GIS MAP, SHORT HANDBOOK AND ATLAS OF INTERNATIONAL HYDROPOLITICS: 100+ cases across 12 themes
Twelve themes, twelve ways of reading the geopolitics of water we don't see — with 102 geolocated cases. At the close, a map that stays at your disposal.
Human Right to Water
Recognised by the UN in 2010 (Resolution 64/292): access to water is “essential for the realisation of all human rights”. Whether it should be a universal right, a public service, or a commodity remains under debate.
Lyon, France
Re-municipalisation of urban water services.
📍 see the pinSantiago, Chile
Aguas Andinas/Alto Maipo: the new constitution shelves privatisation.
📍 see the pinEl Salvador and Costa Rica
Models for a shift toward public management of the resource.
📍 see the pinEngland and Wales
The cautionary tale: privatisation, cholera, sewage discharges into rivers.
📍 see the pinVirtual Water
“More water arrives in the Middle East as grain than flows down the Nile in a year” (Tony Allan, 1993). Virtual water is the volume of fresh water used to produce a good: it is no longer in the product, but it was there throughout the supply chain.
Egypt
85% of wheat from Russia and Ukraine: the war as a virtual-water crisis.
📍 see the pinCalifornia, USA
In 2014 discovers it is outsourcing its own water footprint.
📍 see the pinPeru → United Kingdom
Asparagus irrigated by a vulnerable aquifer.
📍 see the pinArizona, USA
Data centres: 80% of cooling water evaporates.
📍 see the pinWater & Land Grabbing
Powerful actors — public or private — take control of valuable water resources, stripping them away from local communities. Between 2000 and 2012: around 203 million hectares acquired or leased, equivalent to north-western Europe.
Gabon, DR Congo, Sudan
The countries hit hardest by volumes taken per capita.
📍 see the pinGhana, Mozambique, Senegal…
The countries most targeted by land grabbing.
📍 see the pinRomania, Bulgaria, Hungary
Land grabbing also reaches the “European countryside”.
📍 see the pinPermian Basin, USA
Shale oil/gas with extremely high water consumption.
📍 see the pinClimate
Water is the first sentinel of climate change. Beware of environmental determinism: it is not scarcity itself that causes migration, but a society's “Social Adaptive Capacity” to adapt.
Cape Town, 2018
“Day Zero”: the extreme rationing of the urban water crisis.
📍 see the pinCyprus
No perennial rivers: dams, desalination, reuse in Limassol.
📍 see the pinItalian Alps vs Po Valley
The same water, different uses, growing tensions.
📍 see the pinArabian Peninsula
11 out of 12 countries rely on groundwater.
📍 see the pinConflicts
The Pacific Institute distinguishes three categories: water as a trigger, as a weapon, as a casualty. But Aaron Wolf shows that, over the last 1,800 years, water cooperation has far outweighed acute conflict.
GERD, Ethiopia
The textbook case of hydro-hegemony on the Blue Nile.
📍 see the pinIndus Waters Treaty
Suspended in 2025 after surviving three wars since 1960.
📍 see the pinLake Chad
Boko Haram and ISWAP: water as a weapon of power.
📍 see the pinUkraine, Syria, Iraq
Water infrastructure as a target of war.
📍 see the pinIsrael
Uses water infrastructure as a target of military action.
📍 see the pinGlobal Governance
On 22 March 2023 in New York, the first UN Water Conference in 49 years. Two messages still unresolved: the human right to water remains unfulfilled, and water is still not on the climate agenda.
New York, 2023
UN Water Conference: “Cooperation and Partnership for Water”.
📍 see the pin1977 — Mar del Plata, Argentina
The last UN water conference before 2023.
📍 see the pinDanube Basin
19 states, multi-level governance around priority areas.
📍 see the pinIndia–Nepal–Bhutan
A decades-long hydro-diplomatic balance.
📍 see the pinWEFE Nexus
Water-Energy-Food-Ecosystem Nexus: water, energy, food and ecosystems are deeply interdependent. Every management choice in one sector has effects on the other three — none can truly be governed in isolation.
Egypt
Water, food and energy security bound to dependence on imported wheat.
📍 see the pinOkavango Delta
From sharing water volumes to sharing ecosystem benefits.
📍 see the pinIndia–Nepal–Bhutan
Dams, energy and food security shared between upstream and downstream states.
📍 see the pinTrentino vs Veneto
Hydropower vs irrigation: energy and food competing for the same water.
📍 see the pinRome — Lake Bracciano
Drinking water for the city vs the lake's ecosystem balance.
📍 see the pinWater Decoupling
Virtual water, desalination, recycled water: three tools for decoupling a territory's water security from its physical availability of fresh water — with benefits, but also energy costs and limits that shouldn't be ignored.
Singapore
No surface resources: desalinates and recycles all the water it needs.
📍 see the pinSaudi Arabia
From desert to agricultural exports, thanks to desalination at scale.
📍 see the pinLimassol, Cyprus
A dual water network, drinking water and treated wastewater, for agriculture.
📍 see the pinPalermo, Sicily
Water crisis: insufficient solidarity between dams, no emergency desalination network.
📍 see the pinHydro-hegemony, Peace and Cooperation
A state can exert power over other riparian states — economic, military, geographic, soft power — to capture more benefits from a shared basin. But history shows that water cooperation far outweighs acute conflict.
GERD, Ethiopia
The textbook case of hydro-hegemony on the Blue Nile.
📍 see the pinDanube Basin
19 states, a model of multi-level cooperation.
📍 see the pinSahara Aquifer
Libya, Algeria, Tunisia: joint management as a foundation for peace.
📍 see the pinInvisible Water
Most of the water we depend on can't be seen: it's underground, in the ice, hidden in the food we eat (75% of withdrawals are agricultural). What's more, 99% of the planet's liquid fresh water is underground.
Horn of Africa
Groundwater monitored as real insurance against climate change.
📍 see the pinArizona, USA
Data centres: the invisible water of artificial intelligence.
📍 see the pinGoogle, Mountain View
6.4 billion gallons of water in 2023, 95% for data centres (official report).
📍 see the pinMeta, Menlo Park
813 million gallons of water in 2023, 95% for data centres (official report).
📍 see the pinCalifornia, USA
In 2014 discovers it depends more on blue water than green water, without knowing it.
📍 see the pinItaly
World's tenth-largest exporter of water from vulnerable aquifers.
📍 see the pinFuture Challenges for International Water Policy
Fresh water, salt water, water vapour, green water: the next generation of water policy will need to reckon with the entire water cycle, not just rivers and lakes. For every degree of warming, the atmosphere holds around 7% more water vapour (Clausius-Clapeyron): rain concentrates into “water bombs” instead of falling steadily.
Brussels — Copernicus
The hydro-climatic paradox: hotter, more vapour, less predictable rain.
📍 see the pinItalian Alps
Snowfall down 34% since 1920: “solid” fresh water thinning away.
📍 see the pinItaly
Extreme events on the rise: the challenge of governing “excess” water.
📍 see the pinNew York, 2023
Water still off the global climate agenda: the open political challenge.
📍 see the pinEnvironmental Migration
Beware of environmental determinism: it is not scarcity itself that causes migration, but a society's capacity — social, economic, political — to adapt. These are cases where the water-migration link is documented by academic literature or by leading journalistic sources.
Bangladesh
Coastal salinisation and internal migration toward aquaculture (Nature Climate Change, 2018).
📍 see the pinSyria
2006-2010 drought and rural-urban migration (PNAS 2015; debated in Political Geography 2017).
📍 see the pinTuvalu
The 2023 Falepili Union Treaty: the world's first structured climate-migration pathway.
📍 see the pinDry Corridor, Central America
Recurring droughts and migration toward the US (BBC News; Climatic Change 2022).
📍 see the pinHorn of Africa
1.7 million displaced by the worst drought in 40 years (World Weather Attribution, 2023).
📍 see the pinShort Handbook of International Water Policy
A resource at your disposal, with 102 cases always available to browse.
francescagreco.eu → the interactive atlas