Beyond Conflict, Water Stress Contributed to Europe’s Migration Crisis

Conflict in the Middle East and Africa is driving a human tsunami that has sent 500,000 people into Europe this year in the worst migration crisis since World War II.  The four-year-old civil war in Syria has been the single biggest driver of the surge: more than 4 million have fled the conflict, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).  Syrians made up a third of those crossing the Mediterranean in the first six months of 2015, the largest group by country of origin, followed by Afghans and Eritreans.

Beyond conflict, there is another contributing factor:  water scarcity.

A well-documented path can connect water scarcity to food insecurity, social instability and potentially violent conflict.  As climate change amplifies scarcity worries, more secure water supplies could help the lives of millions in conflict zones.

Hot spot - Syria
Drought and water shortages in Syria likely contributed to the unrest that stoked the country’s 2011 civil war.  Dwindling water resources and chronic mismanagement forced 1.5 million people, primarily farmers and herders, to lose their livelihoods and leave their land.

Those farmers moved to urban areas and magnified Syria’s general destabilization.  This map from World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas illustrates high water stress across Syria and its neighbors today.

These unstable conditions will likely deteriorate in the coming decades.  This map projects high water stress across Syria and its neighbors in 2040.

Syria is projected to be among the 11 most water-stressed countries in the world by 2040.  And it’s far from alone in the region.  Fourteen of the 33 likely most water-stressed countries in 2040 are in the Middle East. Water stress is an underlying conflict multiplier that will not go away.

Read more at Beyond Conflict, Water Stress Contributed to Europe’s Migration Crisis