails to
materialize.
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However, one should not mistake a lack of violence for a lack of conflict. Ongoing
disputes over “equitable” and “reasonable” water management dominate riparian relations in the
Tigris-Euphrates basin. Moreover, these states have failed time and time again to establish
regimes that could help resolve such conflicts of interest. Why is this the case? Why does the
basin tend toward conflictual rather than cooperative relations among its constitutive states?
Why have the states failed to form institutions? The answer, as is so often the case with any
political phenomenon, is multifaceted. While one cannot completely discount historical,
cultural, and economic factors, I contend that interstate relations in the Tigris-Euphrates basin
illustrate how a fundamental failure to capitalize on virtual water resources can increase the
likelihood of water-related disputes in a given river system.
Turkey’s present insistence on agricultural self-sufficiency poses a significant problem
for its downstream neighbors. By relying on scarce water resources for agricultural development
rather than importing virtual water, Turkey has placed greater strain on the waters of the Tigris-
Euphrates and increased the potential for disputes both with and between its downstream
neighbors. Of course, this is not to suggest that Turkey’s quest for self-sufficiency in the realm
of food security is somehow incorrect. Turkey is a sovereign state and, as realists remind us, a
state either operates within the confines of a self-help system or imperils their own security by
doing otherwise. Rather, it is to suggest that Turkey’s ongoing agricultural development and
choice not to pursue less costly virtual water on the international market creates a suboptimal
environment for cooperative interstate water management in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.
At present, roughly one-quarter of Turkey’s total electricity production relies on imported
fuel—specifically, petroleum. While I stop short of dubbing such imports “virtual energy,” the
basic concept is much the same. Turning to the lessons of neoliberalism, however, perhaps there
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exists an opportunity for a cooperative arrangement that could benefit all three Tigris-Euphrates
riparians. One of the primary goals of GAP is to generate hydropower for Turkey and reduce
reliance on foreign energy. In turn, GAP is a major source of contention with among Turkey,
Syria, and Iraq. Whereas Turkey considers dependence on foreign oil as a weakness, neoliberals
like Keohane and Nye suggest that interdependence can in fact reduce conflict and promote
cooperation in a globalized economy. When we think of water as an economic commodity, we
open the door to possibilities such as Turkey trading its surplus water and agricultural products
for “virtual energy” produced by its oil-rich downstream partners. In this manner, we transform
the scenario from a zero-sum game to a potential win-win for all three parties.
Of course, there would be political difficulties in implementing such a hypothetical oil-
for-water scheme in the basin, but as a theoretical exercise, it once again underscores the fact that
treating water as an economic commodity can offer a perspective on the sharing of
transboundary water resources that do not end in war. As the Tigris-Euphrates case illustrates,
unilateral approaches to managing shared resources leads to conflict and disputes. In striving for
water security and agricultural self-sufficiency, Turkey is in fact making the entire basin less
secure. There is a role for virtual water to play in this case, but it remains unrealized.
In the next chapter, I turn to a second case, the Nile River basin, for comparison. We
observe a similar scenario along the Nile: three developing countries with a history of political
differences sharing a river. In the case of the Nile, however, we observe a different outcome.
Unlike the Tigris-Euphrates, the Nile riparians have by and large avoided conflicts over their
shared waters and have in turn made significant progress toward the formation of international
institutions to resolve water-related disputes. Why is this the case? Once again, I argue that
virtual water plays an important role in explaining this divergence.
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CHAPTER 5
CASE STUDY: THE NILE RIVER BASIN
In the preceding chapter, I investigated hydropolitics among the countries of the Tigris-
Euphrates river basin. Despite the fact that Turkey, Syria, and Iraq have not engaged in violent
conflict over water during the modern era, hydropolitical relations in the basin are nevertheless
driven by ongoing disputes concerning the fair and equitable sharing of these shared resources. I
made the case that the conflictual character of the Tigris-Euphrates basin and the failure of these
states to establish effective channels of cooperation is attributable, at least in part, to Turkey’s
failure to capitalize on the promise of virtual water. By instead striving for self-sufficiency in
agriculture and energy production, Turkey has placed greater demands on the Tigris-Euphrates
waters and heightened political tensions within the basin.
One cannot draw inference from a single observation, however. Therefore, I turn to my
second case study: the Nile River basin. While it would be misleading to suggest that the Nile
riparians always see eye-to-eye on hydropolitical matters, the fact remains that interstate
relations in the basin are far less conflictual than in the Tigris-Euphrates. Moreover, in the case
of the Nile, we observe a significantly higher degree of institutional formation and cooperation
among the riparian states, both bilateral and basin-wide. How can we explain this variation in
outcomes between the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates cases? I argue that the greater reliance on
virtual water among the Nile riparians—particularly Egypt, the regional hegemon—plays a
significant determining role in the more collaborative nature of hydropolitics of the basin.
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The Nile: Not Just a River in Egypt
Daniel Hillel aptly characterizes the Nile River—the longest river in the world—as a
mother with “many thirsty children.”1 Nearly 300 million people currently live in the 1.2 million
square miles of Nile basin, and those populations continue to boom with growth rates well above
the worldwide average. Moreover, ten sovereign states share the waters of the Nile: Sudan,
Burundi, Rwanda, Eritrea, Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tanzania, Kenya,
Ethiopia, and Egypt. Due in large part to both climatic and hydrological characteristics, true
resource dependence and the need for cooperation is only acute between two riparians: Egypt
and Sudan. Ethiopia, located at the headwaters of the Blue Nile and the source of between 80
and 85 percent of the Nile’s annual discharge, enters the equation as a third major hydropolitical
player in the basin.2 Therefore, for the purposes of the present study, I will focus on these three
riparians and their attempts in the past century to achieve a cooperative water-management
regime in the Nile basin.
The hydrology of the Nile River basin is the most extensively studied in the world, with
detailed records dating back to the age of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs. In 440 BC, Herodotus
wrote, “With regard to the sources of the Nile, I have found no one among all those with whom I
have conversed, whether Egyptian, Libyan, or Greek, who professed to have any knowledge.”3
Today, we know that the Nile receives the vast majority of its waters from two major tributaries:
the White Nile and the Blue Nile. The White Nile flows from Lake Victoria down through eight
of the Nile riparian states before merging with the Blue Nile in Sudan. As Swain observes, “The
1 Daniel Hillel, Rivers of Eden: The Struggle for Water and the Quest for Peace in the Middle East (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), xi. 2 Waterbury, “Transboundary Water and International Cooperation,” 49; Yahia Abdel Mageed, “The Nile
Basin: Lessons from the Past,” in International Waters of the Middle East: From Euphrates-Tigris to Nile, ed. Asit K. Biswas (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1994), 179.
3 Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, Book II, trans. George Rawlinson (The Internet Classics Archive), <http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.2.ii.html>.
149
White Nile contributes a relatively small but regular flow of water as it is supplied by permanent
snows of the Ruwenzori Mountain and supported by several Equatorial Lakes.”4 We trace the
majority of the Nile’s waters, however, to the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile emerges from Lake Tana
in Ethiopia, flows through Sudan into Egypt, and eventually merges with the White Nile in
Khartoum to form the “Nile proper.” As noted, the Blue Nile contributes a sizable majority of
the Nile’s total annual discharge, as well as carrying the rich silt deposits upon which Egyptian
agriculture has depended for millennia.5 Figure 5.1 presents a map of the Nile River basin. The
White Nile flows in from the southwest, whereas the Blue Nile joins from the southeast.
As in the case of the Tigris-Euphrates basin, climatic conditions vary significantly along
the Nile River as it winds its way from central Africa to the Nile Delta in Egypt. Experts identify
five distinct climatic regions in the basin. All of Egypt and parts of Sudan are classified as
desert, with precipitation of less than 200 mm per year. The rest of Sudan and parts of Ethiopia
are considered a steppe climate, characterized by rainfall ranging from 200 to 400 mm per year.
The remaining length of the Nile River includes tropical rainforests, tropical savannas, and the
rainy tropical highland climate of the headwaters of the Blue Nile in Ethiopia. In recent decades,
however, rainfall along the Blue Nile in particular has declined (attributable, at least in part, to
global climate change), in turn reducing the Nile River’s annual discharge. Moreover, as a result
of warm temperatures throughout most of the year, the Nile and its major tributaries suffer
significant water loss through evaporation. According to some estimates, Lake Victoria alone
loses some 3.5 billion m3 of water per year to evapotranspiration alone.6
4 Ashok Swain, Managing Water Conflict: Asia, Africa & the Middle East (NY: Routledge, 2004), 91. 5 Robert O. Collins, The Waters of the Nile: Hydropolitics and the Jonglei Canal, 1900-1988 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1990), 19-22. 6 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 22-27.
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Figure 5.1: The Nile River Basin7 As noted above, the Nile River basin is among the largest freshwater basins in the world.
However, despite the significant volume of its flow, the water provided by the river is barely
enough to satisfy the enormous demands of the ever-growing population in the region.
How serious is water scarcity in the basin? Experts predict that growth rates as high as
3.6 percent per year in some states along the Nile, coupled with ongoing supply-induced
degradation of the river, are likely to produce significant water stress in the region in the coming
decades. For instance, the basin’s total population is expected to grow from roughly 300 million
to 597 million by the year 2025—over half of which will be dependent on the waters of the Nile
7 CIA World Factbook, <https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/refmaps.html>.
151
for personal consumption and/or agriculture.8 These trends are perhaps most acute in Egypt,
where experts estimate that the annual per capita water availability will have dropped from 1,070
m3 in 1990 to a mere 620 m3 by the year 2025—well below the “water scarce” benchmark of
1,100 m3 per capita, per year.9 In turn, similar trends of population growth and resource
depletion prevail throughout the basin.
I will now examine in greater detail the issue of water security in each of the three major
Nile riparians, beginning with Egypt. Described by Herodotus as “the gift of the Nile,” Egypt is
home to the largest population in the Arab world and the second largest on the African continent
after Nigeria, estimated in 2007 at over 83 million. Moreover, its annual population growth rate
is estimated at 1.8 percent. As is the case in many North African and Middle Eastern countries,
Egypt—a country characterized predominantly by desert terrain—faces shortages of both
adequate freshwater and arable land. In terms of actual water resources, Egypt is almost entirely
dependent on the Nile River; approximately 95 percent of the total water used in Egypt each year
is withdrawn from the Nile or its tributaries.10 As of 2006, estimates place the annual renewable
freshwater resources available in Egypt at 772 m3 per capita (again, below the “water scarce”
benchmark).11 To cope with these water shortages, Egypt has developed intensive irrigation
systems throughout the country, literally over the course of centuries. These irrigation waters,
however, suffer from a significant degree of supply-induced problems such as pollution from
industrial waste, agricultural pesticides, and raw sewage and also contribute to further soil
erosion. These trends, when coupled with the ongoing process of desertification, periodic
droughts, and the possibility of further damming of the Nile by upstream riparians usher Egypt
8 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 93. 9 Arun P. Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World: Conflict and Cooperation in International River
Basins (Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999), 59. 10 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 101. 11 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>.
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toward a seemingly tenuous future of rapid population growth and continually depleting natural
resources.
Similar trends also play a significant role in Sudan. As of 2007, Sudan’s population was
estimated at approximately 37 million, with an annual growth rate projected at a rather high 2.11
percent (compared with a worldwide average of 1.3 percent). This translates to an expected
population of roughly 51 million by the year 2025. In terms of ecology, the climate in Sudan
ranges from tropical in the south to arid desert in the north. As a result, while the state’s per
capita access to freshwater is an estimated 1,743 m3 per year, access is highly dependent upon
rainfall, as well as distribution in the region in which an individual happens to reside. This is
reflected by the fact that only an estimated 70 percent of the Sudanese population had access to
an improved water source as of 2004.12 Furthermore, climate change, water pollution, frequent
droughts, and the destruction wrought by the country’s ongoing civil war only exacerbate the
already limited access to freshwater in Sudan. To address these fundamentally demand-induced
issues of water scarcity in relation to its rapidly expanding population, Sudan has built various
dams along the Nile River in order to increase its domestic water supply. Yet, in many areas of
the state, these attempts have proven inadequate and, in turn, shortages of water persist.13
Despite lying at the headwaters of the Blue Nile, Ethiopia also faces major challenges in
meeting its mounting freshwater needs. With an annual growth of 2.33 percent, Ethiopia’s
population is expected to grow from 81 million in 2007 to nearly 120 million by 2025, even
surpassing Egypt. The annual availability of freshwater in the country falls within the “water
stress” category at 1,538 m3 per capita. Distressingly, however, only 22 percent of the Ethiopian
population had access to an improved water source as of 2004. This number falls to 11 percent
12 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 13 Ashok Swain, “A New Challenge: Water Scarcity in the Arab World,” Arab Studies Quaterly 20, no. 1
(Winter 1998), 4.
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in rural regions of the country.14 In addition to decades of political and economic turmoil,
Ethiopia is frequently hit by severe recurrent droughts that imperil the country’s water supplies
and food security. Whereas Turkey has historically capitalized on its position at the headwaters
of the Tigris and Euphrates, Ethiopia is hard-pressed by comparison to find solutions to its
persistent water deficits. As Tafla Bairu observes, “Drought and famine have taken a heavy toll
on the Ethiopian population in recent years while the [Blue Nile] water thundered unused down
the precipice as always.”15
Without a doubt, water scarcity is a critical challenge shared by the Nile River countries
of Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. In turn, Table 5.2 presents several key indicators related to the
hydropolitical economy of this river system:
Table 5.1: The Hydropolitical Economy of Ethiopia, Sudan, and Egypt16
Total water resources per
capita
Population growth rate (2000-2010)
GDP per capita (current US
dollars)
Hydro-vulnerability index (0-100)
Ethiopia 1,538 m3 2.33% $95 7.3
Sudan 1,743 m3 2.11% $371 23.3
Egypt 772 m3 1.83% $1,519 65.3
Returning to the hydrovulnerability index constructed in Chapter 3, we find that Ethiopia is by
far the most vulnerable to water scarcity due to its weak economy and overwhelming difficulties
in water distribution. Sudan’s developing economy also makes it a highly vulnerable country in
terms of its capacity to both acquire virtual water from abroad and innovate in its domestic water
14 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 15 Quoted in Tesfaye Tafesse, The Nile Question: Hydropolitics, Legal Wranling, Modus Vivendi and
Perspectives (London: Lit Verlag, 2001), 96. 16 Data in table derived from World Resources Institute, “EarthTrends Environmental Information,”
<http://earthtrends.wri.org/>.
154
management sector. Egypt, on the other hand, is in a much stronger position to offset water
scarcity (as I will discuss at greater length later in the chapter).
To what degree does each of these three countries rely on the waters of the Nile River?
Egypt is almost entirely dependent on the Nile for its renewable freshwater resources; roughly 95
percent of the country’s annual withdrawals are taken from the river. With significant rainfall
over much of its territory, Sudan is somewhat less dependent on the Nile River. Nevertheless, as
Waterbury points out, Sudan’s most reliable agricultural areas lie within the Nile basin. As far as
Ethiopia, Waterbury goes on to argue, “Ethiopia at present is not dependent upon the waters of
the Nile in any important respect, but it would like to be.”17 Elhance concurs, noting that despite
its geographic advantages, Ethiopia “remains underdeveloped because it has not been able to tap
even a tiny fraction of the multiple-use potential of the rivers originating in and flowing through
its territory” due to political and economic constraints.18
As the preceding analysis suggests, the present potential for disputes over the Nile River
seems significant. For instance, despite its role as a regional military and economic hegemon,
Egypt—the final downstream riparian on the river—is also the most vulnerable in terms of water
security (as a result of “resource capture” by upstream states).19 Should any state along the Nile
choose to stop the flow of the river, Arun Elhance argues that Egypt would cease to exist as a
viable state. In turn, following the signing of the Camp David peace accords in 1979, former
Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat is reported to have stated that the only reason that his country
might go to war again with any of its neighbors would be a possible dispute over water.20
17 John Waterbury, The Nile Basin: National Determinants of Collective Action (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2002), 4-5. 18 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 67. 19 Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt, “Introduction: A Theoretical Overview,” in Ecoviolence: Links
Among Environment, Population, and Scarcity, ed. Thomas Homer-Dixon and Jessica Blitt (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998).
20 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 53.
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Despite such menacing statements to the contrary, however, we observe a far less contentious
reality along the Nile River. While the riparian states do not always agree on matters of water
management, a rather robust system of interstate cooperation—both bilateral and basin-wide—
has nonetheless emerged in the basin over the past century, even amidst such potentially divisive
environmental, demographic, and political dynamics.
Hydropolitics on the Nile: Choosing Cooperation over Conflict
In contrast to the conflictual Tigris-Euphrates case discussed in the preceding chapter, we
find no “water crises” on the Nile River during the past century comparable to the mobilization
of Syria and Iraq’s militaries during the 1974-1975 crisis or the disputes engendered by Turkey’s
impounding of the Ataturk Dam in 1990. Of course, disputes do occur among the Nile riparians.
Rather than letting such clashes push these countries to the brink of war, however, we observe a
stronger tendency toward cooperation among the countries of the Nile basin. As a result, these
countries have developed a far more extensive water-management regime for the region in the
past century. Although it is far from perfect, these countries have thus far proven themselves
willing to negotiate over questions of equitable water sharing as opposed to making threats or
moving troops to their borders. In the following section, I will offer an overview of both
disputes and cooperative efforts along the Nile River before moving on to discuss the role played
by virtual water resources in the basin.
During the British colonial era, water planning in the Nile River basin was orchestrated
primarily to protect Egypt’s agricultural interests (the floodplains of Egypt served as a source of
low-cost, high-quality cotton for England’s textile factories). In turn, during this period, Egypt
advocated doctrines of primary need, prior use, and acquired water rights to justify its British-
156
backed dominance over the Nile waters. With the end of the colonial period, however, Elhance
notes that the upper riparians have essentially rejected Egypt’s self-proclaimed right to dictate
hydropolitics in the basin.21 Furthermore, despite the fact that Egypt dominated the politics of
water during these early years, the colonial period also marked the first steps toward multilateral
cooperation along the Nile River.
Colonial-era treaties including the Ethiopia-United Kingdom Treaty Regarding the
Frontiers of 1902 and the Nile Waters Agreement of 1929 arguably laid the foundation for the
modern Nile River treaty regime. Although essentially established among Britain’s African
colonies, the Treaty of 1902 included provisions to prevent resource-capture near the Ethiopian
headwaters of the Nile River and represents an early example of multilateral agreement in the
region. As noted above, however, the terms of this treaty were biased somewhat in favor of
maintaining a favorable flow regime for Egypt.22 That being said, many scholars consider the
Nile Waters Agreement of 1929 between an independent Egypt and colonial Sudan an important
landmark in terms of water sharing and planning in the river basin. For example, the Agreement
of 1929 includes the following passage:
Save with the previous agreement of the Egyptian Government, no irrigation or
power works or measures are to be constructed or taken on the River Nile and
its branches, or on the lakes from which it flows, so far as all these are in the
Sudan or in countries under British administration, which would, in such a
manner as to entail any prejudice to the interests of Egypt, either reduce the
quantity of water arriving in Egypt or modify the date of its arrival.23
21 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 69. 22 Raj Krishna, “The Legal Regime of the Nile River Basin,” in The Politics of Scarcity: Water in the
Middle East,” ed. Joyce R. Starr and Daniel C. Stoll (Boulder: Westview Press, 1988), 26-27. 23 Krishna, “The Legal Regime of the Nile,” 27.
157
Although this clause is clearly weighted Egypt’s favor, it nevertheless represents a significant
early attempt to address international disputes over water in the region for several reasons.
In addition to allocating specific annual flows among the major the Nile riparians, the
diplomatic exchange between Egypt and Great Britain that eventually led up to the Agreement of
1929 included the following admission by the President of the Egyptian Council of Ministers:
It is realized that the development of the Sudan requires a quantity of water
greater than that which has so far been utilized by the Sudan. As your Excellency
is aware, the Egyptian Government has always been anxious to encourage such
development and will therefore continue that policy.24
Even though the basin-wide treaty was built primarily to serve Egyptian interests, Okidi argues
that this note represents a basic recognition on the part of Egypt that Sudan had a right to develop
and to use the Nile waters for that purpose. Furthermore, Egypt accepted that the rights to use
varying quantities of water would depend on “the needs of the moment of negotiation.”25 In
turn, for this purpose, 32 km3 of the Nile’s annual 84-km3 flow was left unallocated in the 1929
agreement. Therefore, analyst Raj Krishna argues that the Nile Waters Agreement of 1929
represented a fundamental recognition of the parties involved concerning both established
resource rights and equitable sharing and, therefore, is quite significant in terms of the
institutional history of water management in the region.26 Additional agreements concerning the
sharing of the Nile arrived at in 1932, 1949, and 1952 further supplemented the burgeoning
regime established with the Agreement of 1929.
24 O. Okidi, “History of the Nile and Lake Victoria Basins through Treaties,” in The Nile: Sharing a Scarce
Resouce, a Historical and Technical Review of Water Management and of Economic and Legal Issues, ed. P.P. Howell and J.A. Allan (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 327
25 Okidi, “History of the Nile and Lake Victoria Basins,” 327. 26 Krishna, “The Legal Regime of the Nile,” 27.
158
Moving into the post-colonial era, the next major hydropolitical development for the Nile
River basin was the formulation of Egypt’s Century Storage Plan in 1946 (its name derived from
the idea that it would take an estimated hundred years to complete). Originally envisaged by
British engineer Sir Murdoch MacDonald in 1920, this large-scale project sought to develop
Nile’s waters to meet the future water and energy needs of Egypt and Sudan. As Elhance notes,
the Century Storage Plan would also benefit the upper riparians, generating hydroelectric power
for Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda while providing water storage and flood control to Ethiopia.27
The project called for the construction of several dams, including the Owen Dam at the mouth of
Lake Victoria and the Jebel Awlia Dam on the Sobat River in Sudan. The most ambitious aspect
of the project, however, was the proposed Jonglei Canal in Sudan, intended to divert the White
Nile away from the Sudd swamps north of Khartoum and, in turn, prevent the significant water
loss that occurs in the region due to evaporation.28
Interestingly, nearly all of Egypt’s proposed Century Storage Plan projects were located
outside Egyptian territory. In turn, this proved the undoing of the project as domestic turmoil in
the upstream riparian states ultimately derailed planning. Only the Owen Falls Dam in Uganda
and the Jonglei Canal in Sudan were completed, and the latter only partially. Nevertheless, these
dams join with four others to form the backbone of a modern Nile River system that Waterbury
describes as “fully domesticated and made as manageable as a water faucet.”29 Despite the fact
that Egyptian planners clearly had their own state’s interests in mind when developing the
Century Storage Plan, it nevertheless offers an illustration of how collaborative river basin
management can produce mutually beneficial outcomes among self-interested parties. Even in
27 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 70-71. 28 Arnon Soffer, Rivers of Fire: The Conflict over Water in the Middle East, trans. Murray Rosovsky and
Nina Copaken (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 32. 29 John Waterbury, Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley (Syracuse, NT: Syracuse University Press, 1979), 42;
quoted in Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 71.
159
its incomplete state, the Century Storage plan represents a win-win scenario for the Nile River
riparians—increased flows for Egypt alongside significant benefits for Sudan, Ethiopia, and the
other upstream states.
That being said, most scholars agree that the true cornerstone of the Nile River treaty
regime is the Nile Water Agreement of 1959 between Egypt and Sudan. Soon after gaining its
independence, Sudan rejected the Agreement of 1929 and called for a greater share of the Nile’s
waters to aid in its agricultural development. In turn, on 8 November 1959, Egypt and Sudan
signed the bilateral Agreement for the Full Utilization of the Nile Waters. In its preamble, the
treaty emphasizes the need for development projects to gain full control of the Nile River and
increase its yield, recognizing the need for collaborative efforts in the following excerpt:
And as these works require for their execution and administration, full agreement
and cooperation between the two Republics in order to regulate their benefits and
utilize the Nile waters in a manner which secures the present and future
requirements of the two countries.30
In addition to calling for the construction of several dams along the Nile, the 1959 Agreement
increased Sudan’s annual water allotment from the 4 billion cubic meters stipulated in the 1929
agreement to 18.5 billion cubic meters.31 Thus, there is little doubt the agreement represented
not only Egyptian, but also Sudanese hydropolitical interests. In fact, Robert O. Collins observes
that “it is difficult to believe either could expect more. The advantages to both far outweighed
the disadvantages.”32
30 “Agreement between the Republic of the Sudan and the United Arab Republic for the Full Utilization of
the Nile Waters (8 November 1959)” in Robert O. Collins, The Waters of the Nile: Hydropolitics and the Jonglei Canal, 1900-1988 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 406.
31 Lief Ohlosson, Hydropolitics: Conflict Over Water as a Developmental Constraint (New Jersey: Zed Books, 1995), 35-40.
32 Collins, The Waters of the Nile, 273.
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Moreover, despite being a bilateral, sub-basin accord between the Egyptian and Sudanese
governments, the 1959 Agreement nevertheless addressed the future needs of the remaining Nile
riparians as well. Should another riparian state claim the right to utilize additional Nile waters,
the agreement stipulates that Egypt and Sudan will jointly consider the claim and, in turn, “the
accepted amount shall be deducted from the shares of the two Republics in equal parts.”33 While
this clause perhaps reinforced a proprietary view of the Nile River on the part of its signatories, it
at least opened the door for future negotiations on water management within the basin and
provided a norm for conflict resolution in the event of riparian disputes. In turn, Kliot argues the
1959 Agreement reflects a “recognition of the principle of equity in the appropriation of the
Nile’s water resources” and therefore serves as an important milestone in the management of the
river basin.34
Perhaps more importantly, however, the 1959 Agreement provided for the formation of a
Permanent Joint Technical Committee (PJTC) comprised of Egyptian and Sudanese officials. In
turn, the 1959 Agreement describes the PJTC’s mission as follows: “…to ensure the technical
cooperation between the Governments of the two Republics, to continue the research and study
necessary for the Nile control projects and the increase of its yield and to continue the
hydrological survey of its upper reaches.”35 As Collins observes, the formation of the PJTC was
a significant step forward for the basin. “At long last,” he declares, “here was an agency given
the authority to plan and to supervise the Nile waters development, a goal which had proved so
elusive for the British.”36 Despite the fact that the PJTC is only a bilateral institution (Egypt and
Sudan have extended a standing invitation for all Nile riparians to join), it once again includes
33 “Agreement between the Republic of the Sudan and the United Arab Republic (1959),” 411. 34 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict in the Middle East, 85. 35 “Agreement between the Republic of the Sudan and the United Arab Republic (1959),” 409. 36 Collins, The Waters of the Nile, 275.
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provisions stating that talks with other Nile riparians concerning water rights are to be carried out
jointly by Egypt and Sudan.37
Ultimately, as Manuel Schiffler argues, the Nile Water Agreement of 1959 “has until
today been observed and is in many aspects regarded as a model for the allocation of water by
mutual consent on international rivers.”38 Lowi agrees, noting, “For the most part, the agreement
has been faithfully applied, the PJTC has met regularly, whatever the political climate, and both
riparians have without exception received their designated shares.”39 Moreover, in creating the
PJTC, Egypt and Sudan crafted what has served for five decades as an effective international
institution in terms of settling disputes among the riparians, as well as setting the agenda in the
sphere of hydro-development along the Nile River.
That being said, the Nile River treaty regime has not been without its political ups and
downs. Perhaps the most notable dispute in recent decades centered on Egypt’s construction of
the Aswân High Dam in the 1960s and 1970s. Agreed upon by Egypt and Sudan in 1959, the
project—one of the world’s largest dams—was intended to transform Egypt into a modern,
industrialized nation by controlling the yearly floods of the Nile River, promoting agriculture,
and harnessing the river’s hydroelectric power. Specifically, the Aswân High would expand
Egypt’s total cultivated area by 1.3 million hectares (a 20 percent increase), generate 10 billion
kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, improve navigation, and help develop fisheries trade and
transport resources on Lake Nasser.40 Built with Soviet assistance at an estimated cost of nearly
37 Manuel Schiffler, “Conflicts over the Nile or Conflicts on the Nile,” in Water in the Middle East:
Potential for Conflicts and Prospects for Cooperation, ed. Waltina Scheumann and Manuel Schiffler (New York: Springer, 1998), 141.
38 Schiffler, “Conflicts over the Nile or Conflicts on the Nile,” 140. 39 Lowi, “Water and Power,” 71. 40 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict in the Middle East, 43.
162
$2 billion, the Aswân High Dam was a monumental technical achievement on Egypt’s part;
supporters and opponents alike branded it President Nasser’s “pyramid.”
This project entailed major repercussions on the lands of northern Sudan, however, which
would see a significant portion of its territory inundated by Lake Nasser following the dam’s
completion, displacing nearly 100,000 Sudanese citizens. As a result, tensions arose between
Sudan and Egypt during the Aswân Dam’s planning stages. Sudan eventually made its support
of the project contingent on three conditions. First, Egypt and Sudan would agree upon the
latter’s share of the Nile’s water before construction began. Second, Egypt would agree that the
Aswân project would not impede Sudan’s future construction plans on the Nile. Third, Egypt
would provide adequate compensation for any resulting population displacement in Sudan.41
Egypt agreed to these terms in the aforementioned Nile Water Agreement of 1959, thus defusing
the dispute. Moreover, Egypt agreed to provide technical assistance for a smaller-scale Sudanese
development project along the Blue Nile known as the Roseires Dam.42
In contrast to the riparian disputes engendered by Turkey’s unilateral development of the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers through GAP and its related projects, we once again find a greater
willingness to collaborate in the Nile River basin. Of course, both the 1959 Agreement and the
Aswân Dam negotiations were bilateral accords between Egypt and Sudan rather than basin-wide
efforts. As Elhance notes, “It remains an open question whether Egypt would not have been
better off had it pursues other cooperation projects elsewhere in the basin, as proposed in the
Century Storage Scheme.”43 Nevertheless, the bilateral Nile Water Agreement defused interstate
41 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 77. 42 Joseph W. Dellapenna, “The Nile as a Legal and Political Structure,” in The Scarcity of Water: Emerging
Legal and Policy Responses, ed. Edward H. P. Brans, Esther J. de Haan, André Nollkaemper, and Jan Rinzema (London: Kluwer Law International, 1997), 124-126; Schiffler, “Conflicts over the Nile or Conflicts on the Nile,” 141.
43 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 79.
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tensions over the Aswân project and continues to serve as a guiding force in shaping
hydropolitics in the region. Regarding the potential for future cooperation in the region, Krishna
observes that “the picture, perhaps, is not as bleak as it is often painted”—thanks in large part to
the treaty regime built around the Nile Water Agreement of 1959.44
Sub-basin Cooperation Gives Way to Basin-wide Regime Formation
While it is arguably the most prominent example, Egypt and Sudan’s 1959 Agreement is
not the only instance of sub-basin cooperation along the Nile waters. In 1971, for instance, the
upstream states of Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania (with Uganda as an unofficial observer)
created a joint Technical Committee to collect and analyze data concerning development of the
Kagera river, a remote tributary of the White Nile. After over a decade of preparation, these four
upstream riparians signed a multipurpose treaty known as the Kagera Basin Agreement in 1984
to form the Kagera Basin Organization (or the KBO). In turn, the KBO’s primary objectives
included the development of hydropower along the Kagera, the provision and enhancement of
water flows for municipal, industrial, and agricultural usage, fisheries development, and
environmental protection.45 Due to political upheavals and other intervening variables, the KBO
has encountered some difficulties in effectively mobilizing resources and implementing its
development projects, but it nevertheless remains the primary interstate policymaking unit
among the states of the White Nile.
At first glance, sub-basin solutions such as the 1959 Agreement and the KBO may seem
inferior to more comprehensive basin-wide regimes. Theoretically, optimal management of any
transboundary river resource is best accomplished when the entire basin is considered a single
44 Krishna, “The Legal Regime of the Nile,” 35. 45 Okidi, “History of the Nile through Treaties,” 336-338.
164
unit and development proceeds irrespective of national borders. Ashok Swain makes the case,
however, that sub-basin agreements play an important role in the case of the Nile River system.
Ten riparian countries at varying levels of economic development, water stress, and political
stability—each advocating its own interests in resource planning and development—perhaps
makes basin-wide cooperation along the Nile a daunting prospect. As such, Swain argues that
pragmatic consideration in fact favors sub-basin cooperative management in the Nile basin. He
goes on the emphasize that sub-basin arrangements such as the 1959 Agreement and the KBO
can lay a firm foundation for future basin-wide cooperation.46 Moreover, recent developments in
the Nile basin support Swain hypothesis that bilateral and sub-basin agreements have today
“spilled over” into effective basin-wide water management regimes.
The Hydromet Project launched by Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda in 1967
serves as an early example of multilateral planning in the basin (Rwanda and Burndi joined a few
years later). Although the survey project did not include Ethiopia, it was nevertheless comprised
of countries representing both the upper and lower Nile. The Hydromet Project’s primary
purpose was to evaluate the water balance in Lake Victoria and assist the riparian states in
gathering data to help regulate the flow of the Nile. In turn, Hydromet lasted twenty-five years
before the Technical Committee for the Promotion of the Development and Environmental
Protection of the Nile Basin (or TECCONILE) replaced it in 1992.47 This agreement includes
representatives from Egypt, Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Congo, with the remaining
riparians states—including Ethiopia—choosing to participate as unofficial observers. The stated
purpose of the TECCONILE project is to “deal with the technical aspects of Nile water
46 Ashok Swain, “Managing the Nile River: The Role of Sub-Basin Co-operation,” in Conflict Management
of Water Resources, ed. Manas Chatterji, Saul Arlosoroff, and Gauri Guha (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2002), 156-158; Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 107-109.
47 Swain, Managing Water Conflict, 105.
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cooperation among Nile-basin states.”48 More specifically, its focus includes integrated water
resources planning and management, analysis of changing water availability and demands,
capacity building and human resources development, and environmental protection and
improvement.49
Following the formation of the TECCONILE, the Nile riparians initiated a series of
conferences known as Nile 2002. The first Nile 2002 conference took place in Aswân in 1993
with subsequent meetings taking place in each of the ten Nile states (including the 2000 meeting
in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia). Participants at the talks included state ministers responsible for water
resources management in the Nile states, as well as technical experts and scholars. Furthermore,
at the 1995 meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, the Nile riparians established an Expert Council
charged with developing a framework for water allocation throughout the basin. As Schiffler
notes, “An agreement of this sort would constitute an important means for preventing future
conflicts over water.”50
Perhaps the best example of the ongoing shift from sub-basin agreements to basin-wide
cooperation along the Nile River is the formation of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in February
1999. For the first time in history, all ten Nile riparians are working together to chart the future
course of the basin and its waters. According to the NBI, the organization is intended to provide
a platform for cooperation and for building working relationships among the riparian countries,
as well as providing a means of moving from discussion to action.51 Furthermore, the NBI’s
overarching mission statement is to achieve "sustainable socioeconomic development through
48 Jack Kalpakian, Identity, Conflict, and Cooperation in International River Systems (Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, 2004), 51. 49 International Network of Basin Organizations Newsletter, no. 3 (First Quarter 1996), <http://www.inbo-
news.org/pdf/inbo3.pdf>. 50 Schiffler, “Conflicts over the Nile or Conflicts on the Nile,” 144. 51 Nile Basin Initiative, <http://www.nilebasin.org/aboutUs.htm>.
166
the equitable utilization of, and benefit from, the common Nile Basin water resources."52 To this
end, its Strategic Action Program includes both sub-basin and basin-wide initiatives. Perhaps
symbolic of Egypt’s emerging inclination to share control of the Nile River with its upstream
neighbors, the NBI is headquartered in Entebbe, Uganda.
The developments described above should note imply that riparian relations in the Nile
basin are always perfectly cordial. For instance, when he was Egypt’s foreign minister in 1990,
future UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali bluntly stated, “The next war in our region
will be over the waters of the Nile.”53 Similarly, when Sudan threatened in August 1995 to pull
out of the 1959 Agreement, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amre Muhammad Mussa warned, “In
playing with water, Sudan is playing with fire.”54 Michele Ameri summarizes the situation in the
Nile basin as follows:
At the current time, tensions in the Nile River Basin are contained by a number
of factors, including Egypt's political and military dominance, the civil war in
the Sudan and negligible use of water by other upstream riparians.
Concurrently, however, other factors are working to increase the potential for
conflict over water in the basin: high population growth in both upstream and
downstream countries, accompanied by subsequent demand for increases in
agricultural irrigation; nascent development in Ethiopia; environmental
degradation of established Egyptian irrigated land; and the possibility of an
eventual end to the Sudanese war, which would spur development in Sudan.55
52 World Bank Group, “Nile Basin Initiative,” <http://www.worldbank.org/afr/nilebasin/>. 53 de Villiers, Water, 247. 54 Schiffler, “Conflicts over the Nile or Conflicts on the Nile,” 137. 55 “Inventory of Conflict and Environment Case Studies: Nile River Dispute,” Trade and Environment
Database (TED), <http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/ice/bluenile.htm>.
167
Nevertheless, as populations have grown and water supplies have dwindled in the past decade,
the Nile basin states have taken significant steps toward basin-wide cooperation—most notably
with the historic formation of the Nile Basin Initiative in 1999. In the case of interstate disputes
such as Egypt and Sudan’s clash over the Aswân Dam, the Nile riparians have time and again
chosen collaborative solutions over the threat of violence. In turn, despite numerous challenges
through the years, the Nile River treaty regime has adapted and persisted. While water scarcity
will almost certainly pose a significant challenge in the decades ahead, developments in the past
half-century suggest that the Nile riparians will continue on a path toward joint development and
management of their shared water resources.
Why do we observe such a variation in outcomes between the Nile River basin and the
Tigris-Euphrates basin? In both cases, we are dealing with regional systems characterized both
by a history of interstate animosity over various political issues, as well as states marked by
significant domestic turmoil and developmental challenges. If anything, water scarcity is even
more severe in the Nile basin than along the Tigris-Euphrates. If we return to the notion of
riparian relations existing on a continuum between cooperation and conflict, why does the Nile
basin tend toward the former and the Tigris-Euphrates basin toward the latter? Once again, I
contend that the answer lies, at least in part, with virtual water. To recap, I argue that an
international river system characterized by a reliance on virtual water should exhibit less
competition and therefore fewer disputes over water resources than a system that does not
capitalize on virtual water. In the case on the Nile River, we find that virtual water plays a
crucial role—particularly in Egypt, arguably the basin’s hydropolitical lynchpin.
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Virtual Water and the Nile River Basin
Looking back through the centuries, ancient Egypt was among the world’s first virtual
water exporters thanks to its role as the proverbial breadbasket of the Roman Empire. Today, the
hydropolitical economy of the Nile basin centers on Egypt as not only the dominant economic
and military power in the region, but also the country historically most dependent on the waters
of the Nile for its survival. In turn, we find that virtual water imports comprise a significant
portion of the contemporary Egyptian economy. For instance, food imports constituted over 27
percent of Egypt’s total import sector in 2002 (compared to less than 4 percent in Turkey).
Moreover, these numbers have remained a relatively steady component in the Egyptian economy
throughout the second half of the twentieth century, dipping to their lowest point in 1993 at 21
percent of total exports and rising as high as 44 percent in 1974.56 Meanwhile, per capita
supplies of wheat, maize, and rice in Egypt have increased substantially in the past five decades,
even with a population that doubled in size during the same period.57 This was due in large part
to increasing food imports. In the 1980s, there was a popular saying that fourteen out of fifteen
loaves of bread sold in the Egyptian markets came from abroad. While this axiom perhaps
exaggerated the country’s reliance on virtual water, between 75 and 80 percent of the cereals
consumed in Egypt today are imported.58
In contrast to Turkey, Egypt has embraced virtual water as a defining characteristic of its
economy and a major component of its overall food security strategy. In fact, Egypt devotes a
larger portion of its economy to importing virtual water than all but a handful of developing
56 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 57 D. Wichelns, “The Role of Public Policies in Motivating Virtual Water Trade, with an Example from
Egypt,” in Virtual Water Trade: Proceedings of the International Expert Meeting on Virtual Water Trade, ed. A.Y. Hoekstra (Value of Water Research Report Series no. 12, February 2003), 149.
58 Jean Kerisel, The Nile and Its Masters: Past, Present, and Future, Source of Hope and Anger, trans. Philip Cockle (Brookfield, VT: A.A. Balkema, 2001), 149; Jack Kalpakian, Identity, Conflict and Cooperation in International River Systems (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004), 44.
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countries worldwide (including Algeria, Gambia, and Yemen).59 We even see elements of
Egypt’s virtual water strategy in its domestic agricultural policy. As D. Wichelns observes,
“National efforts to implement a virtual water strategy will have a greater likelihood of success if
the impacts of public policies on farm-level decisions are considered when designing policies to
encourage changes in farm-level management of land and water resources.”60 In other words,
the state can encourage trade in virtual water by implementing subsidy programs that favor
certain kinds of agricultural production over others. The Egyptian government has already taken
steps toward implementing such policies in recent years, reducing water intensive crops such as
cotton, rice, and sugarcane in favor of non-water intensive crops.61 In addition, we observe in
recent decades a steady decline in Egypt’s agriculture sector as a percentage of the country’s
total GDP, from 28 percent in 1965 to 15 percent in 2004.62
By adopting virtual water a key component in its economy, Egypt has made significant
steps toward reducing its dependence on the Nile River. While the country and its citizens still
rely on the Nile waters, food security is achieved in large part through importing food from
abroad. From a rational choice standpoint, this is a logical choice in the sense that it recognizes
the high cost of domestic production in an arid, water-scarce country versus the much lower
relative cost of purchasing subsidized grain on the international market. In fact, the Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates that Egypt's maize imports in the year
2000 generated a global saving of about 2,700 million m3 of water compared to the “water cost”
Egypt would have incurred by growing those crops domestically.63 Furthermore, Egypt’s virtual
59 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 60 Wichelns, “The Role of Public Policies in Motivating Virtual Water Trade,” 147. 61 Soffer, Rivers of Fire, 50. 62 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 63 “Raising Water Productivity,” Agriculture21 (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations,
March 2003), <http://www.fao.org/AG/magazine/0303sp2.htm>.
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water driven hydropolitical economy ultimately translates to less competition with its upstream
neighbors over the Nile’s already-scarce waters.
Egypt is not the only Nile riparian to capitalize on virtual water, however. As noted
above, both Sudan and Ethiopia are significantly more vulnerable to water scarcity due to their
weak, unstable economies. Table 5.2 summarizes virtual water flows both to and from the major
riparian states of the Nile Basin:
Table 5.2: Virtual Water Flows to and from the Nile River Basin64
2000 Cereal imports (metric tons)
2000 Food as share of total imports
2000 Cereal exports (metric tons)
Ethiopia 1,271,609 7% 4,384
Sudan 1,312,503 21.7% 52,684
Egypt 9,654,784 25.1% 395,263
As the data in Table 5.2 suggest, virtual water is also a major component in Sudan’s economy,
accounting for over one-fifth of its total imports in 2000. The fact that Ethiopia’s food imports
only constituted 7 percent of its total import sector in 2000 is perhaps somewhat misleading.
This number actually increased substantially to 21.5 percent in 2003, bringing Ethiopia’s reliance
on virtual water into closer alignment with its fellow Nile riparians. Furthermore, Ethiopia also
depends heavily on a heretofore-unmentioned category of virtual water: food aid. Between 2000
and 2003 alone, Ethiopia received an estimated 3,654,3000 metric tons of cereals in food aid
from the international community.65 Although this number speaks to the country’s struggling
economy and its recurrent problems with drought and famine, it also underscores the potential of
virtual water to relieve the stress of scarce, inaccessible, or costly domestic water resources.
64 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>. 65 EarthTrends, <http://www.earthtrends.org/>.
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Therefore, despite a relative lack of economic capacity and, in turn, much higher levels of
hydrovulnerability, we nevertheless see high levels of virtual water importation in Sudan and
Ethiopia. Furthermore, while virtual water reliance is perhaps most pronounced in Egypt, Sudan,
and Ethiopia, Kliot observes that all ten Nile riparians rely on imported cereals to achieve food
security.66 In turn, Tony Allan describes the role of virtual water throughout the Nile basin as
follows:
In brief the problem of food supply for the countries of the Nile Basin, while
being related to that of the Nile water supply, is by no means determined by the
availability of water. Egypt has already had to allocate other resources generated
in other parts of the economy…to provide a secure supply of food and this is the
way that the problem will continue to be solved for the foreseeable future.67
By adopting Egypt’s solution—that is, supplementing dwindling domestic water supplies with
virtual water imported from abroad—the Nile riparians have taken critical first steps toward
separating the issue of food security from freshwater availability. Again, this is not to suggest
that the freshwater contributions of the Nile River are irrelevant in the context of a globalized
economy. Quite the opposite, in fact, as agriculture remains a major component in the
economies of all ten Nile riparians. Instead, it once again emphasizes that when we move
beyond thinking of water as a zero-sum resource, we can begin to understand that a shortage of
water does not necessarily equate to famine, war, and other apocalyptic scenarios.
Does virtual water in fact buffer against interstate conflict and promote institutional
formation and cooperation? I believe the Nile River case suggests that a reliance on virtual water
66 Kliot, Water Resources and Conflict, 80. 67 J. A. Allan, “Evolving Water Demands and National Development Options,” in The Nile: Sharing a
Scarce Resouce, a Historical and Technical Review of Water Management and of Economic and Legal Issues, ed. P.P. Howell and J.A. Allan (Cambridge University Press, 1994), 304.
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explains, at least in part, the high levels of cooperation on water-management issues in the basin.
Even amidst longstanding political animosities, domestic upheaval, struggling economies, and
severe water shortages, the states of the Nile River basin have steadily developed a rather robust,
multilateral water-sharing regime consisting of treaties, agreements, joint technical commissions,
and overarching norms of cooperation. In this regard, the basin has come a long way from the
one-sided agreements of the colonial era to the formation of the Nile Basin Initiative in 1999. In
turn, virtual water resources have reduced the riparians’ reliance on the waters of the Nile,
making competition less intense and cooperative outcomes more likely.
As I asserted earlier, Egypt’s position as the dominant actor in the region means that the
hydropolitical economy of the Nile basin effectively centers its policies. As a downstream state,
Egypt could theoretically pursue a more aggressive stance toward securing its water flows and
expanding its agricultural base toward self-sufficiency. If Sudan or Ethiopia began a damming
project upstream, Egypt could simply project its military power by scrambling a few aircraft and
flying south for a bombing run. Nevertheless, we have not seen Egypt throw around its weight
with regards to water management in the Nile basin. Instead, Egypt has essentially abandoned
any aspirations of agricultural self-sufficiency and invested the future of its food security in
virtual water. This, I argue, is a compelling explanation for Egypt’s increasing willingness to
cooperate with its neighbors and reach joint solutions to water-related disputes in the basin rather
than resorting to conflictual power politics. Moreover, its riparian neighbors have followed suit,
leading to the formation of an effective institutional framework for managing the Nile’s waters in
the decades ahead as populations continue to grow and supplies dwindle.
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Conclusion: The Basins Compared
Comparing the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile River cases, we observe a significant variation
in outcomes with regards to hydropolitics. Conflict seems to be the norm among the states of the
Tigris-Euphrates basin, as Turkey continues to pursue unilateral development of the rivers at the
expense of downstream flows to Syria and Iraq. In turn, these states have strayed dangerously
close to military conflict on at least one occasion and have thus far failed to develop any
institutional arrangement for settling future disputes.
On the other hand, hydropolitics in the Nile River basin have followed a decidedly more
cooperative path in the past five decades. Beginning with early bilateral accords between Egypt
and Sudan and eventually spilling over into basin-wide collaborative efforts, these countries have
by and large avoided interstate disputes on issues of water management and development. Even
when controversy arises—as in the case of the construction of the Aswân High Dam—the Nile
riparians have tended more toward bargaining and collaboration than saber-rattling and allowing
these disputes to escalate into full-fledged “water crises.” These norms of interaction stand in
sharp contrast to hydropolitical relations in the Tigris-Euphrates basin.
How do we explain the difference? Why have institutions formed along the Nile, but not
along the Tigris-Euphrates? As noted in the preceding chapter, I chose to study these two cases
based on a “most similar systems” design. By selecting cases that are as similar to one another
as possible, we can effectively “control” for these similarities. In turn, a variation in outcomes is
attributable to any set of variables that differentiate the cases. Both the Nile and Tigris-
Euphrates cases represent water-stressed and water-scarce countries in the MENA region, with
similar climates, developing economies, and one dominant actor in each basin (Egypt and
Turkey, respectively). Hence, we can consider these variables “controlled for” by the research
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design. Any remaining differences in these cases therefore constitute a possible explanation for
the notable divergence in outcomes between the states of the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile basins.
Patterns of virtual water consumption are one such systemic difference between these
cases. I hypothesized that as reliance on virtual water in a river basin increases, the likelihood of
cooperative institutions forming should increase. In turn, I believe the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile
cases support this hypothesis. We observe notable variation in patterns of virtual water
consumption in each river basin—particularly on the part of the dominant actors, Turkey and
Egypt. Turkey has essentially failed to capitalize on virtual water resources and instead pursued
a policy of agricultural self-sufficiency in the face of mounting water scarcity. Egypt, on the
other hand, is among the largest importers of virtual water in the world, supplementing high-cost
domestic food production with highly subsidized grain on the world market. I assert this
significant divergence in the role of virtual water resources between the Tigris-Euphrates and
Nile River cases presents a theoretically plausible and logically consistent explanation for
corresponding differences in the hydropolitics of each basin. A reliance on virtual water along
the Nile—especially by Egypt—has engendered cooperation among the riparian states. On the
other hand, Turkey’s failure to capitalize on virtual water has produced a riparian system driven
by interstate disputes over the fair and equitable distribution of transboundary waters.
That is not to suggest virtual water is the only variable driving hydropolitics in these river
basins. Such a single-variable understanding of riparian relations fundamentally overlooks the
delicate interplay of political, economic, social, and cultural factors that underlie any political
phenomenon. Nevertheless, the case studies presented in the preceding chapters suggest that
variations in virtual water consumption across these river basins play an important contributing
role in determining political outcomes.
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At least one alternative hypothesis remains, however. Skeptics may suggest that virtual
water resources play little or no role in determining riparians relations. Instead, they may argue
that the variation in outcomes between the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile cases is simply a matter of
power politics. Due to its position at the headwaters of the Tigris-Euphrates and its status as the
dominant military power in the basin, a realist might argue that Turkey has no incentive to
cooperate with its downstream neighbors. In effect, Turkey holds all the cards. On the other
hand, Egypt lies downstream on the Nile. Perhaps the emergence of a cooperative institutional
framework in the region is little more than a channel through which Egypt can project its power
and pursue its hydropolitical interests vis-à-vis the Nile waters. In essence, this version of the
story closely resembles the hegemonic stability theory; the hegemon supports the system so long
as it serves their interests.
I do not find this alternative hypothesis particularly compelling, however. While the
Tigris-Euphrates case ostensibly supports such a conclusion, the notion that developments in the
Nile basin are little more than a front for Egyptian power politics seems doubtful. After all, by
recognizing its upstream riparians’ rights to exploit the waters of the Nile through covenants like
the 1959 Agreement and the Nile Basin Initiative, Egypt is not maximizing its power in the basin.
In fact, based on a traditional realist understanding of national interest, Egypt is conceding power
by voluntarily accepting challenges to its historical rights over control of the Nile. Additional
case studies are perhaps necessary to fully address this alternative hypothesis. I maintain,
however, that the Nile basin offers little support for an understanding of hydropolitics based
strictly on self-interested power politics.
Finally, I turn to the question of how the link between virtual water and cooperation plays
out in other river basins around the world. While full-scale case studies are beyond the scope of
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the present project, Table 5.3 offers an overview of the hydropolitical economies of selected
river basins worldwide:
Table 5.3: Virtual Water and Cooperation and Selected River Basins68
River Basin Relevant Parties
Average virtual water imports as a percent of riparian
GDP, 2000
Treaty status
Euphrates Iraq, Syria, Turkey 12.6%* No major treaties or other dispute resolution channels.
Jordan Israel, Jordon, Lebanon, Syria 16.1%
Johnston Plan (1950s) addressed allocation and development.
Technical committees continue to meet several times per year.
Ganges India, Bangladesh 12.2% Ganges Water Agreement signed in 1977, lapsed in 1982.
Indus India, Pakistan 9.45%
Indus Water Treaty (1960) addressed allocation, development, and dispute
resolution. Since 1960, no projects have been submitted for future
cooperation, and several disputes have been settled outside the treaty’s institutional structure.
Mekong Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam 18.0%**
Mekong Committee (1952) became Mekong Commission in 1995,
coordinates research and water allocation. Has continued to meet regularly since formation despite
political tensions.
Nile Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan 17.9%
Bilateral 1959 Agreement formed foundation for eventual basin-wide
cooperation in 1999’s Nile Basin Initiative, designed as platform for
cooperation, sustainable development, and dispute resolution.
La Plata Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay,
Uruguay 10.7%
La Plata Basin Treaty (1969) serves as “umbrella” for several bilateral
treaties in basin. Lacks supra-legal authority to resolve disputes.
Salween Myanmar, Thailand 10.1%***
Joint working group established in 1989, prior to any major disputes.
Aimed at promoting joint development, still in early stages.
* Virtual water estimate for Iraq based on 1976 data, most recent available. ** Virtual water estimate for Laos based on 1974 data, most recent available. *** Virtual water estimate for Salween basin based on 1992 data, most recent available.
68 Data drawn from EarthTrends database (http://www.earthtrends.org/) and the Transboundary Freshwater
Database’s “Case Studies of International Water Conflict Resolution” (http://www.transboundarywaters.orst.edu/).
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Since so many potentially significant factors vary across the cases highlighted in Table 5.3 (e.g.
climate, economic development, political systems, relative riparian power, et cetera), it is rather
ill-advised to draw any substantial conclusions at this preliminary stage. Nevertheless, a cursory
glance at the table suggests that those river basins with the greatest reliance on virtual water—the
Jordan, Nile, and Mekong—also boast some of the more robust institutional configurations to
address water-related issues. This pattern of outcomes offers at least initial evidence that my
findings have substantive relevance beyond the geographic confines of the Nile and Tigris-
Euphrates river basins.
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CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION
I began the present study with two key questions. First, what is the relationship between
water scarcity and interstate conflict? Reviewing the “water wars” literature and comparing it to
the empirical reality of interstate relations, I argued there is little reason to believe that water has
contributed to violent interstate conflict in the past, nor should we expect it to in the future. Why
is this the case? I made the case that much of the neo-Malthusian literature predicting war over
water scarcity proceeds from a flawed conceptualization of water as a nonsubstitutable, zero-sum
resource. When we instead begin to think of water as an economic resource—a commodity—we
can move past the inexorable link between scarcity and conflict. Although water is vital to
human survival, substitutes exist in the international system. Chief among these is virtual water,
or the water resources embedded in food imported from abroad. By importing virtual water, a
water-scarce country can offset water deficits by reducing its dependence on costly domestic
food production. To this end, I introduced the concept of hydrovulnerability to gauge a given
state’s economic capacity to cope with the challenges of water scarcity.
That brings us to the second major question under consideration in my study. How can
we explain variations in hydropolitical outcomes among riparian states? In other words, why are
some transboundary river basins characterized by ongoing interstate disputes, whereas others
have made significant steps toward cooperative, institutional solutions to water management
issues? I hypothesized that virtual water played an important role in riparian relations. Greater
reliance on virtual water within a river basin should translate to less intense competition for
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actual water resources, therefore mediating interstate conflict and instead promoting cooperation.
To test my hypothesis, I examined two case studies: the Tigris-Euphrates and Nile river basins.
In turn, my findings offer support for the virtual water hypothesis. A reliance on virtual water in
the Nile basin—particularly Egypt’s part—has stimulated cooperation and regime formation
among the riparian states. In contrast, Turkey’s failure to capitalize on virtual water in the
Tigris-Euphrates basin has produced a riparian system driven by interstate disputes over
equitable distribution of transboundary waters. While we cannot conclusively generalize from
these two cases, initial evidence suggest this pattern repeats outside the confines of the Middle
East and North Africa.
Taken as a whole, these findings offer preliminary support for a shift away from thinking
of hydropolitics strictly in terms of “scarcity equals conflict.” In turn, by reorienting our
theoretical perspective away from the pessimistic, zero-sum logic of the neo-Malthusians, we can
move toward a more nuanced understanding of hydropolitical economics in the developing
world. In an increasingly globalized economy, water scarcity is not absolute; trade in virtual
water has the potential to significantly offset its deleterious effects. Approaching the issue from
a narrow scarcity-based perspective offers little explanation of how a country like Israel can
provide nearly 100 percent of its population with adequate food and water despite its distinct
lack of domestic freshwater resources. Nevertheless, this is the perspective that much of the
existing body of literature adopts, and it is a logic that gives rise to pessimistic predictions of
conflict in cases of severe water scarcity. When we begin to think of water as an economic
resource, we can better understand how states have thus far avoided violent conflict over water.
Moreover, as the present study indicates, virtual water may very well play a role in promoting
interstate cooperation on water-related issues.
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In terms of theoretical implications, the present study clearly calls into question the water
wars thesis. History does not support the notion that severe water scarcity leads inevitably to
violent interstate conflict. Even in the case of 1967’s Six-Day War—the most frequently cited
historical example of a water war—hydropolitical issues appear to have played very little, if any,
role. Moreover, quantitative attempts to demonstrate an indirect link between water scarcity and
conflict (including the admittedly rough model presented in Chapter 3) offer, at best, tenuous
support for such a hypothesis. The spectre of water wars appears to be just that—a spectre.
States have not engaged in violence conflict over shared water resources in the past, and there is
little evidence to suggest these trends will change in the future.
Moving toward an economic understanding of water also holds significant implications
for theory. Much of the existing body of literature treats water as a somewhat unique resource in
the international system, building a set of theories separate from the main body of international
relations to explain water-related issues. In other words, water scarcity is treated as a sui generis
phenomenon. However, if petroleum scarcity or timber scarcity or mineral scarcity does not
inevitably lead to interstate conflict, why should water scarcity? By reconceptualizing water in
economic terms, we not only better reflect the empirical reality of interstate relations over shared
water resources, but we also open the door to reintegrate theories about water scarcity into the
broader understanding of international relations. In turn, there is no compelling reason to believe
that existing neoliberal theories of interstate cooperation and regime formation do not apply to
transboundary water resources.
Avenues for Future Research
My findings in the present study also present several avenues for further inquiry. For
instance, the field would benefit from more thorough quantitative models of water scarcity and
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conflict. At present, data limitations have led to relatively underdeveloped models that fail to
fully capture the dynamics of interstate relations over shared water resources. Although it is my
contention that there is no significant causal link between water scarcity and conflict, additional
quantitative research is necessary to confirm this hypothesis.
Furthermore, despite the fact that the present study has focused primarily on competing
realist and liberal perspectives on water scarcity, the constructivist understanding of international
relations also presents intriguing research possibilities. Do subjective understandings of water-
related issues have an impact on political outcomes? Is water scarcity what states make of it? A
constructivist research project would perhaps include content analysis of diplomatic relations on
transboundary water resources. Does a tendency on the part of policymakers to think of water as
a source of potential conflict produce different political outcomes than a discourse focused on
water as grounds for interstate cooperation?
In terms of future research on the capacity for virtual water to mediate conflict and
promote cooperation, additional case studies would certainly strengthen the preliminary results
presented in the present project. Moreover, the opportunity to quantitatively test this hypothesis
is likely on the horizon. The Issue Correlates of War (ICOW) Project is currently gathering
dyadic data on river basin disputes around the world. Once the project is complete and its data
are available to researchers, it should be possible to test the relationship between patterns of
virtual water consumption and the likelihood of dispute resolution among riparian neighbors.
Policy Implications: The Sustainability of Virtual Water
If we adopt an economist’s understanding of water, we also fall prey to the shortcomings
of economic theory; that is, up to this point, we have assumed a perfect market with regards to
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the global virtual water trade. We take for granted that countries with the economic capacity to
pursue virtual water to offset domestic supplies will do so. We further assume that these goods
will be available at a reasonable price on the international market. As we might expect,
however, these assumptions, while useful in terms of theory building, may not reflect the
realities of the global virtual water trade. How affordable is virtual water on the international
market, and is the virtual water trade sustainable into the future?
The good news is that the global trade in food commodities has become increasingly
accessible—even to poorer economies—over the past half-century. During the Cold War era,
developing countries that could not afford to produce or acquire food often found it provided by
either the United States or Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in times of famine, international relief
efforts in various parts of the globe have fed the starving. Over time, competition between the
largest exporters of virtual water—agricultural giants like the United States, Australia, and
Argentina—has brought down global grain prices significantly. This situation has allowed
water-scarce countries to supplement domestic water supplies with virtual water in the form of
purchases from the global commodities market. Moreover, as noted in preceding chapters, this
grain is highly subsidized on the global market. Thus, taxpayers in the United States, Canada,
Argentina, and other grain exporters are largely responsible for funding the “invisible” costs of
virtual water for countries in the developing world.
The question remains, however, whether this arrangement is sustainable into the future.
For instance, the world grain market underwent a dramatic change in 1995 when wheat prices
skyrocketed, eventually reaching $250 a ton by the spring of 1996. Two years later, world wheat
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prices had fallen back to $140 a ton, before shooting up again to over $270 a ton in June 2001.1
These rapid fluctuations in wheat prices in turn raise significant questions about the future
sustainability of virtual water. If the global price of food staples remains affordable, developing
countries will likely remain in a position to offset demand-induced scarcity resulting from their
growing populations. However, if grains prices rise significantly in the coming decades and the
existing economic growth patterns that have characterized developing countries over the past
thirty years remain constant, virtual water will prove more difficult to acquire.
Some scholars, including Tony Allan, have argued that recent structural changes in the
world economy do not favor the continuation of affordable food prices for developing countries
in the future. As noted in preceding chapters, grain on the world market is typically sold at
prices below the actual cost of production thanks to generous subsidy programs. Indeed, for the
past century, farm subsidies have been a bedrock public policy throughout the food-exporting
countries of the First World. However, with the steady embrace of global free trade economics
and the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO), agricultural subsidies have come
under pressure in most major grain-producing countries. As part of its efforts to reduce trade
barriers and promote free trade, the WTO has encouraged developed countries to reduce and
ultimately abandon agricultural subsidies. In turn, according to a recent US Department of
Agriculture study, “The elimination of agriculture trade and domestic policy distortions could
raise world agriculture prices about 12 percent.”2 As a result of these trends, Allan argues that
1 Tony Allan, “Watersheds and Problemsheds: Explaining the Absence of Armed Conflict over Water in
the Middle East,” in MERNIA: Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal (Vol. 2 no.1. March 1998), <http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/1998/issue1/jv2n1a7.html>.
2 “Agricultural Policy Reform in the WTO: The Road Ahead,” ERS Agricultural Economics Report, ed. Mary E. Burfisher.. Washington DC: US Department of Agriculture (May 2001, no. 802): iii.
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there seems “no likelihood” that grain prices will ever return to their historic lows under the
prevailing WTO regime.3
It is perhaps too soon to predict whether the WTO’s stance against agricultural subsidies
will ultimately result in higher prices for virtual water on the global market. For the moment,
however, subsidies are alive and well in the United States, the European Union, and other major
food exporters. Moreover, the pessimistic outlook expressed by Allan only addresses one side of
the supply and demand equation, export subsidies. The WTO is also committed to lowering
import tariffs around the world, which should produce a corresponding decrease in the cost of
virtual water resources imported from abroad. Therefore, I would maintain that the inception of
the WTO regime does not necessarily spell an end to the viability of virtual water as a solution to
water deficits in the developing world. Nevertheless, market-based fluctuations in grain prices
have the potential to produce short-term disruptions in patterns of virtual water consumption. In
terms of policy implications, this once again underscores the role international food aid can play
in helping the developing world supplement its water supplies during periodic price spikes.
Policy Implications: Building Better Institutions
As the Nile River basin illustrates, institutions have a critical role to play in mediating
conflict over transboundary water resources and instead promoting cooperative outcomes. The
Nile case also demonstrates how bilateral agreements among riparians can eventually evolve into
basin-wide water management regimes. Of course, not all institutions are created equally. In
turn, several scholars have offered insights on building effective institutions to manage shared
water resources and resolve disputes over equitable distribution.
3 Allan, “Watersheds and Problemsheds.”
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What form should such cooperation on water-related issues take? Peter H. Gleick offers
several general guidelines in terms of establishing equitable cooperation relative to scarce water
resources. First and foremost, he argues that states must develop more flexible and detailed
mechanisms for conflict resolution and negotiation. He also contends that the parties involved
must share accurate hydrological data freely with one another. Finally, he notes that states
should attempt to establish flexible rather than fixed water allocations and also develop strategies
for sharing shortages before they occur.4 Hence, taken as a whole, Gleick’s recommendations
call for future cooperative efforts to emphasize both specificity and adaptability in their
formulations. Joseph Dellapenna offers similar guidelines, asserting that an effective institution
for managing transboundary waters would not only have to embody norms of cooperation, but
also have the capacity to:
1. Determine the facts of water usage and dependence in each state,
2. Resolve international disputes over water resources,
3. Guide responses to unusual climatic conditions such as droughts or floods,
4. Regulate and implement long-term solutions to issues of water scarcity, and
5. Enforce its decisions.5
Certainly, his final point concerning enforcement is a key factor in terms of making future water-
sharing agreements more effective.
Eyal Benvenisti also examines a more robust institutional approach to cooperation on the
sharing of scarce water resources. As Benvenisti notes, “Riparians that want to coordinate the
use of their shared resource would seek to establish institutions through which their future rights
4 Peter H. Gleick, “Water and Conflict: Fresh Water Resources and International Security,” International
Security 18, no. 1 (Summer 1993), 110. 5 Joseph Dellapenna, “Building International Water Management Institutions: The Role of Treaties and
Other Legal Arrangements,” in Water in the Middle East: Legal, Political, and Commercial Implications, ed. J. A. Allan and Chibli Mallat with Shai Wade and Jonathan Wild (New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 1995), 88.
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could be defined and enforced.”6 Furthermore, he argues that international institutions can
fundamentally bridge the gap between sovereign states, lowering interstate communication and
transaction costs, bringing states’ expectations into alignment with one another, monitoring and
enforcing rules, and creating a political environment favorably disposed both to frequent
interaction among states and future cooperation. He also suggest that cooperation itself tends
toward self-perpetuation by further reducing both bargaining costs and overall uncertainty
regarding potential defections over time.7
Along similar lines, Naff offers two fundamental proposals for building better water
management regimes. First, arguing that cooperation is less likely at the highest political levels,
Naff suggests that the most promising approach is to encourage cooperation among scientists and
technical experts. He argues that such an approach would give rise to a community of informed
specialists throughout a given region that, in turn, could potentially become a strong force for
cooperation and guiding effective water policies. Secondly, Naff advocates the establishment of
a technical infrastructure along with this community of technical experts. Such institutions, he
argues, could perform several functions including conducting research, providing technical
resources to states, acting as conference settings, and fostering interaction among basin
specialists.8
How likely is multilateral hydropolitical cooperation to develop and endure in the
geopolitical setting of the developing world? The Nile basin case offers an encouraging
example. Despite political tensions, struggling economies, and conflicts of interest, the Nile
riparians have developed a rather robust regime system to address water management issues.
6 Eyal Benvenisti, “Collective Action in the Utilization of Shared Freshwater: The Challenges o
International Water Resources Law,” American Journal of International Law 90, no. 3 (July 1996), 411. 7 Benvenisti, “Collective Action in the Utilization of Shared Freshwater,” 411-413. 8 Naff, “Conflict and Water Use in the Middle East,” 283-284.
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Similarly, the Paraná-La Plata Basin in South America have in recent decades overcome a long
history of conflict and competition to establish a basin-wide system of treaties and agreements to
govern water sharing and development.9 Furthermore, once such regimes are in place, they have
a tendency to last. As Elhance notes:
Hydropolitical cooperation may take a very long time to develop, may not
necessarily lead to the optimal development and allocation of the shared water
resources, may not satisfy or benefit all parties equally, and may not be
possible without sustained third-party mediation and support; however, once
achieved, such cooperation tends to endure.10
Hence, as the preceding passage suggests, the establishment of multilateral cooperation on issues
of water scarcity and management is far from a simple process. Yet, a move to such
arrangements ultimately remains a necessary step in the developing world—both to ensure the
future availability of water, as well as to lessen the potential for interstate disputes over these
scarce resources.
In conclusion, the purpose of the present study is not to minimize the importance of water
scarcity. In fact, I believe that water scarcity and food insecurity potentially represent two of the
twenty-first century’s most serious threats to human security in the developing world. Instead,
the purpose of the present study is to call attention to the fact that war is not the only option
available to policymakers in the face of severe water deficits. Interstate cooperation is possible,
especially if states capitalize on virtual water to supplement their dwindling domestic supplies.
As Tony Allan argues, “It is a paradox that the water pessimists are wrong but their pessimism is
a very useful political tool which can help the innovator to shift the eternally interdependent
9 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 25ff. 10 Elhance, Hydropolitics in the Third World, 235.
188
belief systems of the public and their politicians.”11 In turn, as the international discourse on
water shifts from pessimism to guarded optimism, policymakers are in a position to establish
water-sharing regimes that help ensure the security of future generations.
11 Tony Allan, The Middle East Water Question: Hydropolitics in the Global Economy (London: I.B.
Tauris Publishers, 2001), 1.
189
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200
APPENDIX I
CORRELATIONS
Correlation: % of Population with Access to Water and Freshwater Resources per Capita
Percentage of population with access to water
Freshwater resources per capita
Pearson Correlation 1 -.050Sig (2-tailed) .642
Percentage of population with access to water N 88 88
Pearson Correlation -.050 1Sig (2-tailed) .642Freshwater resources
per capita N 88 88 Correlation: % of Population with Access to Water and GDP per Capita
Percentage of population with access to water GDP per capita
Pearson Correlation 1 .538(**)Sig (2-tailed) .000
Percentage of population with access to water N 88 88
Pearson Correlation .538(**) 1Sig (2-tailed) .000GDP per capita N 88 88
** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
201
APPENDIX II
HYDROVULNERABILITY RANKINGS
Country HydrovulnerabilityAlbania 64Afghanistan 13Algeria 56.7Andorra 100Angola 17.7Antigua and Barbuda 91Argentina 64.0Armenia 61.3Aruba 100Australia 100Austria 100Azerbaijan 25.7Bahamas 97Bangladesh 24.7Barbados 100Belarus 66.7Belgium 100Belize 60.7Benin 22.3Bhutan 20.7Bolivia 56.7Bosnia and Herzegovina 64.7Botswana 63.3Brazil 60.0Bulgaria 66.0Burkina Faso 20.3Burundi 26.3Cambodia 13.7Cameroon 22.0Canada 100Cape Verde 53.3Central African Rep 25.0Chad 14.0Chile 63.3China 51.3
202
Colombia 62.0Comoros 28.7Congo 19.3Congo, Dem Rep 15.3Costa Rica 64.7Croatia 66.7Cuba 60.7Cyprus 100Czech Rep 66.7Denmark 100Djibouti 48.7Dominica 64.7Dominican Rep 63.3Ecuador 62.7Egypt 65.3El Salvador 56.0Equatorial Guinea 14.3Eritrea 20.0Estonia 66.7Ethiopia 7.3Fiji 31.3Finland 100France 100French Guiana 84French Polynesia 100Gabon 58.7Gambia 27.3Georgia 27.3Germany 100Ghana 25.0Grenada 63.3Guadeloupe 98Guam 100Guatemala 63.3Guinea 16.7Guinea-Bissau 19.7Guyana 55.3Haiti 18.0Honduras 58.0Hungary 66.0Iceland 100India 28.7Indonesia 25.7
203
Iran, Islamic Rep 62.7Iraq 54.0Israel 100Jamaica 62.0Japan 100Jordan 64.7Kazakhstan 57.3Kenya 20.3Kiribati 43.3Korea, Dem People's Rep 33.3Korea, Rep 92Kyrgyzstan 25.7Lao People's Dem Rep 17.0Latvia 66.0Lebanon 66.7Lesotho 26.3Liberia 20.3Luxembourg 100Madagascar 15.3Malawi 24.3Malaysia 66.0Maldives 55.3Mali 16.7Malta 100Marshall Islands 58.0Mauritania 17.7Mauritius 66.7Mexico 64.7Micronesia, Fed States 62.7Moldova, Rep 30.7Monaco 100Mongolia 20.7Morocco 54.0Mozambique 14.3Myanmar 26.0Namibia 58.0Nepal 30.0Netherlands 100Nicaragua 26.3Niger 15.3Nigeria 16.0Northern Mariana Islands 66.0Norway 100
204
Pakistan 30.3Palau 56.7Palestinian Territories 61.3Panama 60.0Papua New Guinea 13.0Paraguay 57.3Peru 55.3Philippines 56.7Qatar 100Romania 38.0Russian Federation 64.7Rwanda 24.7Saint Kitts and Nevis 66.0Samoa 58.7Sao Tome & Principe 26.3Senegal 25.3Serbia and Montenegro 62.0Seychelles 58.7Sierra Leone 19.0Singapore 100Slovakia 66.7Solomon Islands 23.3Somalia 9.7South Africa 58.7Spain 100Sri Lanka 52.7St. Lucia 65.3Sudan 23.3Suriname 61.3Swaziland 41.3Sweden 100Switzerland 100Syrian Arab Rep 62.0Tajikistan 19.7Tanzania 20.7Thailand 66.0Timor-Leste 19.3Togo 17.3Tonga 66.7Trinidad and Tobago 60.7Tunisia 62.0Turkey 64.0Turkmenistan 48.0
205
Uganda 20.0Ukraine 64.0United Arab Emirates 100United Kingdom 100United States 100Uruguay 66.7Uzbekistan 27.3Vanuatu 40.0Venezuela 55.3Viet Nam 28.3Yemen 22.3Zambia 19.3Zimbabwe 27.0
