Water scarcity will cause more conflicts than oil ever did

What's this about?

People disagree about whether water shortages will cause more fights than oil has caused in the past.

What supporters say

• People need water to drink, grow food, make goods, and keep nature alive.
• Dry spells can cut food crops and make poor areas even harder to live in.
• Water stress can make old problems worse, such as poverty, moves, and weak leaders.
• More local fights may happen over rivers, wells, farms, and water from town pipes.

What critics say

• A lack of water does not cause war by itself.
• Group anger, unfair rules, poor jobs, and weak leaders often shape whether fights begin.
• People and places can also work together to share water during dry times.
• We cannot know if water will cause more fights than oil caused over all of history.

The bottom line

Water shortages will likely add stress and may raise the chance of local fights. But the facts do not show that water will cause more conflicts than oil did.

Water scarcity is likely to become a more serious source of tension as climate change, poverty and weak governance put pressure on communities. But the evidence does not show that it will cause more conflicts than oil has caused over history.

The case for

Water matters in almost every part of daily life: households, farming, industry and ecosystems all depend on it. Unlike oil, which is concentrated in particular regions, water shortages can affect large populations across many places at once. That broad dependence creates many possible flashpoints, particularly over local supplies needed for drinking, irrigation and livelihoods.

Research suggests that water stress can make existing instability worse rather than create it from nothing. Droughts and changing rainfall can cut farm output, slow economic growth and increase competition over scarce resources. In places already dealing with poverty, migration, weak government or political tensions, those pressures may raise the risk of violence or unrest. 1

Climate change could widen that exposure. Expected shifts in precipitation, drought risk and water availability may leave more communities facing water stress, especially where people have few resources to adapt. 3 A range of studies and event records document water-related disputes, alongside cooperation, and show that scarcity can affect conflict in ways that depend heavily on local circumstances.

The strongest version of the argument is therefore not necessarily that water will bring more wars between countries. It is that its central role in everyday life could produce a growing number of localized disputes—over farms, rivers, wells and access to public services—even if interstate warfare does not rise on the same scale (see Figure 1). 2

The case against

The main problem is that water scarcity does not automatically cause war. Political institutions, economic conditions, inequality and relations between groups often determine whether a shortage turns into confrontation, negotiation or cooperation. Studies of rivers and other shared freshwater resources find many examples of countries and communities working together, not simply fighting over dwindling supplies. 4

Research on climate and conflict reaches a similarly cautious conclusion. Climate pressures can influence the risk of violence, but factors such as poor governance, poverty and political exclusion usually matter more. Water-focused scholarship also warns against treating climate-driven scarcity as a direct explanation for violence when the real causes may include discrimination, failed institutions or long-running political disputes. 5

The comparison with oil is also harder than the claim suggests. Oil has already been connected to major conflict risks in some settings, including rent-seeking, repression, authoritarian rule, rebellion and armed conflict. Those effects depend on the political system and on where and how petroleum wealth is controlled, but they make oil’s historical record far from trivial. 6

At the same time, oil is not a guaranteed cause of conflict either. Petroleum revenues can sometimes strengthen governments and reduce certain forms of violence. This similarity matters: neither water nor oil has one fixed effect. Both can fuel conflict under certain conditions and support stability or cooperation under others. 7

A further obstacle is measurement. There is no common, validated system that counts conflicts caused by water and oil using the same definitions, standards of proof and time periods. Water databases include both conflict and cooperation, while armed-conflict data do not consistently identify whether water or oil was a cause. Whether the claim appears true can also depend on what “conflict” means: local disputes may tell a different story from civil wars or wars between states (see Figure 2).

The bottom line

Water scarcity is a credible and potentially growing contributor to conflict risk, particularly where climate shocks meet weak institutions, poverty and political tension. There is high confidence that its effects are conditional and strongly shaped by governance.

But there is not high-confidence evidence for the stronger claim that water will cause more conflicts than oil ever did. The available research identifies plausible pathways and documented water-related disputes, not a comparable historical and future count that can settle the water-versus-oil question. Much will depend on whether governments and communities use agreements, shared management and other cooperative institutions to turn water pressure into negotiation rather than escalation.