Last ”water war” was 4500 years ago

With a steady stream of bleak predictions that “water wars” will be fought over dwindling supplies in the 21st century, battles between two Sumerian city-states 4,500 years ago seem to set a worrying precedent.

Down the centuries since then, international rivals sharing waters such as the Jordan River, the Nile, the Ganges or the Parana have generally favoured cooperation over conflict.

Rijsberman led a U.N.-backed report in August that said one in three people lives in a region where water is scarce and that demand could almost double by 2050 — led by farming which absorbs 74 percent of all freshwater used by humans.

Planting extra crops to produce biofuels and global warming — which could bring more erosion, droughts and floods — could add new pressures, the report said. But it added that there was enough water to go around, with better planning.

“If there is a war between two countries the 15th reason could be water but the first 14 reasons will have absolutely nothing to do with water,” said Asit Biswas, head of the Third World Center for Water Management in Mexico City.

“But if I want to get in the media the easiest thing is to say that a water war is about to break out in the Middle East,” he said. “The last war over water was thousands of years ago.”

A problem, he said, was that water was often viewed as a commodity like oil, which cannot be re-used. Water in the Colorado River, for instance, can get used seven times for hydropower, drinking water or irrigation.

The academics’ view is not shared everywhere.

Reuters India