Water Issues - Where Water Is Power—international Water Wars?

As it becomes rarer, because of the growing population and the pollution of water supplies, usable water is expected to become a commodity, like iron or oil, leading some experts to predict that, at some point, water will be more expensive than oil. Of the 200 largest river systems in the world, 120 flow through 2 or more countries. All are potential objects of world political power struggles over this critical resource.

FIGURE 6.15
Land drawing demonstrating watershed approach for the management of water resources

Three areas of the world are particularly short of water—Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Other dry areas include the southwestern United States, parts of South America, and large areas of Australia.

Middle Eastern countries are especially threatened as growing nations compete for a shrinking water supply. Freshwater has never come easily to this area. Rainfall occurs only in winter and drains quickly through the parched land. Most Middle Eastern countries are joined by common aquifers. The United Nations (UN) has cautioned that future wars in the Middle East could be fought over water.

The oil-rich Middle Eastern nation of Kuwait has little water but has the money to secure it. In order to use seawater, Kuwait has constructed large-scale, oil-powered water desalination plants. Saudi Arabia, farther down the Arabian Peninsula, leads the world in water desalination. As of March 2004 it has 30 desalination plants that produce nearly 600 million gallons of water per day. This output accounts for 30 percent of global desalinated water production. Desalinated water meets 70 percent of the country's drinking water needs. The remainder comes from groundwater. Saudi Arabia is a leader in the pumping of fossil water—water accumulated in an earlier geologic age lying deep in aquifers beneath Africa and the Middle East.

The United States and Mexico have been bickering over a 1944 treaty that granted Mexico water from the Colorado River in exchange for a lesser amount from the Rio Grande to be given to Texas farmers. U.S. officials claim that Mexico owes them more than 1.3 million acre-feet (or 423 trillion gallons) of water. In March 2002 the issue was raised by President George W. Bush with Mexican president Vicente Fox. Mexican officials blame nine years of drought for their inability to turn over the water. The mighty Rio Grande was once a navigable waterway that marked the 2,000-mile border between the 2 countries. By 2002 it was merely a trickle. Dams, inefficient irrigation methods, drought, and invasion of nonnative weeds are blamed for diminishing the river.