Water shortages, the new fuel to war

The World Resources Institute estimated in 2015 that most of the globe will not have enough water to fulfil demand all year round. Climate change is making water availability considerably more vulnerable, with regions throughout the world experiencing much longer periods of drought.

Cape Town was the first major city in the world to prepare to cut off its water supply indefinitely in 2018, with 4 million people losing access to flowing water. On "day zero," millions of people would have to ration their water and go to public supply sites to collect it. However, Cape Town is not the only country

São Paulo, Melbourne, Jakarta, London, Beijing, Istanbul, Tokyo, Bangalore, Barcelona, and Mexico City will all face their own "day zero" in the coming decades...

"Many of the wars in the 20th century were about oil but wars of the 21st century will be about water unless we change the way in which we manage it"

Dr. Ismail Serageldin World Bank Vice President (Former) in 1995

Fighting over water is not unheard of, but there have been less than 30 incidents of armed conflict over this valuable resource thus far, with this figure expected to rise drastically in the following year. Water scarcity is fueling violent strife all across the planet. Water shortages are at the core of Sudan's protracted conflict in Darfur, which has lost hundreds of thousands of lives since 2003.

We've known for years that our water supply will be a source of dispute in the next decades, but we've done virtually nothing to address the issue. When the US realised it would need more oil to sustain its supremacy, it attacked nations with vast supplies of oil, and the same is going to happen with water.

Civilisations that harnessed water prospered, whereas those that did not crumbled.

Noor Munawar