$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
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Interestingly, I cannot think of a single water war in the last half dozen centuries? Can anyone else?
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PeakOil is You
Need help with what to do? Mr.Bill and others
Re: Need help with what to do? Mr.Bill and others
by MrBill » Thu 23 Aug 2007, 04:36:39
Actually, yes. The Palestinian/Israeli situation has a lot to do with controlling water.
The Suez Canal Crisis in 1958 was about shipping. Neighbors often squabble over equitable distribution of water or downstream rights. Countries surrounding the Caspien Sea squabble over who controls what due to oil & gas reserves under the sea. China claims the entire South China Sea for its own to the chagrin of its neighbors.
Landlocked countries often squirmish with their neighbors for access to ports for both imports and exports. And now northern neighbors are disputing who owns the Arctic and what is under it. The 1982 UN treaty on maritime water boundaries still leaves a lot of room for interpretation or misinterpretation if you will.
But I really doubt that the heart of the Israeli/Palestine conflict is over water rights. And with Hamas fighting with PLO factions within Palestine itself over control I think it is complicated conflict that cannot be classified as a water war. However, that is not to say that population growth as well as climate change will not lead unstable regions to fight over water in the future.
The next major conflict in the Middle East
Mind you a lot of the ME's water problems have to do with mismanagement, incompetence and corruption not water or climate change itself.
The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
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Re: Need help with what to do? Mr.Bill and others
by CrudeAwakening » Thu 23 Aug 2007, 06:08:56
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')
Interestingly, I cannot think of a single water war in the last half dozen centuries? Can anyone else?
.
')
Interestingly, I cannot think of a single water war in the last half dozen centuries? Can anyone else?
.
Actually, yes. The Palestinian/Israeli situation has a lot to do with controlling water.
The Suez Canal Crisis in 1958 was about shipping.
Only if you look at the proximate cause of the conflict. The ultimate cause was a water conflict between Egypt and Sudan over the Nile. Just depends on how far up the causal chain you're willing to go. No, it wasn't directly about water, but the crisis wouldn't have occurred had Nasser not wanted his dam.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n 1929, the Nile Waters Agreement was concluded through an exchange of notes between the British High Commission in Cairo and the Egyptian government. The agreement heavily favored Egypt's "historic rights" allocating for Egyptian use 48 bcm per year, only 4 bcm for the Sudan, and leaving 32 bcm per year unallocated. The period 1954-1958 was characterized by political conflicts between Egypt and the Sudan over sharing of the Nile waters. As noted by Ashok Swain, Sudan achieved independence in 1956, and its first Prime Minister "immediately reiterated that the 1929 agreement should be revised, just when Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt was contemplating the creation of a massive new dam at Aswan." Tensions increased between Egypt and the Sudan in 1956-1958, as the Sudan voiced further objections to the Aswan High Dam and continued demanding a renegotiation of the 1929 agreement. Egypt subsequently withdrew its support for the Sudanese project to build a reservoir at Roseires on the Blue Nile, and Sudan unilaterally declared its non-adherence to the 1929 agreement. In a show of force, Egypt moved units of its army to the border with Sudan.
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