No water wars – adaptation, cooperation, no incentive and globalization

The first argument that “interstate cooperation on freshwater resources prevails over conflict” is supported by historical evidence. While there are some analyses indicating that sharing of international rivers might increase the probability of militarized disputes (Toset, Gleditsch & Hegre, 2000) it has been shown that the majority of water-related interstate conflicts have been resolved in a cooperative way (Wolf, 2007). The cost of warfare by far would hardly be justified by the appropriation of a resource that does not directly lead to high profits such as water (Selby, 2005). A systematic search for a water war with interstate violence produced only one result, pointing at the military conflict of the city-states of Umma and Lagash over the use of the Tigris river in 2,500 BCE, as the only water war that has ever happened (Gleick, 1993). The solid presence of cooperative interactions and the clear absence of formal wars over freshwater resources are also supported by the analysis of contemporary times. The relatively large number of water treaties among countries sharing water bodies can be considered as a compelling evidence of cooperation (Wolf, 1998). An exhaustive dataset on interactions between two or more states on water resources in the second half of the 20th century reveals that out of 1,831 interactions, conflictive or cooperative, ~67% were cooperative. Of the 507 more conflictive events, only 43 cases were associated with military acts while 414 were limited to verbal hostility. No events were categorized as formal war (Wolf, Yoffe, & Giordano, 2003). The second argument that can be described as a form of “technological optimism,” stems from the belief that the development of new technologies, the adoption of modern agricultural techniques, and the use of science-based methods of crop distribution will increase freshwater availability or enhance water use efficiency in agriculture, mining or other industries, thereby reducing competition for water and conflict. Although not explicitly formulated as an argument to dismiss the emergence of water wars, this confidence in future technological and science-based solutions to produce more with less, is motivated by research on the development of new cultivars that are more drought-adapted or have higher water use efficiency (“more crop per drop,”, see Falkenmark & Rockström, 2004), the adoption of agricultural techniques that reduce nonproductive water consumption associated with soil evaporation and inefficient irrigation technology (e.g., Jägermeyr et al., 2016), the selection of crops that are more suitable to the local hydroclimatic conditions (Davis, Rulli, Seveso & D'Odorico, 2017) and the reliance on strategies and technologies for waste reduction and reuse (Kummu et al., 2012). Technological advancements ranging from large-scale desalinization to new local systems of water purification have led to a widespread trust in techno fixes that can also improve drinking water availability. Collectively, technological advances can reduce the competition for water resources, however, some of these fixes may have detrimental environmental and social costs (D'Odorico et al., 2018; Palmer et al., 2015). The third argument, describes how the anatomic differences between water and oil as strategic economic resources, are explicative of the fact that water, differently from oil, does not justify interstate military intervention. It is clear that oil is prevalently at the center of contemporary geopolitical tensions, violence, conflicts and interstate wars. Oil is associated with civil conflicts and can be a major cause of regional interstate conflicts. Water instead, while being increasingly associated with local violent conflicts in the global South, has practically never been systemically associated with interstate conflicts nor wars (Selby, 2005). The political economy of these resources is essentially different because of several intrinsic characteristics. Oil, for example, is a motor of industrial production while water is more of a key input for biological processes, including agricultural production; oil is geographically unevenly distributed and nonrenewable while water is a renewable and relatively widely distributed resource; oil leads to very high profits and tends to be oligopolistically organized, while water tends to be a public or common-pool resource which does not directly lead to high profits (Selby, 2005). The last argument is about the strategic power of virtual water. Central to this argument is the work of Allan (1996, 1998, 2002) which elaborates on how water resources can be appropriated through the transnational trade of agricultural commodities. The adjective “virtual” is used to stress that such water is not physically present in the commodities that are traded. Some regions of the world, such as the Middle East, do not have enough water to produce all the food required to feed their populations. This situation could be expected to lead social tensions. However, according to Allan, reliance on international trade has allowed these countries to circumvent their chronic water scarcity and meet their needs. In this light, trade can be explicitly considered as a mechanism that has a water-saving function (Hoekstra & Chapagain, 2008; Konar, Hussein, Hanasaki, Mauzerall & Rodriguez-Iturbe, 2013). Allan (1998) noted that the importation of agricultural commodities and other goods is associated with the virtual transfer of the water resources used to produce those goods. More specifically, his work (Allan, 1996, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005) described how countries' dependence on water for agriculture, which on average accounts for 70% of the entire global water consumption (Richter, 2014), is often satisfied by the import of agricultural commodities. He demonstrates his argument relying also on historical evidence. In the case of the Middle East and North Africa, Allan (1998) estimates that virtual water flows associated with the importation of grains from North America exceeds the actual water flows in the Nile River. It is by analyzing the virtual water trade phenomenon that Allan comes to the conclusion that it is much more logical and convenient to trade with foreign countries and import virtual water from them rather than going at war with them. Despite some analytical criticism (Ansink, 2010), virtual water trade remains at the basis of one of the key arguments used to refute the “water leads to war” thesis. Other studies, mostly on the industrial sector, are also supporting the view that trade reduces the likelihood of conflict, though their focus is neither on water resources nor on virtual water trade (De Angelis, Metulini, Bove, Ricaboni, 2017; Dorussen, 2006; Hegre, Oneal, Russett, 2010). The counterargument, could be that trade has sustained population growth in importing countries, thereby enhancing water scarcity, trade dependence and consequently increasing in the long run the risk of instability while reducing societal resilience (D'Odorico, Laio & Ridolfi, 2010; Suweis et al., 2013). According to these four arguments and other, not less important, analytical contributions, there is consensus that water wars should be considered a dispelled myth (Barnaby, 2009). Practically nonexistent instead are recent scholarly contributions that actively support the water leads to war thesis. Gleick (1993) is often referred to in the context of water violence history. However, Gleick's accounts of water-related conflicts are not at the state level and, when organized national warfare happens, it is for water as a military strategic target, never for water as the primary cause of military intervention (Wolf, 1998, 2007). Also in the case of the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation over water in the West Bank, there have been many instances of conflicts but none that can be formally considered a water war (Zeitoun, 2007) as water, rather than being the reason for the conflict, is described as a strategic tool used for military purposes (Selby, 2003).