The Geopolitical Impact of water scarcity

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Part 2 of The strategic importance of water – an irreplaceable and un-substitutable resource with Stephen Armstrong and Bryan Karney

For centuries, wars have been fought over resources. The need for land, oil, trade routes and other commodities have all led to deadly conflicts throughout history. But soon we could be seeing more fighting over arguably the most precious resource of all - water. Now to set the stage 97% of earths water is salt and 3% is freshwater. 97% of the fresh water is frozen in ice caps and glaciers so a fraction of a fraction is accessible. As the effects of climate change get worse, and the planet gets hotter and drier, the fight for water is only going to intensify. So - where could we see water wars? And how likely are they to actually happen?

Bryan Karney Bio:

Bryan Karney is a professor of Civil engineering at the UofT and he is phased retirement after holding the position of Vice Dean Multidisciplinary Programmes in the faculty of applied science and engineering. Professor Karney’s research interests reside in the design, analysis, operation and optimization of various water resource and energy systems. He specializes in the design and analysis of water distribution systems, with interests in infrastructure renewal, transient and water hammer analysis and system optimization. Professor Karney also studies the implication of climate change to system design and performance, and particularly energy use. He is a Professional Engineer in Ontario and holds a BASc, MEng and PhD in Civil Engineering from UBC.