Is lack of water an indirect cause of violence and poverty?

One does not have to be a psychologist to realize that too much sun/heat and too little water make body & mind dull, sluggish, inert and that people in such a state eventually resort to violence or fall into poverty. And its no secret that nations in more temperate climates have a higher standard of living.

I've always wondered why the cause of poverty and violence is ascribed to all kinds of things but rarely to this. The correlation is not that difficult to see. Anywhere in the world where war and poverty are ongoing there seems to be too much much heat and too little water. The most troubled spots on earth - The Middle East and Africa - are arid.

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Even the Wikipedia-entry on Water contains some interesting hints at the connection:

There is a clear correlation between access to safe water and GDP per capita

Civilization has historically flourished around rivers and major waterways;

In places such as North Africa and the Middle East, where water is more scarce, access to clean drinking water was and is a major factor in human development.

If water is indeed one of the big solutions for violence and poverty, what is keeping us from supplying arid places with it? What is keeping those places from recognizing it as their prime goal?

2006 United Nations report stated that "there is enough water for everyone", but that access to it is hampered by mismanagement and corruption.[38]

Can this be true? What type of mismanagement? By whom? Do we not have an abundance of water raining down on us every day? WHO and WHAT is keeping the world from having an abundance of water?

If water is one of the major factors, why not stop sending Billions of Dollars and instead invest in Water Sources, Desalination, etc.?

The wikipedia article, like many other sources, contradicts itself in saying, on the one hand:

Access to safe drinking water has improved steadily and substantially over the last decades in almost every part of the world

But on the other hand:

in the next 20 years, the quantity of water available to everyone is predicted to decrease by 30 percent.

So on the one hand its improving but on the other hand there is a scarcity?

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Can someone help clarify this riddle? Because something is not adding up for me.

1. It is fairly well known (but underreported) that more water will benefit countries stricken by violence and poverty.

2. We have enough water and much of it is entirely free

3. Not everyone gets water.

What am I missing?

Can someone help clarify this riddle? Because something is not adding up for me.

1. It is fairly well known (but underreported) that more water will benefit countries stricken by violence and poverty.

2. We have enough water and much of it is entirely free

3. Not everyone gets water.

What am I missing?

It is true that water will benefit the nations stricken by povert and violence as it will bring internal peace. More than half of all the conflicts inside a country are due to issues related to sharing water for farming and drinking purposes. Trust me, I have seen all that happen here. Especially during the summer when the heat evaporates all the surface wells, lakes and ponds.

It is not always that there is enough water. It is whether the water is potable that matters. Sometimes the extreme heat creates lack of water and sometimes the industries pollute the ground water making it unsafe for drinking purposes. This causes the issue of lack of enough water.

Based on the facts above, you realize that water has to be buyed even for cooking purposes. This creates enormous strain on the poor people.

Hope that the point is clear.

It is lack of access to water which is causing problems. We have the technology to take water from moisture in air ,but the elites are not making it available to all. Think about it ;elites have always taken territory next to water ,and then refused to allow others access to water. In America, things have become so bad the elites now want to outlaw harvesting rainwater. The shortage of water like most everything else is due to greed. Stolen water is sweet to our elites and it is stolen because they have no more right to all the water on the planet than they do to gravity.

[edit on 19-6-2009 by eradown]

reply to post by eradown


Which elites are taking water away? How? Where? When?

I wanted to get to the bottom of this.

Funny how a real-world-issue gets only two replies in 24 hours.

[edit on 20-6-2009 by Skyfloating]

Well it only takes a little reading if you're serious about educating yourself. It's blindingly obvious that large parts of the world are in arid zones.

Getting water from where it is abundant to where it is scarce costs money.

In other regions rivers travel through several countries and often one country upstream will dam or divert a river's flow denying water to a nation downstream. Turkey and Nepal have dammed rivers affecting water supply downstream.

Yes. But is it so glaringly obvious that it is not treated as a major issue anymore?

And is the relation to poverty and violence really obvious? It is my impression that water-lack and especially its psychological and emotional effects are skipped when people discuss the cause of poverty/violence.

reply to post by Skyfloating


Find out which people wrote laws in California and other places banning rainwater harvesting; then you will need to become good friends with one of them. If you are lucky, they will tell you the name of one of those who wants to keep you high and dry. If you tell everyone which yertle the turtle thinks he owns all the h20 in the universe you will probably end up dead.It might be a better idea to demand the government encourage everyone to harvest rainwater and strike down tyrranical laws punishing those who collect rainwater.

reply to post by eradown


The first time I read that its illegal in many states to collect rainwater I could not believe what I was reading.

And I still dont understand why it would be illegal to collect something that falls down for free in abundance.

Pretty outrageous...and good evidence that someone, somewhere wants to keep people locked in scarcity.

But who? And what reason to they give for making rainwater harvest illegal???



[edit on 23-6-2009 by Skyfloating]

reply to post by Skyfloating
It is better not to ask who. The miscreants are seldom punished. Most of the time punishing them is unnecessry. The only thing it is possible to do is strike down their outrageous laws.

The best way to help most of the people on the planet would be to make ecola blue or something similar available to everyone. With the ecola blue no one would worry about scumbags poisoning their water.

reply to post by eradown


I didnt even know what ecola blue is. Had to look it up. Looks pretty good. Thanks

Not indirect at all.

There are so many examples of it even over the last few decades but it isn't something that people like to discuss.

Some examples.

www.globalpolicy.org...

The Arab-Israeli dispute is a conflict about land - and maybe just as crucially the water which flows through that land. The Six-Day War in 1967 arguably had its origins in a water dispute - moves to divert the River Jordan, Israel's main source of drinking water. Years of skirmishes and sabre rattling culminated in all-out war, with Israel quadrupling the territory it controlled and gaining complete control of double the resources of fresh water. A country needs water to survive and develop.

It can be argued quite convincingly that most of the troubles that face Israel/Palestine are due to access to water. The Israeli's have won all battles over it, and as a consequence, the Palestinians have suffered. Which has lead to much violence both by and against them.

In South America.

www.globalpolicy.org...

The melting of glaciers resulting from climate change and the lack of adequate water management policies seem to be the main causes behind the water shortages that are fuelling conflicts in Peru. This warning is being sounded from a variety of sectors. Nearly 50 percent of the 218 social conflicts recorded by the national ombudsman's office as of February 2009 were triggered by socio-environmental problems, many of them related to water management issues

For more, check out this link. It has a plethora of articles on the water issue amalgamated from all over the globe.

www.globalpolicy.org...

All over the world, from South America to Asia, water is and will be a major factor in how populations interact with each other, whether in an international fashion or a more locally.

I haven't even touched on the issue of privatization of water into a commodity and not a public right. Large Mutlinationals have been buying up the water resources of mainly third world countries for several decades. It is usually a condition attached to a loan from the IMF or World Bank to countries like South Africa, Bolivia, El Salvador, Indonesia, The Phillipines, etc... that they have to sell off their water to guarantee the much needed loans.

When a foreign company comes in and cuts off water to impoverished neighbourhoods and states, I think the consequence is an easy one to figure out. Crime rates soaring, violence, a myriad of health issues amongst other things are the natural outcomes of such policies.

The whole issue of water is something that gets so often overlooked as a major contributing factor to a lot of the worlds ills. When you turn a basic human right into a commodity, the only outcomes are violence and poverty.

Thanks for the post and the informative links. Im still learning about all this myself.

So lets summarize:

Not only does it cause instability indirectly because of the psychological effects of dehydration, it also causes conflict and war directly and quite obviously.

There are millions of reports on "the causes of problems", including culture, race, religion, money, politics...but a much more basic cause is very underreported. .

I can see how in Palestine, for example, lack of water may pose are more serious issue than Israel or the Hamas. Even though those may be responsible for the lack of water, maybe it would be helpful to shift focus from those to getting water-self-sufficiency into Gaza...if even only for the purpose to ease tension and anger within the population. Hydrated people are not as likely to cause trouble.

Im also aware that, despite having won a lot of water, Israel still faces water problems. The entire region does.