September 20, 2018

Climatic bomb: who will be the initiator of a nuclear war for fresh water?

According to the concept of “climatic warfare” that has been popular for the past few years, military conflict risk will rise as the greenhouse effect develops. Shortage of fresh water, droughts, harvest failure cause mass migration, political situation will get tense, and military actions would start. Civil wars in Sudan and Syria are the proofs of this. However, not everybody supports this point of view.

Darfur conflict and climate

Inter-ethnic conflicts in Darfur, a western region of Sudan in 2003-2005 killed several hundred thousand people. Some politicians try to explain this by environmental causes: droughts, fresh water shortage, and bad harvests. Some call the Darfur conflict as the first Climatic warfare” in the world. Academic scholars, ecologists and politicians in EU and US are actively promoting this concept.

The supporters of the new theory are of the opinion that this poor country with limited water resources, tenuous power could not cope with the consequences of climate change. Shortage of water, spread of desert, loss of cattle due to lack of pastures led to migration of Arabic Nomad tribes to the South and this brought civil war.

War in Syria and drought

In his article “Water, drought, climate change and conflict in Syria” Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute for Study of Development, Environment and Security (USA) writes, that the Syrian war started in 2012 due to many reasons: long lasting extensive political, religious and social problems, aggravating environmental conditions. Shortage of fresh water, inefficient water resource management, outdaed irrigation system, climate change have played a very important role.

The 2006-2011 drought preceded this conflict. Some experts think that for the entire history of civilisation in the Fertile Crescent zone this drought and bad harvests had been the longest. The country saw mass migration of rural population to cities, disturbances were initiated due to unemployment.

Gleick stresses that from 1950 to 2012 the Syrian population grew from three to twenty two million people, while the water supply level dropped from 5500 to 760 cubic metres per person per year. During the twentieth century the country suffered from six serious drought periods. Economic factors added up on the environmental problems. Intensive agriculture exhausted ground waters, required for irrigation of crops. State permission to privatise lands made framer-tenants leave their familiar spots.

Another standpoint to the causes of conflicts

Yan Selby of the University of Sussex is sure that Darfur conflict would not have been raised due to shortage of fresh water and bad harvests. He and his colleagues studied the situation in the region. According to their information, the Nile water flow via Sudan, the level of the Naser Lake have been always steady since 1960’s. Generally, until early 2000’s the precipitation levels had been above the normal rates, and after 1990, the area did not see any serious drought periods. Mass disturbance occurred in those very rural areas with good water resources.

Darfur conflict is the consequence of British colonisation of the country, its integration into global capitalist economy, never ending “building a state” under supervision of international organisations for the benefit of local elite.

“Climate change cannot drastically reverse this tendency either in Sudan, or anywhere else,” - the scholars say.

Selby assumes that the scientific circles have no consensus on association of military conflicts with man-caused change of climate. He conducted a thorough study of the natural conditions in Syria before the war. Indeed, the disastrous drought had occurred, but only in the north-eastern areas of the country, and not for five consecutive years, but three seasons only: 2006/2007, 2007/2008 and 2008/2009. El-Kamyshly towns had to face the worst of it, where in 2007-2008 they had only twenty five per cent of average precipitation for the past 30 years, and Deir-er-Zor – only 12 per cent.

In addition, Selby questions migration of one and a half million people. According to UN data, by the summer of 2009, abut 40-60 thousand families abandoned rural areas. And this was not due to bad harvests, but due to experiments with national economy. The scholar did not find any association between the drought, migration, and political crisis in this country.

Selby does not deny impact of climatic factors however, the Syrian civil war has more significant reasons

The Don River suffers low waters

Russia has a good supply level of fresh water, but nor evenly everywhere. The scientific leader of the Institute of Global Climate and Ecology named after Y.A. Izrael and Russian Representative at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Sergey Semenov presents the following information: total water resources in the Central and Southern European parts of Russia make about nine per cent of total Russian resources, while 76 per cent of Russian population live in this area.

“Potentially, in 21 century, the water supply level in the territory of Russia in general will rise by five-nine per cent due to expected rise of water resources as a result of global climate change and demographic factors. However, in the Central, Southern and North-Caucasus Federal Regions the water supply level may drop due to regional occurrences of global climate change, growth of water consumption and number of population,” – he explains. The expert notes that some water deficit is already evident in the southern regions.

This is confirmed by the experts of the Department of Hydrology of Dry Land of the Faculty of Geography Moscow State University, who indicate four low water supply periods in the Don River catchment area. These periods have been noted since the middle of the last century. The last, most anomalous low water period lasted from 2007 until 2015, when the water deficit at this river was 44.3 cubic kilometres.

According to Maria Kireeva, junior scientific researcher of the department, in 2014-2015, there were problems with navigation, during the negative surge, the river could be easily passed by wading. Salty water was running from taps at households of local population for the sea penetrated through the riverbed and groundwater horizons. The Tsimlyansky Water dam water grew green. The settlements downstream the Don River had a real threat of water supply interruptions.

Hydrologists explain this by climatic changes that have occurred since late 1970’s. Shallowing of the Don River is primarily caused anomalously warm, low snow winters, and consequently, deficit of thaw waters. The issue was partly aggravated by production of agricultural products, especially of grains, and increased water consumption for irrigation of fields.

“Water wars” and nuclear threat

Renewable water resources of the planet are approximately 42 800 cubic kilometers per annum. However, these resources are not evenly distributed between the world countries: in Canada, per capita water resource is dozens times higher than in Kuwait. There is especially shortage of water in Middle East and Africa. According to forecasts, by 2025, the population of the Earth would grow to eight billion people, and one third of these people will be living in the countries with “water stress”. The regions with high birth rates and dry climate will be primarily affected.

Currently, contamination is one of the major causes of deficit of “quality” water. In a number of cases, this leads to international tension for many rivers and water sites are used by different countries. For instance, the Ural and Kura river catchment areas are located outside Russia – in Kazakhstan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. The Irtysh River runs in the territory in Russia, Kazakhstan and China. The environmental issue between the states got tense, when in 2005, because of an accident at the Chinese chemical plant, hundreds of tons of contaminated water was drained into the Sungari River, an tributary of the Amur River. According to the certificate from the Institute of Water Problems, for 1950-2000, 507 disputes occurred due to water resources, and 21 of these lead to military actions. More frequently now, the scholars operate with terms “water hunger”, and “water wars”. For instance, in 1964-1065, Israel declared “the war for water” to prevent Syria from building a diversion canal from Golan Hills, where the Jordan and Tiberias Lake have feed sources.

Water is an instrument of pressure on the enemy in ware conflicts. In 2012, at battles for Aleppo, the counter-government forces in Syria seriously damaged the water pipeline, while three million people were dependent on it.

Hydrological experts are specially concerned about Asia with its fast population and economic growth rates. The people there will need more and more. It is forecasted that by the middle of 21 century, a quarter of the Asian region will become a zone of water conflicts.

The feud over access to the Indus River between two nuclear powers India and Pakistan is at its aggravation stage.

Africa, where droughts are now most severe and water resources are barbarously used is one of most problematic regions of the world. For the past few years the surface area of the Chad Lake, which is a water source for forty million people in four countries has reduced by 15 per cent.

Sergey Semenov quotes one of conclusion of the IPPC Fifth Assessment Report: -“The risks, associated with fresh waters will grow significantly upon increase of concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.”

For our planet is not homogenous climatically and ecologically, the consequences of warming will neither be uniform different regions.

“And the differences in the amounts of precipitation that falls in wet and dry regions, and during wet and dry seasons will be increasing (with some exceptions)”, - says the scholar, referring to the above report. He adds: “In most regions of dry tropical areas, surface and ground water resources will drop, which will raise competition for water between sectors of economy.”

“I should note that only between sectors of economy, and not between countries. Now the Mass Media love talking about climatic wars. I think, climatic wars is a fantasy, although some tension is noted between some state due to borderline are water sites.  Modern regional conflicts have more traditional origins – competition for political, economic and ideological influence,” – concludes S. Semenov.

https://ria.ru/science/20180920/1528879680.html?referrer_block=index_daynews2_3&ab_title=a