Stresses on water supplies aggravated by climate change are likely to cause more conflicts and water should be considered as vital to national security as defense, the United Nations report said on Friday. About 145 nations share river basins with their neighbors and need to promote cooperation over a resource likely to be disrupted by more frequent floods and heatwaves, it said. "In the past few decades, definitions of security have moved beyond a limited focus on military risks and conflicts," Michel Jarraud, chair of U.N. work on water and head of the World Meteorological Organization, said in the report. About 185,000 Somalis fled to neighboring nations in 2011, driven largely by water and food shortages linked to drought, while in South Sudan, entire communities were forced … [Continue reading...]
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