Water Fight

The Songhua river in northeastern China doesn't have the history of the Mekong, the spirituality of the Ganges or the sheer power of the Yangtze. But in November 2005, this 1,200-mile (2,000 km) waterway made headlines when a chemical plant in the Chinese city of Jilin spilled massive amounts of the toxic chemical benzene, creating a 50-mile (80 km) noxious slick. The chemicals oozed toward the sea, and Chinese cities that drank from the Songhua were forced to cut off supplies, leaving millions to fend for themselves. As the slick passed over the border to the Russian city of Khabarovsk, a problem that began in a single Chinese chemical plant suddenly became an international incident between two powerful nations with a history of bad blood.

The Songhua incident is a reminder that in Asia, a region of the world where water is often scarce and often polluted, managing that indispensable resource is vital. Asia is already the world's driest inhabited continent per capita, and as its population, urbanization and dirty industrialization grow — and global warming dries out the region — clean water will only become more precious. As a just-released report by the Asia Society argues, water will become the key to regional security in the 21st century — and Asia isn't ready. "This is a fundamental resource that we need to survive," says Suzanne DiMaggio, director of the Asia Society's Social Issues Program and the report's director. "The emerging picture on water is very worrisome."

That doesn't mean we should expect Asian nations to immediately start shooting wars over access to the Mekong or the Yalu — though all bets are off if climate change leads to the loss of the Himalayan glaciers whose seasonal melt provides water for billions in Asia. In fact, the history of cross-border water disputes has been surprisingly conciliatory so far. India and Pakistan have fought three wars and currently point nuclear weapons at each other, yet the Indus Waters Treaty — which divvies up the two countries' trans-boundary waterways, overseen by a joint commission — has survived for decades. And even though nations can be quite possessive over water (India and Bangladesh have skirmished repeatedly over the shared Mahananda River), they trade it all the time in other forms like rice and grain that require millions of gallons to grow.

There's no guarantee the current uneasy comity will continue. "We can't use history as our guide for water planning anymore," says Saleem Ali, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center in Qatar and a co-author of the report. Demographic growth — the continent's population is expected to grow by nearly 500 million people over the next 10 years — combined with climate change will likely mean that far more Asians will be tapping shrinking sources of water. Water wouldn't be a sole trigger for war but rather a "threat multiplier" — a factor that worsens the social instability that can lead to conflict. That can happen even inside a country — one of the most violent protests in recent Chinese history occurred in April 2005, when over 30,000 villagers in Zhejiang province clashed with police over water pollution from a local chemical plant.

Fortunately, even a drier, more crowded world should still have enough water to meet its needs, provided the supply is regulated well on both national and international levels. That can include stiffer regulations against industrial pollution (plus policies that ensure dirty water is employed for nonvital uses like landscaping) and more efficient agricultural practices, such as drip irrigation, that would cut down on the enormous amount of water wasted in farming. More rational pricing of water, even in poor nations, can help reduce misuse on the farms and in the cities.

But Asia falls short. Beyond rich nations like Japan and Singapore, which have invested heavily in water quality, water management is still abysmal; according to the U.N., half of the 24 Asian and Australian eco-regions are severely or moderately affected by pollution, and conditions are expected to get worse. Asia lacks the strong regional institutions necessary to promote better water policies across borders and head off potential resource conflicts. "We have to go beyond existing networks," says Ali, who notes that no global treaty is currently in place on water. "What we have now isn't enough."

The hope is that, properly managed, water could actually help knit Asia together. More than any other resource, water must be shared. Rivers don't respect borders, and those downstream are dependent on the good behavior of those upstream — as the residents of Khabarovsk learned in 2005. Asian nations will need to come together on water — or they'll go thirsty alone.