Global Water Wars (Full Episode) | Parched

[VEHICLES HONKING]

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Water work is night work.

That's because every
part of this business

is completely illegal.

The water mafia in Delhi
dig holes, deep holes

into the ground 300
feet below the surface.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[MACHINE WHIRRING]

This water is then pumped
from below the surface

into these large
tankers, which then

chuck this water into the
city in the dead of night.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

The cities grow.

The supply of water is
shrinking much faster

than anyone imagined.

And the story of
Delhi's water mafia

is probably going to be the
story of growing cities all

over the world.

Within the next decade, 2/3 of
the world's population could

face a daily struggle for water.

As populations grow and
drought intensifies,

a resource essential to
life is fueling conflict,

from the Middle East to India to
the embattled rivers of China,

posing a new kind of
threat to global security.

[THEME MUSIC]

[SOMBER MUSIC]

Everyone buys water
from the water mafia--

the rich, the poor,
the middle class.

That's because Delhi
and its surroundings

have about 24 million people,
and anywhere between 30% to 40%

don't have access
to municipal water.

And as the black market water
trade became more organized,

the trucks got
bigger, the people who

were controlling it got richer.

Now the water mafia
behaves in a way

that this water
will last forever.

But as temperatures
continue to rise,

the mafia is finally
going to run out of water.

And that's when we're really
going to have a problem.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

The status of the
world's freshwater supply

today is a crisis as big
as anything out there.

Less than 1% of
the world's water

is accessible for human use.

Populations are going up.

As economies grow and
countries develop,

they use more and more water.

And we're polluting
what there is, making

it less and less accessible.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Water scarcity is
with us here and now.

Warmer temperatures,
less predictable rains

will all combine to make
societies a little less stable.

People generally have three sets
of responses to water scarcity.

They can adapt if they
have the resources.

They can move, or they
can suffer and die.

And if they're moving, this
becomes a security concern

worldwide.

15,000 migrants and refugees
on the Greek Island of Lesbos,

with around a thousand people
a day washing ashore on this

island alone.

Leaving behind them the chaos
and the conflict in Syria,

for many refugees, the
idyllic island of Lesbos

is their first place
of entry to Europe.

Boat after boat after
boat, this island

is overwhelmed by the number
of refugees and migrants

coming on to its shores.

My name is Hiba Dlewati, and I
am a Syrian-American journalist.

I've been following the Syrian
conflict for three years.

What makes following this
refugee crisis so interesting

is that each story has layers.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

The role of drought
and water in the region

is not one that occurs
to you right away,

but it affected everyone.

And no one has really
been talking about it.

No one has been talking about
more than a million people

having to leave their
homes because they

could no longer farm the land
because they had no more water.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

A five-year drought that started
in 2006 destroyed over half

of Syria's most fertile areas.

Waves of farmers
abandoned their fields

and moved to crowded
cities in the north

where anti-government
resistance was already rising.

Estimates have ranged from
800,000 up to 2.5 million

farmers moved to the urban
centers in the north of Syria

and were relegated to the
peripheries of these cities

into what was
really shantytowns.

So you had 18- to 35-year-old
men who were essentially of war

age that were left with no
other options to gain a normal

and decent living.

There's no infrastructure
to absorb them.

They're angry.

They're unemployed.

The price of food is going
up because of water scarcity.

So all of these factors create
a setting for instability.

[SHOTS FIRING]

[CROWD CHANTING]

[SHOTS FIRING]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Civilians get to
the point where they

realize everyone
might drop on them,

or they might simply starve to
death or simply die of thirst.

And there's only one
way, and it's out.

It's to leave.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

This is Hellenic Coast Guard.

You are in Greek
territory waters.

[INAUDIBLE]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

The babies first, the babies.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Now there is a sense of
complete desperation.

Since 2015 alone, I believe more
than a million people, mostly

from Syria and Iraq, have
made their way to Europe,

mostly crossing this
very sea over there.

You can see Turkey.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

The situation has led to
the greatest mass migration

of people into Europe that we've
seen, certainly since World War

II.

International organizations,
such as the United Nations,

are reticent to label people
"environmental refugees."

They prefer the term
"environmental migrants."

And this is because
when you are a refugee

under the international
system, you're

afforded the right to settle
in in their countries.

And so the number of
environmental migrants

by the middle of
the next century

is supposed to be so
large that it's just not

in the capacity of nations
to actually treat them

like refugees.

Drought and water
scarcity are a factor

in areas which
are precisely high

up on our priorities
for security concerns.

That's about half of Africa.

That's a lot of South and
Southeast Asia, certainly

most of the Middle East.

These are the areas
where you really

watch for how scarcity can
drive populations, which

in turn drives
instability, which impacts

a lot of the issues
that we're concerned

about here in the United States.

Migration has been
part of human history.

But migrations
that are triggered

by permanent loss of water
resource in an area, the world

doesn't have much
experience dealing

with migration of this kind.

Lack of groundwater isn't
Syria's only water problem.

Its major rivers, the
Tigris and Euphrates,

are beginning to dry up.

Is this climate change
or other forces at work?

Both the Tigris and Euphrates
rise in Turkey and then flow

through Syria and then to Iraq.

Upstream Turkey is a
number of major dams

on the headwaters of
both of these rivers

that have impacts downstream.

Countries that are
upstream are referred

to technically as
the upper riparians.

And so as the upper
riparian, Turkey's

been sort of ratcheting
back the supply

to the downstream countries,
both of Iraq and Syria.

River systems generally empower
those that are located upstream.

If you're sharing a river
with two or more countries

and you are located furthest
downstream, in a sense,

you are powerless.

The Middle East,
already dry, could soon

be home to half of the world's
most water-stressed countries.

What will it mean
for global security

when water becomes
more valuable than oil?

With severe water
shortages in Yemen

and other countries
in the region,

violent revolution may spread.

[EXPLODES]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[THEME MUSIC]

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Controlling the sources
of water is often

a magnet for insurgents
and for guerrillas.

[SHOT FIRES]

Looking at ISIS's
propaganda, it's

really been part of
their apocalyptic vision

that a flood will
wipe out the infidels.

So they've seen water
as a medium of war,

as a medium of violence.

And they've taken
this all the way up

from the theoretical and
theological level all the way

down to the village level
where they've used water

as a tactic against enemies.

When ISIS began its campaign
of violence in 2013,

the towns and cities it targeted
were all linked by one thing.

ISIS is unique in the
sense that it sought

to actually create a state.

And the areas it
sought to control first

were the areas along the two
major rivers of Syria and Iraq,

the Euphrates and the Tigris.

ISIS, in other
words, has positioned

itself to be able to
use water as a weapon.

ISIS was one of the first
groups to use this tactic that's

been called hydro-terrorism.

So not only have they physically
cut control off of water,

they've also been able to use
just the very threat of seizing

control of water as
a psychological tool.

Many of these areas
relied on wells.

They relied on gas being sent so
they could pump their water out

of the ground.

And to punish them
for being rebels--

or as ISIS calls
them, infidels--

they have cut off fuel and
thus have not allowed people

to access the water they
need to drink, to wash,

to grow agriculture.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

In towns and villages
that they've occupied,

ISIS has been able to
form what might even

be considered a water mafia.

They've levied high charges
for the use of water.

And they've been able to
use those funds to build up

their military capacity.

[EXPLODES]

In the summer of
2014, ISIS forces

seized control of the Mosul Dam.

In Iraq.

ISIS militants captured
the Mosul Dam Sunday

to allow ISIS to use water as
a weapon to flood major cities

or control its supply to
hundreds of thousands of people.

[PEOPLE EXCLAIMING]

The Mosul Dam is a few hundred
miles north of Baghdad.

So the idea that ISIS seized
the Mosul Dam was very important

because if the
dam were breached,

a wall of water,
perhaps 70 feet high,

could have made its way all
the way down the Tigris river

to the Green Zone
and actually wiped

out the American and allied
forces that were down there.

[EXPLODES]

[BRISK MUSIC]

Today, with our support,
Iraqi and Kurdish forces

took a major step forward by
recapturing the largest dam

in Iraq near the city of Mosul.

If that dam was breached, it
could have proven catastrophic,

with floods that
would have threatened

the lives of
thousands of civilians

and endanger our embassy
compound in Baghdad.

Until recently,
water has been seen

as what's known as a soft
security or a human security

issue.

But the defense
community has begun

to understand how
environmental stressors can

lead to societal
disruption in countries

that are important to
national security interests.

In the face of drought,
a population explosion,

and the constant threat of
war, solving the water crisis

in the Middle East could take
nothing short of a miracle.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[WATER SPLASHES]

Between the desert
and the Mediterranean,

one country in the Middle East
seems to have plenty of water.

But only a few years ago, Israel
was facing the worst drought

in its history.

Right now, Israel's water supply
is in danger of drying up.

Severe drought is
threatening everything

we worked so hard to achieve.

The drought was terrible.

We reached-- in 2009 in Israel
was really in a terrible crisis.

When I was nominated for the
head of the Water Authority,

I never think that I'll have
to face this kind of crisis.

But I realized after
a very short time

that practically,
there is no water.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

There was a famous
commercial in Israel.

You could see the
face of a nice woman,

or a very famous actor,
or a basketball player.

And through talking to you,
their faces were cracked.

Everybody immediately was aware
that there is a serious problem,

and the water consumption
decreased by 20% immediately.

A massive investment
in water recycling

enabled the country to reuse
up to 85% of its wastewater,

but drinking water was
still in short supply.

The state of Israel understood
that we cannot develop

the country as we would like
to without having a reliable

resource of stable water
available for all the people

in Israel.

The real leap forward has been
in desalination technology,

vastly improving
Israel's ability

to turn salty water into
fresh drinking water.

Israel decided to
move into desalination

for a lot of reasons, not least
of which were the politics

of being an isolated country.

As a political and
strategic move,

they decided to invest
heavily in desalination.

And it absolutely changed
the game in Israel.

High-pressure pumps force
seawater through ultra fine

membranes, filtering
out the salt.

The purified water then flows
into the national water system.

Out of drinking supply of
around 1 billion cubic meters

per year in Israel,
around 60% comes

from the desalination plants.

So it's a revolution.

We're the number one recycler
of wastewater in the world.

We have desalinization.

Israel has no water problems.

Desalinization is deeply
dependent on the cost of energy.

And so you can only use
it when the water is

going to drink in water, when
that population is on the coast

and when there's
no other options.

Right now, desalinated water
can be three or four times more

expensive than
conventional water.

And it produces residues,
which are toxic and have

to be disposed of in an
environmentally safe manner.

But if desalination becomes
cost-effective eventually,

it will fundamentally change
the geopolitics of water.

It will turn the geopolitics
of water on its head.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

As an engineer,
I believe that we

need to bring some
value to our planet.

And we are in the
middle of an arid area.

You don't have water, which
is essential for life.

Supplying water is
like creating life.

Israel's revolution has
transformed life in the country.

But this water miracle
in the Holy Land

also has a darker side.

[THEME MUSIC]

[SOMBER MUSIC]

Since 1967, the West Bank
has been under military law

by Israel.

And the water resources
of the West Bank

are under the same
military occupation

as the rest of the resources.

Access to drinking water,
treatment of sewage,

all of these things
are much more

difficult within
Palestinian territories

than they are within Israel.

30% of the Palestinians receive
water less than three hours

a week.

Our houses are connected,
but no water in the pipes.

Chronic water
shortages plague most

of the 2.8 million
Palestinians in the West Bank.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

Hundreds of thousands
live without access

to any water infrastructure.

And some villages
and some cities,

they purchase water by tankers.

And this is very expensive
and, quality-wise, very bad.

[ENGINE ROARING]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

The West Bank is actually
surrounded by water.

The Jordan River flows
along its eastern border,

and the territory sits atop
the region's biggest aquifers.

Under Israeli
occupation, Palestinians

are barred from
accessing the river

and from tapping into
the water underground.

To make up for the
shortage, most Palestinians

have no choice but to buy water
from the Israeli national water

company, Mekorot.

Mekorot is the Israeli national
company that distributes water.

They control a set of
wells in the West Bank.

So people are now paying
one third of their income

to purchase water from Mekorot.

So Mekorot basically is
selling our water back to us.

The flow of hydrology makes the
politics really complicated.

The aquifers that
Israel relies on

for a third of
their water supply

originate within the West Bank.

Palestinians upstream
see that the aquifers

are within the West Bank.

They argue that that's
Palestinian water.

The water flows into
Israeli territory.

And Israel has been tapping
that water since the 1950s,

and they see that they
have rights to the water

as a consequence.

If you will allow
the Palestinians

to do what they
would like to do,

they will dry up
completely the aquifer.

We have to keep the water
under national authorities.

This is a big problem.

Who owns the water?

In the reality, who controls
the water is Israel.

We do not have access to our
resources in the West Bank.

We do not control the
water underneath our feet.

In 1995, a follow-up to
the historic Oslo Accords

between the Israelis
and Palestinians

allocated 80% of
groundwater to Israel.

The agreement was supposed
to last five years.

But 20 years later, the
Palestinian population

has boomed, while many say
their share of the water

remains virtually the same.

The taps in the homes of Arab
villagers in the West Bank,

they run dry most of the time.

As they complain, Israel doesn't
satisfy even their minimum water

needs.

Most of the cities
in Palestine, they

store water on their roofs
to have water in their houses

because the regular
water is not running.

And this is what we
call black forest

because if you look to
the Palestinian roofs,

it's full with
black storage tanks.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[SOMBER MUSIC]

[PUMP RUNNING]

Israel encourages its citizens
to move to settlements

in the West Bank,
in part by ensuring

that water flows more freely
in these exclusive compounds.

So all the settlements
in the West Bank

are connected to
our systems, yes,

and receive water
from the cohort.

They receive water from
other local sources too,

but the main supply
comes from us.

[BOUNCY MUSIC]

The Israeli government
has supported

the construction of
over 120 settlements

across the West Bank.

Some studies claim that
the 380,000 Israelis living

in the settlements consume up to
four times the amount of water

as the West Bank's
Palestinian population.

With the settlement,
this is what's

making our life miserable.

Settlements are taking almost of
their water from our aquifers,

from the wells that
drilled in the West Bank.

[SOMBER MUSIC]

A lot of the world sees
the settlements as illegal.

And from the
Palestinian perspective,

they're not just illegal.

They're immoral.

But the point is obvious.

It's just to force
people to leave the land

because when you don't
have water, people leave.

[ENGINE RUNNING]

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[ROOSTER CROWS]

[GENTLE MUSIC]

This is the daily
sufferings of people that

don't have a source of water.

They rely on tanks,
heavy price of water,

and water is not
available all the time.

Wherever there is water, there
is people, there is life,

there is prosperity.

Wherever you don't have
water, there is desert,

and there is no life.

[NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]

[ENGINE ROARS]

Water conflict has wracked the
region since Israel's founding.

But half a continent away,
a far larger water war

is threatening to erupt.

[THEME MUSIC]

Israel always has
been very conscious

of its water resources.

Out of the 38 cases of actual
violence worldwide since World

War II around shared
waters, 27 of these

were between Israelis and Arabs.

For us, the water was part of
the fulfillment of the Zionist

dream.

The ambition to bring
all the Jewish people

here needs a lot of water.

Water has fueled tensions
with Israel's Arab neighbors

since the country's
foundation, culminating

in the six-day war of 1967.

The Syrian ceasefire, and
for all practical purposes,

ends the war.

And it is safe to say that
things will never again

be the same in the Middle East.

At the war's end, Israel
had acquired land,

but the real prize
was under the surface.

The six-day war had a
lot of other causes.

But having said that,
at the end of the war,

Israel now gained,
with the Golan Heights,

the headwaters of
the Jordan Basin.

With the West Bank, they gained
the aquifers on which they had

been defending since the 1950s.

And so their, what we call,
hydro-strategic positioning

was made infinitely better by
the territory gained in the war.

Ariel Sharon said that the
six-day war was as much

about water as about land.

In one stroke, Israel
went from being

dependent on transboundary
water inflows

to being the transboundary water
controller of its subregion.

So that war was a
water war of a kind

that we have rarely
seen in modern times.

Some Israelis claim that control
over the West Bank's aquifers

is critical to preventing
Palestinian overdrilling.

The problem of drilling
wells in the West Bank,

if Israel loses its
control on the aquifer,

if its water level
drops a few meters,

we have a penetration of
seawater into the aquifer.

And then we all lose it.

And that's it.

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

The dangers of
overpumping the aquifer

are already evident just 30
miles from the West Bank,

in the other isolated
Palestinian territory of Gaza.

In 2005, Israel withdrew
from the Gaza Strip,

ceding control of the
coastal aquifer underneath.

And I remember in Gaza, When.

We told them, be careful because
if you allow unlawful wells,

they will dry the aquifer.

Today, more than 6,000 wells,
no more aquifer water in Gaza.

There is a huge crisis in Gaza
because in Gaza, our water

is polluted, our water
isn't fit for human use.

And if we don't
do anything, if we

don't address the
situation in Gaza by 2020,

damage is irreversible.

[UNSETTLING MUSIC]

Israel's new water surplus could
either foster hydro diplomacy

or simply strengthen
its position of power.

Maybe 10 or 20
years ago, I would

say that war is a
conflict, and we

have to preserve
our water sources,

and we have to keep it
safe for us, only for us.

We actually produce more
than we consume now,

so we can give water or
sell water to our neighbors.

Three years ago,
Israel announced,

we don't have anymore
a water crisis.

So I spoke to them and said, OK.

Congratulations.

You don't have any water crisis.

Would you please give
us back our water?

[CROWD CLAMORING]

The Palestinian people will
not keep silent forever.

If the Israelis continue
their unwise policy,

they will pay a very high
price, that is more violence.

The conflict here
is a warning of what

can happen when one population
controls the water of another.

But what happens
when a single nation

tries to control the water
supply of an entire continent?

[RHYTHMIC MUSIC]

The Brahmaputra in
Northeastern India

is the world's highest river.

Flowing south through
the Himalayas from China,

it crosses one of the most
heavily militarized borders

in the world.

For years, tension has mounted
between Asia's two titans

for what many in India see as
China's unstoppable thirst.

Northeast China is experiencing
its worst drought in 63 years.

The great Chinese
drought is continuing,

and there's no end in sight.

China is dealing
with a water crisis

at a number of different levels.

In the North China
Plain, they've

overpumped agricultural areas
like in a lot of the world.

And as a response
to this, they've

launched one of the
largest dam construction

programs in the world.

China today has more
than 90,000 dams.

It is the world's
most dammed country.

Water has been always a
huge problem in China.

China's freshwater
availability is only a third

of the world average.

A lot of the rivers
are polluted.

And now because
of climate change,

the main rivers are
starting to run dry.

And China's government
realized that this

is a serious threat to the
legitimacy of the Communist

Party.

Since China annexed
Tibet in 1951,

it has had its hand on the
tap of Asia, the glaciers

of the Tibetan Plateau.

The annexation of the Tibetan
Plateau by China in the early

1950s amounted to a de facto
water war because it changed

Asia's water map.

China became the source
of water supplies

to more than a dozen
countries of Asia.

A lot of China's neighbors
depend on flows from the waters

from the Tibetan Plateau,
which sustains the livelihood

of 1.3 billion people.

That's a fifth of mankind.

China has built 11 major
dams on the upper stretches

of the Mekong and
Salween rivers,

the lifelines of Southeast Asia,
with plans for nearly 40 more.

The government
insists that they are

hydroelectric dams that have
little effect on the river's

flow.

But downstream
countries who disagree

have little power to fight back.

China is known as a
hydro-hegemon because rarely

do you have any example of an
upstream nation being so much

more politically and
militarily powerful

than the downstream nations.

[RHYTHMIC MUSIC]

To address the water
shortage in the north,

China recently launched
a massive project

to divert water from
the south and channel it

across thousands of miles,
as far north as Beijing.

No country has ever attempted to
initiate something on the scale

that China has through its
so-called great South-North

Water Diversion Project.

We talk about huge project
without any parallel

in modern history.

Because the threat is so severe,
that means a deliberate attempt

to extract more water
from the Tibetan Plateau.

And you're not talking
about small amount.

You're talking about
massive amounts.

The project has sparked
intense animosity

from India, which fears
the diversion will reroute

the headwaters of
the Brahmaputra

river, a major
source of freshwater

for Northeast India
and Bangladesh.

What worries India is that
the Chinese pattern usually

is to begin building dams
as far upstream as possible

and then gradually move closer
to the international border.

So we're going to see a similar
pattern on the Brahmaputra

in the years to come.

From Hong Kong
tonight, I'm joined

by Andrew KP Leung,
international and independent

China specialist.

I appear on Times Now of
India, but my experience

with that program is
that oftentimes, I

couldn't get a word in because
their feelings are so strong.

Then why is China doing it?

If the river is--

Why is China doing it?

I'm trying to reply to you.

Well, why has China--

And that suggests that there
are people in India who

think that India should really,
if necessary, fight a war

and stand up to China.

[BRISK MUSIC]

What China is doing, in a
strict sense, is a water war.

It's waging a war to appropriate
water resources, which

are shared resources,
targeting rivers

that flow to other countries.

That amounts to waging a war
on its downstream neighbors.

A water war can be won
without firing a shot.

Shouldn't we broaden the
definition of a water war?

The idea of two countries
using their national militaries

to wage full-scale
war against each other

still remains unlikely for
the next decade or two.

But there will definitely
be conflict over water,

unless there are very
specific policy responses,

unless new technologies
are introduced.

We're still at a
place where we're

able to do something
about the problem.

There's still hope, but
something's got to change.

[THEME MUSIC]