By TARYN GALBREATH
Dept. of National Defense National Intelligence Council
2012/2025 Map on Global Water Security
WASHINGTON – Imagine a world without water, like the inability to share immediate water supplies with neighboring countries and what that could mean and impact your way of life.
Many countries are experiencing a limited source of water that impacts their survival as well as others; allies and enemies. The National Intelligence Community assesses that during the next 10 years many countries that are strategically important to the United States will face water problems that will risk instability, leading to state failure and conflicts that will endanger U.S. policy objectives.
Water is essential to life and global health. Therefore, in terms of national security water can be used as a powerful weapon. Water agreements, shortages, climate change, increasing demand, poor management are some of the factors that lead to water stress for countries and areas around the globe.
The Feb. 2012 National Intelligence assessment of Global Water Security centers on areas such as the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates rivers, and Jordan and other countries prone to have political conflicts centered around their use and access to water.
“Water does cross boundaries,” said Lisa Schechtman, director of Policy and Advocacy at WaterAid America. At a news conference earlier this month, she said changing climates impact “where water is.” Natural disasters like floods, drought, hurricanes and the like can erode land, or cause damage that can impair water accessibility and offset ecosystems and economies in the long or short run. The instability can lead to vulnerabilities of a country for possible takeover or attack.
WaterAid is a non-profit organization that works to build and sustain clean water around the world. WaterAid has the support of Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Rep.Ted Poe, R-Texas, demonstrating the importance of water as bipartisan issue.
The lawmakers work together to support the Water for the World Act, which aims to improve the ways in which the U.S. provides safe drinking water, by emphasizing the U.S. Agency for International Developments’ (USAID) focus on the poorest countries.
WaterAid executives discuss the need for water sustainability around the world.
“Everybody says that water is a right, that doesn’t necessarily mean to say it’s free.” Barbara Frost, Executive Director of WaterAid said. Frost explained that for WaterAid, “It’s about getting safe water accessibly, adequately and affordably to poor communities.“ WaterAid sees its’ role to further water provisions as a humanitarian as well as national security service for more reasons than one.
As temperatures increase, so do dry seasons and subsequent water shortages, especially as populations increase. Schechtman identified Yemen as likely to be the first country to literally run out of water, and pointed out Jordan as one of several strategic countries whose water problems are of concern to the U.S.
According to the Institute for Environmental Security, about 40% of water in Jordan comes from shared water resources. Jordan has agreements on water sharing rights with Israel, Syria and Saudi Arabia. Clearly the stability of each country is interdependent on maintaining water agreements peacefully and how well they are upheld and abided by is of particular interest to the United States.
Areas with shared water resources are in a precarious station, and may be afflicted by tactics to use water access for political control, or as a weapon by cutting off flow or inducing floods, cutting off electricity, trade, resources, as an extension of warfare, or even to cause the spread of disease.
National Intelligence officials anticipate that water’s use with regard to national security will increase over coming years. The 2012 National Intelligence Global Water Security report states, “We judge that as water shortages become more acute beyond the next 10 years, water in shared basins will increasingly be used as leverage; the use of water as a weapon or to further terrorist objectives also will become more likely beyond 10 years.”
Just as a terrorist can kill hundreds, water can kill thousands and does everyday.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, “Diarrhea kills 2,195 children every day. — That is one out of every more than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined.” A United Nations Human Development report shows that a child dies every 15 seconds from a water related disease. Therefore, the level of a countries’ access to clean water is a direct threat to their survival and can be induced by political tactics, terrorism or climate change.
For example, climate extremes during the 2010 hurricanes lead to the spread of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that resulted in 242,000 hospitalized and 6,400 who died from the disease.
To protect the United States, the Environmental Protection Agency plays a role in monitoring water for the purposes of national security. “Since the events of 9/11, EPA has been designated as the sector-specific agency responsible for infrastructure protection activities for the nation’s drinking water and wastewater systems. EPA is utilizing its position within the water sector and working with its stakeholders to provide information to help protect the nation’s drinking water supply from terrorist or other intentional acts.”
The EPA discloses that community water systems serve 273 million out of a total population of 290 million, the largest proportion of the U.S. population and that in contrast to drinking water; wastewater is more vulnerable for opportunities for terrorist threats. For water security, the EPA emphasizes specific goals to instill resilient water systems, recognize and reduce risk, protect the environment and public health by communicating the importance of understanding water as a precious commodity for human life, agriculture and national security in more ways than one.
http://www.irinnews.org/report/96093/yemen-time-running-out-for-solution-to-water-crisis
http://www.envirosecurity.org/essmed/june2012/presentations/II-B_Jordan_Ali_Subah.pdf
http://www.dni.gov/files/documents/Special%20Report_Global%20Water%20Security%20Map.pdf
http://www.envirosecurity.org/essmed/june2012/presentations/II-B_Jordan_Ali_Subah.pdf
http://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1865/USAID_Water_Strategy_3.pdf
