Water Conflicts

Who does it affect?: Water shortages affect over 1 billion people in the whole world. And unfortunately usually the people who suffer from lack of water are people from very poor countries like Somalia or Ethiopia. In Africa, the struggle for access to clean drinking water is indicative of how water scarcity leads to the stalling of human progress. It is an issue that touches all aspects of development including health, agricultural productivity, education and opportunities of women and children, stability and peace, as well as economic productivity. All issues are interconnected and experience much overlap, that any improvement to the availability to clean water in Africa has the potential to solve a number of developmental barriers.

Consequences: There are different types of reasons for water scarcities around the world. Also the levels of water shortages vary depending on the region. For example in the more developed areas such as Europe and the USA there is little or no water scarcity. Whilst in poorer areas like Africa or South America there is a big problem with the lack of water. Also the reasons for the water shortages vary depending on the area. 

Economic water scarcity occurs when water is available but some people cant afford to obtain it for reasons of poverty.This is most common in LEDC's especially in the sub-saharan Africa. The other major cause for the the water shortages around the world involves physical factors. For example the location of a place may affect the precipitations they receive each year. There a number of areas with very low precipitations (e.g. Sub-Sahara Desert). Therefore this creates a water shortage in that area.

Iñigo and Fabio

Water Conflicts

Water Conflicts are problems within countries, cities or towns over the access to water. There are many different reasons why water conflicts occur. They may be due to meteorological reasons (usually due to low precipitations in an area). Many time there are problems in the water management of a country, therefore water conflicts sometimes occur due to political reasons. Unfortunately water conflicts occur frequently in less-developed countries, particularly in Africa. This impoverishes even more the people in those areas and in many cases the lack of water even kills people. That is not the only problem which surrounds water conflicts. Also water shortages create huge social unrest which in many occasions has resulted in a civil war.

Water Wars:  Water wars occur when there is a huge social unrest about the water shortages in an area. Many wars are rebels of an area against there government due to their bad management over water. Other times wars are because people want to get as much water as possible and use violent methods to get what they want. Examples where these things happen are Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia.