A new early-warning system to identify regions susceptible to war focuses on H2O, water.
The Dutch government-funded Water, Peace and Security (WPS) global early warning tool, which was presented to the UN security council before it was launched formally last month, combines environmental variables such as rainfall and crop failures with political, economic and social factors to predict the risk of violent water-related conflicts up to a year in advance.
It is the first tool of its kind to consider environmental data, such as precipitation and drought, alongside socio-economical variables, a combination lacking in previous tools designed to predict water conflicts. It is available online for the public to use, but is aimed more specifically at raising awareness among policymakers, and people and parties in water-stressed regions.
The tool has already predicted conflicts that are likely to happen in 2020 in Iraq, Iran, Mali, Nigeria, India and Pakistan*. Developers claim an 86% success rate in identifying conflict zones where at least 10 fatalities could occur. The tool currently focuses on hotspots across Africa, the Middle East and southeast Asia.* India and Pakistan have much in common. They're enemies. They're water insecure. Both have nuclear arsenals. Worse yet, there's another player that factors into their water woes - China. It too is water insecure. It too has plenty of nukes. And all three are mortally dependent on access to Himalayan headwaters, most of which are now under the control of China. What could possibly go wrong?
Growing global demand for water is already creating tensions – among communities, between farmers and city dwellers, between people and governments. Tensions are expected to increase as water scarcity becomes a reality for more people. According to the UN, as many as 5 billion people could experience water shortages by 2050.
Recent statistics from the Pacific Institute thinktank in California show that water-linked violence has surged significantly in the past decade: recorded incidents have more than doubled in the past 10 years, compared with previous decades.
“The machine learning model is ‘trained’ to identify patterns using historical data on violent conflict and political, social, economic, demographic, and water risk,” said Charles Iceland, senior water expert at the World Resources Institute, part of the WPS partnership.Where's Auntie Maude now that we need her?
2 comments:
Desperation over water is directly proportional to population. Forty years ago Vancouver and the Lower Mainland had plenty of water for its people. Since then they have added roughly a million people. There is still enough water most of the time. I recently heard a Lower Mainland mayor predicting another million. There is going to be a lot of squabbling over diminishing supply. As you have said many times, we cannot continue with growing demand on diminishing resources.
BTW, you might be interested in England's new National Food Strategy. https://www.nationalfoodstrategy.org/
Henry Dimbleby (the man in charge) understands how complicated our problems are becoming.
Auntie Maude? She and others like Gwynne Dyer warned us but very few listened.
Yes, well no one can fault Maude for want of trying.
As for Vancouver, my home for so many years, the city's natural beauty blinded governments and residents alike to its limitations.
The city has grown beyond its capacity to support its swollen population. My friends regale me, almost daily, with the latest horror story of getting from A to B, of rapidly vanishing services, especially medical, and so on. This sort of thing almost invariably leads to comparisons of the life of ease and comfort we enjoyed there in the 70s and 80s before that damned world's fair.
Post a Comment