Water conflicts and social resource scarcity

Countering the widely held opinion that water scarcity entails prime risks of international conflicts over shared water resources, it is argued that t he risk of conflicts within countries in fact is larger, and that the risk of international conflict is derived from the necessity to avoid what is de fined as second-order conflicts within countries, caused not by water scarc ity itself, but by the institutional change required to adapt to water scar city. To illustrate this, the most pernicious effect of social resource sca rcity, a new Social Resource Water Stress/Scarcity Index (SWSI) is develope d, built on a combination of traditional hydrological indices and the UNDP Human Development Index as the most readily available proxy for social adap tive capacity. Calculations are made for 159 countries, 1995 and with proje ctions to 2025. The study demonstrates that the index captures the social i mpacts of water scarcity more accurately than earlier indices. (C) 2000 Els evier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.