Indeed, the global food trade network allows water to be withdrawn in one country to produce food that is consumed in another country 20. These withdrawals are not necessarily equivalent to the water embedded in the food consumed by the population of that country (which we refer to as water demand). Second, the water stress of a country is determined by water withdrawals within its territory (which we here refer to as water footprint). First, per capita, water footprints vary substantially across countries as determined by prevailing dietary habits and food supply systems 16. Water footprints can similarly be used to track countries’ progress towards the Sustainable Development Goal dealing with water stress (indicator 6.4.2) 19, although two important considerations are in order. Aggregated globally, this concept tracks the annual volume of water necessary to sustain humanity against the environmental limit of freshwater availability within which it can safely operate 18. This notion is captured by the concept of per capita water footprint, which quantifies the volume of water necessary to produce, process, and distribute a person’s annual food consumption 17. Yet the lion’s share of a person’s water consumption is embedded in the production of their food 16. These disruptions of water security can have dramatic socioeconomic consequences, for instance, by affecting water prices and exacerbating preexisting economic inequalities and social divisions 2. Identified mechanisms include overburdened local infrastructure 13, 14 and the disruption of ecosystem services that support water provisioning, water distribution systems, flood management systems, and safe drinking water 15. A growing scholarship focuses on the water-security implications of migration in destination countries. The large majority (87%, 12) of these migrants crossed into neighboring countries that share similar climate conditions and often already face their own substantial water availability challenges. 1A), and nearly half of all refugees fled four particular countries or territories: Syria, Iraq, Palestine, and Afghanistan (Fig. The majority of displaced refugees during that period hail from countries in regions with arid or semi-arid climates (Fig. The number of displaced refugees has nearly doubled from 12.1 to 23.1 million in the 2005–2016 period-the sharpest increase on record (see Fig. Forced migrants under a mandate from either agency are here jointly referred to as ‘refugees’. By displacing water demand through refugee migration, conflicts can affect water resources beyond political and topographic boundaries.Īs of 2021, approximately 80 million people were forcibly displaced by armed conflicts globally, more than 30 million of whom had to migrate internationally as refugees under mandates from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) or the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA). This effect on water availability is only half of the story, however, because the conflict also caused at least 1.1 million Syrian refugees to flee across the border into Jordan 10, adding pressure to the country’s already scarce water resources 11. Abandonment of irrigated agriculture in southern Syria during the recent civil war caused a near doubling of river flow volumes into downstream Jordan 9, suggesting that the impact of armed conflicts on water resources can propagate beyond borders along international water ways. However, armed conflicts also affect water resources by damaging infrastructure and institutions and disrupting prevailing local water uses 8. Although almost never the sole cause of conventional wars 3, 4, water scarcity may act as a risk factor for civil conflicts 5, 6 and a possible linkage between climate change and violence 7. This is particularly true when recurring droughts collide with rapid demographic change and enduring armed conflicts 2. Ensuring the availability and sustainable management of water for all is a defining challenge of our time 1.
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