Karen Bakker

Declan Conway

Mark Zeitoun

Bruce Lankford

The purpose of this book is to present an overview of the latest research, policy, practitioner, academic and international thinking on water security—an issue that, like water governance a few years ago, has developed much policy awareness and momentum with a wide range of stakeholders. As a concept it is open to multiple interpretations, and the authors here set out the various approaches to the topic from different perspectives. Key themes addressed include: Water security as a foreign policy issue The interconnected variables of water, food, and human security Dimensions other than military and international relations concerns around water security Water security theory and methods, tools and audits. The book is loosely based on a masters level degree plus a short professional course on water security both given at the University of East Anglia, delivered by international authorities on their subjects. It should serve as an introductory textbook as well as be of value to professionals, NGOs, and policy-makers.

Principles, Perspectives and Practices

Water Security

Jeroen Warner

Naho Mirumachi

"Our ambition with this book is that it helps tranform at least a few inter-state water conflicts, by providing a lucid way to understand and to address their complex nature. The need for clarity is urgent, if researchers and analysts are to assist all those who are caught up in, and suffer from, water conflicts. While we wrote this book, mothers in Aleppo dodged snipers' bullets as they collected water for their children - just as so many mothers before them did, in Jenin in 2002, Sarajevo in 1994, Beirut in 1985, Leningrad in 1943, and Warsaw in 1944 and 1914. Explosive weaponry, designed to penetrate eighteen-inch thick concrete bunkers, ripped through the zinc roofs of several water treatment plants in Iraq; drinking water channels were demolished in Dombass; cholera spread through wastewater in Yemen, and superbugs mutated in the wastewater in Gaza. In most cases, the repair crews who risked their lives to supply clean water were denied access or shot at. The Bolivian Lake Poopó dried up as we were finishing the first draft of our early chapters. Caused by unregulated abstractions for agriculture and mining, this catastrophe evidences our collective inability to adequately manage human need for food and minerals, and human greed for money. However, it seems we have not learnt lessons from our past mistakes - rather we appear intent on repeating them. Lake Poopó has now joined the well-documented graveyard water bodies of Lake Urmia, Lake Tulare, the Oglala (or Ogallala) and Ceylanpinar Aquifers and the Dead Sea (and others counting). Each of these is an example of how tensions generated in the political and economic systems that run our lives can devastate our relationship and reliance upon the natural environment. Cambodia's Tonlé Sap Lake - not to mention millions of its fish and thousands of local fishermen - is currently at risk because of upstream dams in Laos, Thailand and China (see Box Matthews). The likely outcome is that the monsoon-driven flood-pulse of the river is contained to such an extent that the Mekong river no longer washes back into the lake when it reaches the sea. This is a stark example of a worrying global trend, resulting from extensive construction of large dams building despite public-private-civil society consensus on their destructive downsides. Sea-land nutrients, which sea-to-river fish rely upon (most famously, salmon), have been virtually eliminated - with global nutrient flow standing at only 4% of historic levels. According to WWF, freshwater species' populations declined by 81% from 1970-2012, with an average annual decline of 3.9%"--

Analysis for Transformation

Water Conflicts

Mark Zeitoun

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