Experts keep on warning that if the world population does not look after its water there will soon be wars fought over water on a global scale. Climate change, aging infrastructure and global warming is causing water shortages globally, and if we do not do something about it we are in for big trouble.
Many individuals think that this is an exaggeration, but there have actually been many wars fought over water over the past few hundred years.
Goldman Sachs describes water as being the petroleum of the next century, and we only have to look to the past to see the future without sufficient access to fresh water:
The revolution against Syrian president Bashar al-Assad began over access to water, São Paolo has experienced major protests earlier this year during a devastating drought, and the revolution in Yemen also started in Taiz, the most water-stressed city in the country.
Various Mesopotamian wars have been fought over access to water over the past centuries, and even recently, the focus of ISIS in Iraq has been on getting control of the Iraq’s largest dam at Mosul and those at Fallujah and Haditha. There are still problems with Turkey, especially with the building of the controversial Ilisu hydro-dam on the Tigris, which is set to still be the source of many conflicts to come.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague handles all international water disputes, and says that there are currently 263 river basins globally which are being contested.
In a world where there is already 40,000 large dams that produce a fifth of the world’s electricity through hydropower and irrigate millions of square kilometres of farmland, and 0.3% of the world’s total land mass has been lost to artificial reservoirs since the 1950s, there is bound to be problems.
New mega-dams are currently being constructed all over the world, costing billions and in many cases forcing hundreds of thousands of villagers from their homes, such as the two major dams being built on the River Mekong by Laos which could devastate the lives of locals and downstream neighbours, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Rogun hydro-dam on the Amu Darya in Tajikistan could negatively affect downstream Uzbekistan.
Suffice to say, wars have been fought over water since time immemorial and will be fought over water again.
Buy water coolers online and rent water dispensers from Living-Water. Get water cooler accessories and office water coolers in London.
