What was the first war for which controlling access to freshwater was a motive?
> Fashoda Incident
Didn't really go to war
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_over_Water_(Jordan_River)
Technically counts, even though it's a pretty weak war.
(Ukraine war also counts since water for Crimea was one of the motives for the invasion)
Are there any older? Ancient wars in the Middle East?
I can't name specfics but I'm sure I've read about Summerian city states feuding over the rights to irrigation canals.
Lagash vs Umma
>"[King Il of Umma] diverted water from the boundary-channel of Ningirsu and the boundary-channel of Nanshe (...). When because of those channels, Enmetena, the governor of Lagash, sent envoys to Il, Il, the governor of Umma, who steals fields (and) speaks evil, declared: 'The boundary-channel of Ningirsu (and) the boundary-channel of Nanshe are mine! I will shift the boundary-levee from Antasura to Edimgalabzu!' But Enlil (and) Ninhursang did not give it to him."
Tibet was the source of pretty much all of China's rivers. All of its freshwater. China invaded because of that.
My dad was always talking about the incoming water-wars. He founded his own e-newspaper he sold to big companies about water rights and who was fighting over what, and was convinced the next big thing would be countries cutting off each-others water supplies. He didn't live to see it but I think he was completely right.
Course he figured it'd happen in arid parts of the world first.
Can reverse osmosis desalination plants help or are they a meme?
I wouldn't know- I only ever asking my dad for a cursory overview of the stuff he went over. Like it was a business you know, I wasn't overly fascinated in my dad's business while he was alive. He mostly talked about the increasing costs in clean water and it's increased scarcity, and how countries might damn up rivers to deprive water to their neighbors- which is why the Taliban got mad at Iran recently.
most places affected by water wars style problems either don't have much money, or have to replace so much water that it's infeasible. example of the former afganistan/iran example of the latter pretty much everyone downstream of tibetan river outflows as china fricks with them
Over 75% of Israel's tap water comes from it's desalinization plants.
T. Commies who bought into the global warming narrative created by China and Russia to weaken American industry
objective facts only
-hydroelectric projects, especially poorly planned ones eg china's, are causing downstream water stress in major watersheds the world over. egyptian conflict with ethiopia is inevitable over this
-climates are in fact and objectively shifting, eg the dry north of china has been suffering years of sporadic flooding while the wet south dries up suffering seawater ingress into river flows (also seen all across south asia), incredibly damaging to crops. climactic stress is responsible for the current afghan iran flare up
-3 billion non chinese and hundreds of millions of chinese rely on tibetan sourced river flows that are experiencing a double cataclysm of bad dams and bad climate
Michigan and the surrounding "Great Lakes Area" will become holy land.
That reminds me, heard on the news the Great Salt Lake is drying up, and when it does it's gonna unleash storms of arsenic that are laying at it's bottom.
Imagine Dune but it's all Mormons.
The trend could be greatly reduced if the area stoped make it’s population centered and agriculture so dependent on the lake. Same could be same for all water sources in the west/south west.
So much farming in regions that don’t receive much rain, absolutely moronic.
It's not that moronic when you realise agriculture has been sunlight-constrained for most of history. Dry, hot places have been fertile places for agriculture since the beginning of civilisation as long as you could irrigate.
Central Asian and North African nations are prime real estate for water conflicts.
Another thing the world needs to worry about is increase temperatures in hot, arid climates and wide-spread droughts pushing more widespread migration into Europe and US/CAN/AU/NZ. You thought the immigration crises in the early 2000s were bad? Wait until these phenomenons really kick it into high gear. Lots of these nations were never really capable of handling millions upon millions of people without infrastructure and food imported from abroad.
With what little farmlands and water resource they will have left becoming nullified and with their power grids incapable of supporting entire nations running A/C 24/7 to make indoor life tolerable, only then will we witness true large scale migration and suffering. And unlike so many migrants who came from Mexico, Central America, North Africa, Middle East, west Asia, India, etc, who falsely claimed asylum as they saw an opportunity to live in better circumstances without the hassle of standard immigration regulations, these people will have valid reasons for escaping their inhospitable homelands and regions and all the conflicts and turmoils that come with it all.
Hopefully it’s all overblown.
>inb4 global warming fake
Sure, you might think so as there is less snow in December for you but other regions of the world are experiencing far greater temperature changes and lessening amounts of precipitation.
The watersheds in these regions are so important. If only a certain humid area south of the equator that is full of water, wetlands, and rivers isn’t being cut up and reducing it’s importance as a rainforest.
The Great Lakes are temporary anomalies. They've lost 80% of their volume since the 1600's, and by 2050 a third of their current size will be gone. It's important to remember that they're the remnants of an inland sea created by glaciers, not permanent fixtures.
Depends, if the lakes reduce in size to where constant influx balances loss, the lakes will remain at a stable depth.
Letting the yanks keep Michigan after 1812 was a mistake
I know you are looking for historical examples but there is one shaping up currently (say next decade) that is explicitly over water. The GERD dam in Ethiopia combined with the current complete shit show in Sudan/South Sudan and the rising extremism in Egypt.
There’s a lot of evidence that the Mayans engaged in war over water, especially towards the end. The fact that their civilisation collapsed pretty comprehensively and a lot of major cities were just abandoned is a major indicator.
Unlikely. It was far more likely that their government institution collapsed, and that resulted in logistical breakdowns.
isn't the Taliban vs. Iran conflict that occurred this week about water?
>What was the first war for which controlling access to freshwater was a motive?
the conflict going on right now between Iran and Afghanistan
(although I do suspect the Americans helped encourage that)
Apparently the canal is not actually that important to Crimean farmland, most Crimean land is not fed by water from the canal.
Probably pre-historical tribal wars.