THE TROUBLING RISE IN WATER VIOLENCE – AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER GLEICK

by Brett Walton, Circle of Blue
November 10, 2026

For the average person in a war zone – in Kyiv, say, or Khan Younis or Khartoum – daily life is more dangerous than in conflicts past.

Your water supply could be cut. Or an exploded dam could flood your uncle’s place in the countryside. Not to mention being killed in a drone attack while at the hospital.

“Conflict is now characterized by less restraint and increasing violence targeting civilians,” write Andrea Carboni and Ciro Murillo of ACLED, a group that tracks violent conflict. “Armed actors around the globe are more willing to use force and blatantly disregard any consequences.”

That disturbing trend is reflected in water-related conflict, said Peter Gleick, author of When the Well Is Dry, a new book on water, violence, and peace.

“The data show a depressing, very significant increase in violence in recent years,” Gleick said.

Russia’s war against Ukraine, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, and the civil war in Sudan have contributed to a rising number of incidents in which water systems are targets or weapons of war.

Gleick, the co-founder and president emeritus of the Pacific Institute, a research group, said that international humanitarian laws written in the wake of the second world war were designed to protect civilian infrastructure, such as drinking water and sanitation systems, from attack. Those laws are being ignored.

“In recent years we've seen more and more disregard of those international laws of war,” Gleick said. “They're relatively weak, and enforcement is relatively weak.”

https://youtu.be/LNwF89OLf2A?si=ASrdmLN0XdPpn1gG

In When the Well Is Dry, Gleick traces the shifting patterns of conflict and violence over water. Natural resources have always been a source of tension. But norms about what targets are off limits are eroding. And climate change is upping the ante, with higher temperatures and more extreme droughts increasing competition for water.

The book, Gleick said, is not intended to be only a catalog of woe. Water is as much a facilitator of cooperation as it is conflict.

Gleick’s goal is to illuminate a path toward resolution – “how to take water out of the conflict equation and perhaps use water and water resources more for cooperation and peace.”

That means not only providing safe drinking water and enforcing international law. It also means bringing people together.

“When there is a shared understanding of the importance of water for human health, for ecosystem health, there is more of a willingness to negotiate agreements over water resources.”

This article first appeared on Circle of Blue and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.