War is a miserable thing. It kills and maims soldiers and civilians. It destroys infrastructure, cultures, and communities. It worsens poverty and development challenges. And it damages and cripples vital ecological and environmental resources.
This issue brief summarizes the current understanding of water and security threats and their links to conflict, migration, and food insecurity.
In the hot, dry Middle East, where populations are growing rapidly and all major rivers cross political borders, water has become a focal point for escalating violence. From the foothills of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey...
The newest volume in this highly regarded series, The World’s Water, Volume 9 continues to offer insights into critical global water problems, overviews of data and analysis around water use and management, and case studies of some of the greatest water challenges around the world.
This document identifies major water-related challenges facing the United States and offers explicit recommendations for strategies the next administration and Congress should pursue, domestically and internationally.
Since its founding in 1987, the Pacific Institute has worked to understand the links between water resources, environmental issues, and international security and conflict.
In early 2015, participants at the World Economic Forum, a who's who of the political and business elite, ranked water crises as the top global risk. Water was also a key factor in the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a blueprint for international development over the next 15 years.
Starting in 2006 and lasting through 2011, Syria suffered the worst long-term drought and the most severe set of crop failures in recorded history. In a new research paper, I've looked at the role of regional drought...
The eighth volume in this highly regarded series, The World’s Water, Volume 8 features chapters on hydraulic fracturing (fracking), water footprints, sustainable water jobs, and desalination financing, among other timely issues. Water briefs provide concise updates on topics including the Dead Sea and the role of water in the Syrian conflict.
There are complex and real links between water and conflict. While water resources have rarely been the sole source of violent conflict or war, there is a long history of tensions and violence over access to water resources, attacks on water systems, and the use of water systems as weapons during war.
