Water Conflict – Water Currents, February 6, 2018.
Competition and conflict over water resources extends back thousands of years. Water is a fundamental and irreplaceable resource in all societies. Therefore, it is not surprising that water management is complex and that water-related interests are frequently contested. The risk of water-related violence and conflict is growing, as scarce water resources face ever-increasing pressures from growing populations and environmental degradation.

Community members in Mayendit County, South Sudan, use their new borehole, which they manually drilled with support from the USAID Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. Photo credit: Samaritan’s Purse
This issue contains open access articles and reports from 2017, as well as several news articles on water, conflict, and peace building published so far in 2018. Also included are selected USAID resources on water-related conflict.
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Water, Conflict and Peacebuilding – Overviews
A Matter of Survival: Learning to Cooperate Over Water. Wilson Center, January 16, 2018. Members of the Global High-Level Panel on Water and Peace, convened by a coalition of 15 countries, share their insights on water and peace in this panel discussion video. The panel also developed a set of recommendations designed to prevent water-related conflicts.
The Water Conflict Chronology: Water Conflicts Over the Centuries and Millennia. Circle of Blue, June 2017. In this podcast Peter Gleick of the Pacific Institute discusses some of the lessons learned from past water conflicts and explores what kind of trends have emerged.
Read the complete issue.