War in Ukraine Lengthens List of Violent Acts over Water

A new report details the rising number of clashes across the planet that are connected to water.
In late February, as Vladimir Putin’s war machine was beginning to uncoil, Russian forces destroyed a dam in Ukraine that was blocking water from a Soviet-era canal that flows into Crimea, the peninsula that Russia wrested from its neighbor in 2014. Ukrainians had erected the dam in retaliation for the loss of territory nearly eight years ago.
The destruction of the dam across the North Crimean Canal is the most recent entry in the Water Conflict Chronology, a compendium of violent acts related to water throughout 4,500 years of history.
In a March 2022 update to the chronology, the Pacific Institute is adding 376 entries, most of which occurred in the last three years.
The newly added incidents reveal the geographic and political dimensions of water-related violence in an era of social turmoil and ecological upheaval.

Arizona commanded the contemporary 20th century rules of the development game, and reached the pinnacle of its lifestyle appeal and economic influence in the first decades of the 21st.
The question now, as it has been since 1911 when the first big reservoir was completed to supply Phoenix with water, is one of longevity. Can this desert bounty be sustained for another 100 years, or even another 50? That question is more urgent and more relevant than ever. Climatologists project the worst is yet to come and the river could lose 3 million more acre-feet from its flow by mid-century, or another 20 to 30 percent. If that occurs, water supplies for Phoenix and Tucson would be substantially cut.
A dress rehearsal for contending with serious water shortage is in process for 1 million residents who don’t live in Arizona’s two big metro regions. During a month of frontline reporting in Arizona, Circle of Blue encountered unmistakable signals of extreme water stress. Drought and extreme heat are emptying rivers and reservoirs, fallowing tens of thousands of acres of farmland, forcing thousands of homeowners to secure water from trucks and not their dead wells, and pushing Arizona ever closer to the precipice of peril.

What’s Up With Water — March 15, 2022
For the news you need to start the week, tune into “What’s Up With Water” fresh on Monday’s on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, and SoundCloud.

Featured coverage from this week's episode of What's Up With Water looks at:

Islamic State Occupation Wrecks Iraq Environment and Infrastructure

In 2017, the extent of the damage in northern Iraq, where fighting against Islamic State was most intense, was just beginning to be appraised. A preliminary assessment by the United Nations Environment Program revealed a swath of ecological devastation around Mosul, which the Iraqi Army retook from Islamic State in early July.
Through field surveys and interviews with Iraqi government officials, UN agency staff, local academics, and oil company employees, UNEP found a region whose refineries, power stations, pharmaceutical manufacturing complex, canals, dams, and mines have been bombed, sabotaged, or punctured, resulting in a toxic flow onto lands and waters.
UNEP listed a half dozen instances in which water infrastructure was reportedly the target of attack or used as a weapon.
The use of such tactics is not limited to Iraq. Peter Gleick is president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, which oversees the Water Conflict Chronology, a catalogue of conflicts over water or incidents in which water systems were targets of war. He told Circle of Blue that the database continues to grow.