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Water and Security

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Water and Human Societies

Abstract

The connections between a clean and accessible water supply for consumption and sanitation is a relatively new field of research. Prior to this recognition, scholars and policy analysts associated security with the protection of a nation’s borders and populations. Security implied a nation’s safety in military and diplomatic terms. In recent decades, however, experts became aware that water and food security were essential to a nation’s stability. But with climate change prompting new weather extremes, such as flooding and/or drought, populations are leaving their homes in large numbers, disrupting the economic and social stability of host nations. Another source of water insecurity are developments occurring on transboundary rivers, including the Nile River Basin and the watersheds of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

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Notes

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    World Bank, High and Dry: Climate Change, Water, and the Economy (World Bank, 2016), viiiii; UN-Water, Water Security and the Global Water Agenda (UN-Water, 2013) at file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/water_security_summary_Oct2013.pdf.

  2. 2.

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  3. 3.

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  4. 4.

    “Global Conflict Risk Index” (Publications Office of the European Union, 2018) at https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/1c121597-07cc-11e8-b8f5-01aa75ed71a1/language-en; Rutger Willem Hofste, et al, “17 Countries, Home to One-Quarter of the World’s Population, Face Extremely High Water Stress” (World Resources Institute) 6 August 2019.

  5. 5.

    Frances De Chatel, “The Role of Drought and Climate Change in the Syrian Uprising: Untangling the Triggers of the Revolution,” Middle Eastern Studies 50:4 (2014), 21–35; A. Karnieli, et al, “Was Drought Really the Trigger Behind the Syrian Civil War in 2011?” Water 11:8 (2019), 1564.

  6. 6.

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  7. 7.

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  8. 8.

    UN-Water, Water Security and the Global Water Agenda, 5.

  9. 9.

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Pietz, D.A., Zeisler-Vralsted, D. (2021). Water and Security. In: Water and Human Societies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67692-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67692-6_7

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

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