Water Wars - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 172

There are historical models for this. From 1948 to 1994, while Israel and Jordan
were technically at war, they continued to hold secret talks on cooperatively managing
the Jordan River. While India and Pakistan have warred several times, the Indus River
Commission has survived; during one of the wars, India continued to make payments
to Pakistan as part of its treaty obligations.
“I think water hits us at a profoundly different level than other resources,” said Ore-
gon State's Dr. Wolf. “People are willing to do horrible things to each other. What they
seem not willing to do is turn off each other's water.”
Jan Eliasson fervently hopes this tenuous state can be maintained. “Water is the only
indispensable liquid in the world,” he said. “Some people use it as a reason for conflict,
but it can just as easily be used as a reason for cooperation. If world leaders are smart,
they will see that an investment in water, and building an interdependence over water,
is an investment in peace.”
• • •
Water scarcity is of growing concern to the hydrologists, diplomats, and aid organiz-
ations worried about how climate change will impact water and food supplies. But an
equally grave, though less publicized, concern is the way global warming will turn parts
of the world wetter.
As temperatures rise, climatologists expect rainstorms to become more frequent and
intense and sea levels to rise, making communities along waterways vulnerable to flood-
ing. Floods lead to a host of serious problems: the threat of drowning, erosion, water-
borne disease, loss of property, disruption of transportation routes, rampant pollution,
and mass evacuations. Furthermore, rising tides and fiercer hurricanes will strain the
world's rickety hydro-infrastructure, much of which is in poor shape and was built at,
or below, the twentieth century's sea level.
In the first years of this century, unprecedented flooding in England has led to con-
cern that the nation is ill equipped for the higher waters predicted for the future. And in
the United States, climatologists warn that the devastation wreaked by Hurricane Kat-
rina in 2005, considered “America's worst environmental disaster,” was merely a fore-
taste of deluges to come.