Africa at high risk of water wars: study
THE GRAND Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project on the Nile River started operating in February last year. It reinforced tensions between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. The three countries rely most heavily on the Nile’s water. Sudan and Egypt consider the $4.6 billion (about R85.8bn) dam a threat to vital water supplies. Ethiopia sees it as essential for its development.
This is just one example of how conflicts can arise between states that share river basins. And there’s a real risk such conflicts will become more common as global temperatures rise.
Hundreds of rivers are shared between two or more countries. Sharing waters can be a source of co-operation or conflict. This depends on economic, cultural and institutional conditions. It also depends on historical relations between countries.
Although co-operation prevails over conflict and violent international conflicts haven’t happened so far, tensions over water have existed. They are also rising in several river basins.
Africa has 66 trans-boundary river basins. These include the Nile basin and the Juba–Shebelle and Lake Turkana basins in the Horn of Africa. Risk of conflict can rise as populations grow, water use intensifies and the climate changes.
In a recent study I conducted with three water system researchers from IHE Delft, Utrecht University and Wageningen University & Research, we came up with three possible futures regarding conflict risk in global trans-boundary river basins.
Our study projects that if nothing substantially changes in how trans-boundary river basins are managed and with climate change worsening, 920 million people will live in basins with very high to high risk of conflict by 2050. If nations improve water use, strengthen co-operation and do more to prevent or mitigate conflict, this number drops to 536 million.
Water treaties and strong river basin organisations increase the likelihood of long-term, stable co-operation between states. A lack of co-operation between countries can lead to a loss of benefits that could arise from joint activities. These include adapting to climate change, protecting the environment and developing socio-economically. Tensions between states over such issues can also spill over into other sectors, compromising regional political or economic relations.
Our results show that under a business-as-usual scenario – where no major changes are made – 920 million people out of the 4.4 billion people living in trans-boundary river basins will live in very high to high conflict-risk basins by 2050. In Africa, this number includes people living in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia,
Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger. It also includes those in Mozambique, Malawi, Benin and Togo.
In the high-ambition scenario – which implies improved water use practices and rising institutional resilience – this number decreases to 536 million. The low-ambition scenario implies some improvement in water use efficiency, institutional capacity and governance quality. Under this scenario, 724 million people would be living in basins with very high to high risk of conflict by 2050.
Basins in Africa and Asia, especially, face high overall risks since several risks collide here. Several basins face extra risks like high variability of water flows and limited water availability. There is also a dependence of downstream countries on upstream ones.