idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft

Nachrichten, Termine, Experten

Grafik: idw-Logo
Science Video Project
idw-Abo

idw-News App:

AppStore

Google Play Store



Instance:
Share on: 
10/20/2014 14:34

Water as a Central Political Issue

Marietta Fuhrmann-Koch Kommunikation und Marketing
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg

    Water is an essential and, in many regions of the world, rare resource. Geographers Prof. Dr. Hans Gebhardt and Prof. Dr. Marcus Nüsser are exploring the potential for conflict underlying short water supplies using the Near East and South and Central Asia as examples. Their research at Heidelberg University shows that it is often scarce water resources that are at the root of ostensibly political and religious conflicts – whether the scant supply is physical, sometimes also due to global climate change, or structural due to the unequal distribution of water by the political powers that be.

    Press Release
    Heidelberg, 20 October 2014

    Water as a Central Political Issue
    Heidelberg researchers study potential for conflict from lack of water

    Water is an essential and, in many regions of the world, rare resource. Geographers Prof. Dr. Hans Gebhardt and Prof. Dr. Marcus Nüsser are exploring the potential for conflict underlying short water supplies using the Near East and South and Central Asia as examples. Their research at Heidelberg University shows that it is often scarce water resources that are at the root of ostensibly political and religious conflicts – whether the scant supply is physical, sometimes also due to global climate change, or structural due to the unequal distribution of water by the political powers that be.

    “Scarce water resources can lead to conflict especially when large rivers or important aquifers cross borders,” explains Prof. Gebhardt. These transboundary waters are a global phenomenon: 263 lakes and rivers cross borders, 145 nations share areas of water and 13 international water resources are used by more than two nations. “In the case of transnational rivers, those upriver usually have the advantage because they can control the drainage,” say the researchers. Examples include the Euphrates, whose waters are being increasingly used by the Great Anatolian Project (GAP) in eastern Turkey – to the detriment of downstream Syria and Iraq – and China’s dam cascades on the upper Mekong that adversely impact water use in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

    One subterranean water store under study at Heidelberg University is the Disi aquifer, which stretches approx. 320 kilometres from southern Jordan to northern Saudi Arabia. The Disi aquifer is a fossil aquifer, accessed by agricultural companies in Jordan as well as Saudi Arabia. Both countries are at odds over the usage rights of the aquifer, which according to international estimates will be depleted in 30 to 50 years. The researchers also analysed the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan from the perspective of water scarcity. Part of the conflict is the arduous and cost-intensive 30-year-long static war over the control of the Siachen Glacier in northern Kashmir. “The disputes are motivated by geostrategic considerations, national prestige mentality and the desire for resource access and are a legacy of India’s split from Britain in 1947,” explains Prof. Nüsser.

    The different case examples show that water shortage and water conflict problems in developing and newly industrialising countries require an integrated research approach that combines the methods of both the natural and social sciences. The methodology spectrum being employed by the Heidelberg researchers therefore includes not only established empirical methods of social research, but ranges from satellite mapping to discourse analysis.

    Hans Gebhardt has been at the Institute of Geography at Heidelberg University since 1996, working primarily in anthropogeography. His main research interests include political geography and cultural geography in the Near East as well as in South-east and East Asia. Prof. Gebhardt is a consulting editor for a number of standard works in geography and for The Geographical Journal.

    Marcus Nüsser has been conducting research and teaching at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University since 2006. The geographer’s primary areas of research include human-environmental interaction, high mountain research, political ecology, and land use systems and resource management in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Prof. Nüsser is a co-editor of “Mountain Research and Development” and the “Journal of Mountain Science” as well as the editor of the “Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research” book series.

    A more detailed exploration of the “war over water" topic appeared in the 4/2014 "War & Peace" issue of the research magazine "Ruperto Carola" and can be found on the Internet: http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/rupertocarola

    Original publications:

    Baghel, R. & Nüsser, M. (2010): Discussing Large Dams in Asia after the World Commission on Dams: Is a Political Ecology Approach the Way Forward? In: Water Alternatives 3 (2): 231-248

    Bonn, T. (2013): Wasserpolitik in Jordanien. Das Spannungsfeld zwischen Behörden und Geberorganisationen im jordanischen Wassersektor. Berlin: LIT-Verlag (= Univ. Diss.)

    Bonn, T. (2013): On the political sideline? The institutional isolation of donor organizations in Jordanian Hydropolitics. In: Water Policy 15, 728-737 (doi: 10.2166/wp.2013.007)

    Gebhardt, Hans (2013): Ressourcenkonflikte und nachhaltige Entwicklung – Perspektiven im 21. Jahrhundert. In: Mitteilungen der Fränkischen Geographischen Gesellschaft, Bd. 59, S. 1-12

    Gebhardt, Hans und Eva Ingenfeld (2011): Die Arktis im Fokus geoökonomischer und geopolitischer Interessen. In: Geographische Rundschau, Jg. 63, H. 11, S. 26-33

    Nüsser, M. (2014): Technological Hydroscapes in Asia: The Large Dams Debate Reconsidered. In: Nüsser, M. (ed.): Large Dams in Asia: Contested Environments between Technological Hydroscapes and Social Resistance. Dordrecht, Heidelberg, London, New York (= Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research): 1-14

    Nüsser, M. & Baghel, R. (2014): The Emergence of the Cryoscape: Contested Narratives of Himalayan Glacier Dynamics and Climate Change. In B. Schuler (ed.), Environmental and Climate Change in South and Southeast Asia: How are Local Cultures Coping? Leiden, Boston (= Climate and Culture 2): 138-156

    Nüsser, M., Schmidt, S. & Dame, J. (2012): Irrigation and Development in the Upper Indus Basin: Characteristics and Recent Changes of a Socio-Hydrological System in Central Ladakh, India. In: Mountain Research and Development 32 (1): 51-61

    Contacts:

    Prof. Dr. Hans Gebhardt
    Institute of Geography
    Phone +49 6221 54-4572
    hans.gebhardt@geog.uni-heidelberg.de

    Prof. Dr. Marcus Nüsser
    South Asia Institute (SAI)
    Phone +49 6221 54-8922
    marcus.nuesser@uni-heidelberg.de

    Communications and Marketing
    Press Office, phone: +49 6221 54-2311
    presse@rektorat.uni-heidelberg.de


    More information:

    http://www.uni-heidelberg.de/rupertocarola


    Images

    Criteria of this press release:
    Journalists
    Geosciences
    transregional, national
    Research projects, Research results
    English


     

    Help

    Search / advanced search of the idw archives
    Combination of search terms

    You can combine search terms with and, or and/or not, e.g. Philo not logy.

    Brackets

    You can use brackets to separate combinations from each other, e.g. (Philo not logy) or (Psycho and logy).

    Phrases

    Coherent groups of words will be located as complete phrases if you put them into quotation marks, e.g. “Federal Republic of Germany”.

    Selection criteria

    You can also use the advanced search without entering search terms. It will then follow the criteria you have selected (e.g. country or subject area).

    If you have not selected any criteria in a given category, the entire category will be searched (e.g. all subject areas or all countries).