Access to water may drive the twenty-first century’s conflicts, hydropolitics experts are warning, as climate change, rapid economic growth and the pressure of a growing world population compound to drive a scramble for water sources, writes the BBC. Water contamination and a scarcity of water for irrigation are leading to increased migration from water-scarce regions and creating friction between neighboring nations. (Stop us if this reminds you of a certain dam that rhymes with HERD and has caused its own drama…). In addition to better resource management, diversification of water sources, and water rationing, new research has shown that community cohesion and AI tools can help us avert future water crises.

How bad have things gotten worldwide? According to UNICEF, an estimated four bn people — almost two-thirds of the world’s population — live in water-stressed conditions for at least one month each year, and more than two bn live in countries with inadequate water supply. The UN agency estimates that half of the world’s population could be living in areas threatened by water scarcity by 2025 and up to 700 mn people could be displaced by water scarcity by the end of the decade.

Can AI help? Believe it or not, it might. Organizations like the World Bank, the UN and the Red Cross are looking to AI to predict and preempt humanitarian disasters, using the technology to send early warning signs that a mass migration or a famine are on the horizon. One project, a Global Early Warning Tool by the Water, Peace and Security Partnership (WPS), collates data about factors like rainfall, drought, flooding, agricultural production, crop failures, population density, wealth and corruption to produce a map of conflict warnings, and claims to have an accuracy rate of 86%.

The tool’s most interesting find: Factors like efficient resource management, improved awareness, socially responsible behavior, rationing and transparency help governments and communities are a better predictor of water-related conflict than pure access to resources. According to the tool, Egypt has areas of low (<10%), with pockets of high (40-80%) baseline water stress, and continues to be rated a peaceful zone.

Egypt has for years made water security a top priority, working to limit the impact of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on our water supply. More than 85% of the water that flows into the Blue Nile originates in Ethiopia’s highlands, and the threat that Ethiopia will fail to release water from the hydroelectric GERD in the event of a drought downstream remains imminent. In efforts to diversify its water resources, Cairo has announced plans to invest a potential EGP 45 bn before the middle of the decade in desalination plants and is also working on implementing an ambitious water-saving plan that could cost nearly USD 50 bn through 2037.

Ethiopia is hardly exceptional in looking to advance its own interests at the expense of downstream neighbors. Globally, more countries are damming rivers and building power plants to secure water supply and electricity as water scarcity pushes them to seek out secure water sources. The effect of Turkey’s Ilisu Dam on the Tigris, which it began filling in 2019, for example, has been acutely felt on the opposite side of the border in Syria, Iraq and Iran, and resulted in the outbreak of a health crisis in Iraq in summer of 2019. In West Africa, some experts have drawn connections between the rise of terrorist group Boko Haram with the humanitarian crisis that has resulted from the drying up of Lake Chad, as lost agricultural livelihoods and rising poverty give rise to an environment in which extremist thought found receptive minds.

The geopolitical ramifications of rising sea levels and drought will be massive, with migration flows shifting as people migrate away from areas that are no longer habitable due to a shortage of freshwater or flooding. India, which relies heavily on rivers that originate in China, is increasingly feeling the pinch of water scarcity as China develops megaprojects such as the Medog Dam being planned in Tibet, which China claims will produce triple the amount of electricity by the world’s largest power station — its own Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. India is rushing to build its own hydropower project to mitigate the impact that the Chinese dam could have on its side of the border. These projects are creating a domino effect in further-downstream Bangladesh, which is doubly threatened by rising sea levels and water shortages. Jakarta, Indonesia, is similarly threatened by both flooding and drought, as groundwater depletion causes it to sink and rising sea levels threaten to flood it, making it potentially uninhabitable within 30 years.

But effective resource management and strong governance remain key: How communities respond to crises is key to the future of their water security. In 2018, Cape Town was 90 days away from Day Zero, the day that the city's municipality would shut off its water supply, but managed to avert the crisis through a series of measures that included water-saving initiatives, rationing, reducing water loss, and utilization of greywater — domestic wastewater generated by houses or businesses. Similarly, California, which has lived under threat of drought since as far back as the 1920s and 1930s and experienced its driest year in a century due to climate change, is one of the world’s biggest exporters of water-intensive crops like pistachios, walnuts and almonds. In 2009, the state-wide water conservation program Save Our Water was established by the state’s water management and conservation agencies to change daily water habits among Californians.

Want more on how humans are managing water resources? Check out this cool visual essay from the BBC on the mega-dams that have reshaped our planet.