Almost 350 water conflicts were documented worldwide in 2023, a 50% rise on 2022, which was also a record year, according to the Pacific Institute, a California-based nonpartisan thinktank tracking water violence. The violence included attacks on dams, pipelines, wells, treatment plants and workers, as well as public unrest and disputes over access to water, and the use of water as a weapon of war.
Israeli attacks on Palestinian water supplies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip accounted for a quarter of all water-related violence in 2023, as armed conflicts over dwindling resources surged globally, according to new research.
Overall, water-related violence has been rising steadily since 2000 but has surged in recent years as the climate crisis and growing scarcity exacerbate old conflicts over land, ideology and religion, economics and sovereignty, and new ones erupt, according to the Water Conflict Chronology. In 2000, just 20 water conflicts were documented by the tracker.
