Water and Conflict

Aug 14, 2015 | Barry S. Levy and Victor W. Sidel
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The four-year drought in California, which is causing severe water shortages and related problems, is receiving increasingly more attention. It is affecting everyone, causing people to adjust their lifestyles and causing small business owners and entire industries to rethink their use–and misuse–of water.

Meanwhile, the longstanding water shortages that are threatening the survival of people in several Middle Eastern and North African countries–and may ultimately threaten the survival of these countries–is receiving scant attention in the news media here in the United States.

There is much less freshwater in the world than one might think. Almost 98 percent of water is either salt water or polluted water. Almost two-thirds of the rest is frozen in glaciers and polar ice. Of all water throughout the world, less than 0.01 percent is available for human use. Freshwater is increasingly more scarce in many regions of the world–about one billion people do not have access to safe freshwater