War in Ukraine Lengthens List of Violent Acts over Water

Mar 17, 2022 | Brett Walton
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In late February, as Vladimir Putin’s war machine was beginning to uncoil, Russian forces destroyed a dam in Ukraine that was blocking water from a Soviet-era canal that flows into Crimea, the peninsula that Russia wrested from its neighbor in 2014. Ukrainians had erected the dam in retaliation for the loss of territory nearly eight years ago.

The destruction of the dam across the North Crimean Canal is the most recent entry in the Water Conflict Chronology, a compendium of violent acts related to water throughout 4,500 years of history.

In a March 2022 update to the chronology, the Pacific Institute is adding 376 entries, most of which occurred in the last three years. The newly added incidents reveal the geographic and political dimensions of water-related violence in an era of social turmoil and ecological upheaval.The chronology divides the incidents into three categories: water used as a weapon, water as a trigger of conflict, and water as a casualty of conflict. Most of the entries are for water as a trigger or casualty.

Despite the pressures from a changing climate, do not ignore the role of politics in enabling and perpetuating water conflict, cautions Erika Weinthal of Duke University.