Violence over water feuds at global high

In Algeria, water shortages left faucets dry, prompting protesters to riot and set tires ablaze.

- IAN JAMES

A MAN fills barrels with water in 2024 in Veracruz, Mexico. Many conflicts are linked to water scarcity.

FELIX MARQUEZ Associated Press

In Gaza, as people waited for water at a community tap, an Israeli drone fired on them, killing eight.

In Ukraine, Russian rockets slammed into the country’s largest dam, unleashing a plume of fire over the hydroelectric plant and causing widespread blackouts.

These are some of the 420 water-related conflicts researchers documented for 2024 in the latest update of the Pacific Institute's Water Conflict Chronology, a global database of water-related violence.

The year featured a record number of violent incidents over water around the world, far surpassing the 355 in 2023, continuing a steeply rising trend. The violence more than quadrupled in the last five years.

The new data from the Oakland-based water think tank show also that drinking water wells, pipes and dams are increasingly coming under attack.

“In almost every region of the world, there is more and more violence being reported over water,” said Peter Gleick, the Pacific Institute’s co-founder and senior fellow, and it “underscores the urgent need for international attention.”

The researchers collect information from news reports and other sources and accounts. They classify it into three categories: instances in which water was a trigger of violence, water systems were targeted and water was a “casualty” of violence, for example when shell fragments hit a water tank.

Not every case involves injuries or deaths but many do.

The region with the most violent incidents was the Middle East, with 138 reported. That included 66 in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both in Gaza and the West Bank.