The Global Web of National Water Security
| Published date | 01 October 2011 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00097.x |
| Author | Mark Zeitoun |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
The Global Web of National Water
Security
Mark Zeitoun
University of East Anglia
Abstract
This article explores the reasons efforts to attain water security by states and the international water policy
community often fall short of their goals, and suggests a conceptual tool as partial remedy. The main shortcomings of
prevailing water security policy and thinking are found to stem from narrow and determinist analysis that is based on
a separation of biophysical and social processes of water resources and their use. Undue confidence is placed in
physical scarcity thresholds, for example, while distributive issues are ignored. Water resources are also found to be
treated in isolation, as if independent of the food, climate or energy security of individuals, communities and states.
The ‘web’ of water security introduced here emphasises combined readings of the social and biophysical processes
that enable or prevent national water security. These processes are mediated by a socioeconomic and political context
replete with power asymmetries, such that water security for some rests on the water insecurity of others. Sustainable
national water security in the long term, it is suggested, will be guided by principles of balance between related
security areas, and equitability of distribution of resources between the actors involved.
Policy Implications
•Water security policy recommendations based on environmentally determinist analysis are often narrow, and should
be evaluated as both potentially interested and liable to lead only to short-term, selective water security.
•Long-term national water security policy should seek a balance between natural ‘security resources’ (food, water,
energy, climate) and equitability between the individuals, communities and nations involved.
•The development of water security policy should expand beyond biophysical considerations to incorporate options
stemming from related social processes, such as human agency, livelihoods and capacity for adaptation.
•Long-term national water security will be served through harmonisation of policy across sectors, for example
between ministries of water resources, trade and foreign affairs.
1. Not water secure
This article addresses shortcomings of analysis and policy
related to water security. It notes how such policy can
lead to insecurity of related natural resources, and to
short-term water security for some at the cost of water
insecurity for others. A conceptual tool that may help
guide both research and policy towards longer-term and
more sustainable national water security is proposed –
the ‘web’ of water security. The article does not offer a
fully grounded analytical framework or prescriptions for
the analytical pitfalls and incoherent policy identified.
The approach taken to broaden and deepen the concept
of water security does serve, however, as a basis to
understand and tackle the complex and interconnected
water security challenges we all face.
The approach to national water security taken here
stresses that social and physical processes occur simulta-
neously across the many ‘security areas’ so intimately
related to water. The breadth, complexity and immediacy
of the Nile River conflict and UK consumption of
Peruvian asparagus serve briefly to demonstrate.
For the want of a clause, the end of centuries of conflict
over the Nile River was lost. The wording of Article 14b –
titled Water Security, and hidden in the annex of the May
2010 Nile Cooperative Framework Agreement – has been
interpreted by some to open up the possibility of discus-
sion of reallocation of Nile flows. The opportunity was
Global Policy Volume 2 . Issue 3 . October 2011
ª2011 London School of Economics and Political Science and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Global Policy (2011) 2:3 doi: 10.1111/j.1758-5899.2011.00097.x
Research Article
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