[Vision2020] 3-22-12: U.S. Intelligence Report Warns of Global Water Tensions

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/world/us-intelligence-report-warns-of-global-water-tensions.html
U.S. Intelligence Report Warns of Global Water TensionsBy STEVEN LEE
MYERS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/steven_lee_myers/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Published:
March 22, 2012 WASHINGTON — The American intelligence community warned in a
report<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/327371-report-warns-that-water-shortages-could-threaten.html>released
Thursday that problems with water could destabilize countries in
North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia over the next decade.

Increasing demand and competition caused by the world’s rising population
and scarcities created by climate
change<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>and
poor management threaten to disrupt economies and increase regional
tensions, the report concludes.

Prepared at the request of the State Department, the report is based on a
classified National Intelligence
Estimate<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/i/us_intelligence_community/national_intelligence_estimates/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>completed
last October that reflected an increasing focus on environmental
and other factors that threaten security. An estimate reflects the
consensus judgment of all intelligence agencies.

While the report concluded that wars over water are unlikely in the coming
decade, it said that countries could use water for political and economic
leverage over neighbors and that major facilities like dams and
desalination<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/d/desalination/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>plants
could become targets of terrorist attacks. Coupled with poverty and
other social factors, problems with water could even contribute to the
political failure of weaker nations.

The public report, unlike the classified version, did not specify countries
at greatest risk for water-related disruption but analyzed conditions on
major river basins in regions with high potential for conflict — from the
Jordan to the Tigris and Euphrates to the Brahmaputra in South Asia.

“During the next 10 years, many countries important to the United States
will almost certainly experience water problems — shortages, poor water
quality, or floods — that will contribute to the risk of instability and
state failure, and increase regional tensions,” the report said.
“Additionally states will focus on addressing internal water-related social
disruptions which will distract them from working with the United States on
important policy objectives.”

The report warned that water shortages would become acute in some regions
within the next decade, as demand continued to rise. While disputes over
water have historically led to negotiated settlements over access, upstream
countries will increasingly use dams and other projects “to obtain regional
influence or preserve their water interests” over weaker countries
downstream.

This is already happening on the Tigris and Euphrates, where Turkey, Syria
and Iran have harnessed the
headwaters<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/science/earth/13shatt.html>of
the two rivers that flow through Iraq.

The release was timed to the announcement by Secretary of State Hillary
Rodham Clinton of a partnership to promote conservation and improved
management in conjunction with corporations like Coca-Cola and Ford and
nongovernmental organizations like the Nature Conservancy.

The report said that improvements in management — like the use of drip
irrigation systems — could ease the potential for shortages, especially in
agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of the world’s water use.
 A version of this article appeared in print on March 23, 2012, on
page A9of the New
York edition with the headline: U.S. Report Sees Tensions Over Water.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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