The World in 2050_ Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith [52]
Virtually all of the water flowing down these four river systems is in use today. By 2050, depending on the basin, their dependent human populations will jump anywhere from 70% to 150%. This means that for a vast area, from North Africa to the Near East and South Asia, human demand for water is rapidly overtaking available supply. “Now at the dawn of the twenty-first century,” Klare warns, “conflict over critical water supplies is an ever-present danger.”220
Scary stuff. But will the world really go to war over water? Here is a pleasant surprise: History tells us that while international conflicts over water are very common, nearly all of them—at least so far—are peacefully settled. A close reading of history reveals that while water and violence are often associated, countries rarely resort to armed violence over water.221
Peter Gleick at the Pacific Institute and Aaron Wolf at Oregon State University maintain historical databases of past conflicts and their causes.222 These reveal a rich soap opera of tensions, conflicting interests, and contentious relations, but not outright war—at least not between sovereign countries or specifically over water resources. Most commonly, the violence they document identifies water as a tool, a target, or a victim of warfare—but not its cause.223
Remarkably, successful water-sharing agreements are common even between hydrologically stressed countries that go to war over other things. Wendy Barnaby, editor of Britain’s People & Science magazine, points out that India and Pakistan have fought three wars, yet always have managed to work out their water disputes through the 1960 Indus Water Treaty.224 The reason is purely rational: By cooperating, both countries are able to safeguard their core water supply. Water is too important to risk losing in a war. Israel’s water independence ran out in the 1950s, Jordan’s in the 1960s, and Egypt’s since the 1970s. But their wars have never been fought over water. It’s amazing, because these countries no longer have enough even to grow their food.
Instead, they all import someone else’s water . . . in the form of grain.
The Virtual Water Trade
The most skilled diplomats in the world couldn’t stop a water war if people were starving. What enables sworn enemies to coexist, with large and growing populations, along a dwindling dribble like the Jordan River? Ten million people living between it and the Mediterranean Sea, with barely enough water to grow a fifth of their food? The answer is global trade flows of food.
The single biggest users of water are not cities but farms. Fully 70% of all human water withdrawal from rivers, lakes, and aquifers is for agriculture.225 Because agricultural products require water to grow, they essentially have water resources “embedded” within them. The export and import of food and animals, therefore, amounts to the export and import of water.
This “virtual water trade” is the globalized-world solution to the ancient problem of having abundant water in some places and not enough in others.226 From the global perspective, it is also less wasteful. It takes far more water to grow an orange in the baking dry heat of Saudi Arabia than to grow the same orange in humid Florida. Hidden inside Mexico’s imports of wheat, corn, and sorghum from the United States is the import of seven billion cubic meters of virtual water a year. Not only does this help Mexico—now in its fifteenth year of drought—it also requires less water overall. To produce that same amount of grain domestically, Mexico would need nearly sixteen billion cubic meters of freshwater per year, almost nine billion more. That single trade relationship saves enough water to flood the