
Do nations go to war over water? - robg
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7236/full/458282a.html
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sachinag
We might, but it'd be short-lived. The gating factor to desalination is the
cost of energy. Massive conflict or war by decently-wealthy actors will spur
development of more efficient desalination techniques as the money invested
and the money to be made from such an innovation would be _insane_.
(Desalination plant or tens of thousands of troops? Easy call.)

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aristus
There are lots of conflicts over water, and sometimes violence. Mexico and the
US fought over the Rio Grande for 70-odd years.

I think we don't fight full-scale wars because rivers are hundreds of miles
long. You can't defend a river like you would an oil field. It forces people
to get along.

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Zev
Could you point out some historical examples of fighting over the Rio Grande
please? I can't think of any real war or major fighting that happened strictly
because we wanted to control the Rio Grande to gain water.

Maybe you mean fighting along the Rio Grande, during the Manifest Destiny era?
But that took place because we wanted land. The Rio Grande just happened to
fall on land we wanted. That it is a large body of water was largely
irrelevant.

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aristus
"I can't think of any real war or major fighting that happened strictly
because..."

That's the point. :) You don't fight over the river per se because _it's
impossible_. They fought over all the land right up to the river. Presumably
the riverfront on the other side is just as valuable, and total control over
its water would make it more so. So why not take both sides? Because the land
immediately after the river is indefensible. It's indefensible because _your
back is to a river_.

You can fight and win a war over land but you can't normally take a river. You
don't even think about it. Thus you don't "fight a war" over it, even though
the land you say you're really fighting for would be useless without it.

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10ren
Summary: By importing a year's worth of food for one person, you save the
1,000 cubic metres of water per year that would be required to grow it. Thus,
you import 1,000 cubic metres of _virtual_ water (perspective: you only drink
_1_ cubic metre pa). Lesson 1: you need a cool pitch to sell your
thesis/product.

 _my publishers pointed out that predicting an absence of war over water would
not sell._ Lesson 2: not every cool thesis/product has a market.

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Zev
No. For the most part, it isn't scarce yet.

But, if there was to be a water war, Lake Baikal in Russia would be near the
top of my list of "bodies of water to fight over." It's the largest freshwater
lake, near(ish) to the Russian border, and with ~24,000 cubic kilometers of
water, it has 20% of the world's surface freshwater that's drinkable.

~~~
jwilliams
_No. For the most part, it isn't scarce yet._

Sorry, this isn't true - water is an issue in numerous regions of the world.

~~~
Zev
With the exception of Sub-Saharan Africa or areas recently devastated by a
natural disaster*

Other parts of the world lack water, but not due to the lack of freshwater
sources. Just the lack of technology to access or purify what was once clean
water that they have.

But even so, there still aren't wars with countries that have water over
_water_ in the areas where the lack of water is a major issue. Over other
things, yes. But not water.

~~~
jwilliams
_Other parts of the world lack water, but not due to the lack of freshwater
sources._

I live, and have lived in numerous places that have a lack of water.

Water restrictions are commonplace in Australia - most major cities are facing
the real prospect of running out of water. In many cities you can't water your
lawn, wash your car, fill your pool, etc, etc. Some smaller town and regions
are already in total crisis.

When I mention the Murray-Darling Basin in my other comment - that's a big
issue. The federal government basically had to step in and take over the
control of water from the states. This might not sound like a lot, but it was
a big deal, one of the biggest uses of federal muscle in Australia's history.

Even in the UK and New Zealand -- which you'd imagine as having a lot of water
-- have issues with water infrastructure and population. I've heard the Bay
Area is also facing the prospect of water restrictions... If you do a search
on "water restrictions" it doesn't look like this issue is unique:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=water+restrictions&ie=utf...](http://www.google.com/search?q=water+restrictions&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&client=firefox-a)

Technologies such as desalination don't necessarily solve the issue. It's
simply not economic or feasible in most parts of the world. Australia is
already heavily invested in water saving technologies - low flow showerheads,
low volume toilets, grey-water, rainwater tanks.

There are large areas of Australia that have had their ground water massively
overused - causing massive issues with salination (in some places you
literally have salt forming on the ground). The fresh water sources in these
regions is totally collapsing.

Sorry to go on about it. But where I live, water is a real issue. I can
completely imagine it becoming an issue great enough for a country to war
over.

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Zev
Perhaps we're having a slight misunderstanding as to what we mean when saying
"lack of water." By that, I don't mean having to limit showers to 5 minutes or
not being able to wash your car every week. I mean not having the bare minimum
amount of water to drink and keep from dying of dehydration. There's _very
few_ countries that have water problems that are that serious.

~~~
jwilliams
No, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

~~~
Zev
People in Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand can't get 25oz (minimum
needed to survive) of water a day? Even with water restrictions, I find that
hard to believe.

~~~
jwilliams
That's (apparently?) the minimum amount of clean water for a person to survive
a single day.

Water contributes to long term survival in so many other ways. You need water
to cook, grow food, maintain basic hygiene by washing you hands. You need
water to clean a wound. You need water for sanitation. You need water for
industry, so you can actually work.

Even in the most basic circumstances, this is a lot more than 25oz (many, many
times more). In urban circumstances it's vastly greater. And this isn't even
accounting for losses, contamination, interruptions in supply.

Anyway, I can see we're not going to convince each other either way. I'd
encourage you to do a search around on the topic though -- there is a lot of
material on the issue.

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stratomorph
Interesting. I had never thought about the implicit assumptions behind the
term "water wars". I figured that just because I couldn't think of a
significant example off the top of my head, I wasn't thinking hard enough.

I am confused by their figures, though. "If they were to be self-sufficient in
food, they would need ten billion cubic metres of water per year. As it is,
they have only about one-third of that: enough to grow 15-20% of their food."
Ten billion would grow 100%, but a third of the water grows no more than a
fifth of the food? It shouldn't be that some of the current water supply goes
to other uses; a couple of sentences later is a note that domestic and
industrial uses should find rainfall alone to be enough.

How would tripling the amount of water available allow them to increase
domestic food production by five or six times?

~~~
lhorie
>> How would tripling the amount of water available allow them to increase
domestic food production by five or six times?

I believe they can reuse water in irrigation systems.

I'm not particularly shocked that "water wars" aren't common: no one really
wants to be the nation that thrives by denying their neighbours basic
resources for human survival.

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10ren
But why are oil and water treated differently? After all, serious
interruptions of food (virtual water) would also stop highly developed
economies in their tracks. It seems a crucial test for his thesis, but he
doesn't clearly address it.

Is it just that trade in oil is more easily controlled because (1) it has few
sources, and (2) the economy of a country that sells food is itself hugely
dependent on those sales? (that is, symbiosis is the best foreign policy?)

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aswanson
[http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/opinion/edchellany.ph...](http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/06/26/opinion/edchellany.php)

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plaes
Yes, Israel - Palestina conflict seems also be a bit about water...

Although there might be some other issues as well.

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vorador
The real question is not "do" but "when".

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raintrees
If water wars become an eventuality, will that then extend to breathable air,
as well? Basically, almost any finite resource, right?

