Water Conflict Tracker
Mapping pressures.
Understanding risks.
Exploring where environmental pressures, water governance challenges and political tensions intersect. Through open-source research, verified reporting and community-informed perspectives, we aim to develop a clearer picture of emerging water-security risks and opportunities for prevention.
Understanding the risks before they escalate.
Water insecurity can place significant pressure on communities, institutions and relationships between countries. Drought, declining water availability, unequal access and competing demands can interact with existing political, economic and social vulnerabilities.
Yet water scarcity does not automatically lead to conflict. The outcomes depend on governance, institutions, cooperation, inequality and the ways societies respond to environmental pressures.
Our proposed Water Security Conflict Tracker aims to bring together existing datasets, open-source research, verified reporting and local perspectives to help identify where pressures are emerging, how they interact and where greater attention may be needed.
The objective is not simply to map where water is scarce, but to understand how water insecurity interacts with the political and social conditions surrounding it.
Five interconnected dimensions of water security.
The tracker will explore a range of indicators rather than relying on a single measure of water scarcity or conflict risk.
Climate & Environmental Pressures
Drought, rainfall variability, changing river flows, groundwater depletion, extreme weather and wider environmental change.
Water Access & Livelihoods
Access to safe and reliable water, agricultural dependence, food insecurity, displacement and the effects of water stress on local communities.
Institutions & Water Governance
Water management capacity, infrastructure, allocation decisions, institutional accountability and the implementation of shared-water agreements.
Political Tensions & Cooperation
Disputes over water allocation, diplomatic tensions, local grievances, cooperation agreements and political responses to resource pressures.
Community Vulnerability & Resilience
Unequal exposure to water insecurity, community adaptation, local coping strategies and the capacity to respond to environmental shocks.
Early Warning & Prevention
Identifying combinations of pressures that may warrant closer attention, supporting informed dialogue and exploring opportunities for prevention and cooperation.
Connecting data with what is happening on the ground.
A useful tracker needs more than statistics. We aim to combine different sources of evidence to build a more grounded understanding of water-security challenges.
Open-source data & research
Drawing on established climate, water, humanitarian and conflict datasets alongside academic research and institutional reports.
Verified reporting & analysis
Examining credible reporting, documented developments and relevant policy analysis to understand changing regional conditions.
Local & community perspectives
Incorporating perspectives from local organisations, researchers and people directly affected by water insecurity, with appropriate consent and safeguards.
Contextual analysis
Interpreting indicators in their political, environmental and social context, recognising uncertainty and avoiding unsupported causal assumptions.
Understanding water-security pressures across regions.
Our initial research interest centres on the Middle East, where water resources, political relationships, climate pressures and competing development needs intersect in complex ways.
We aim to examine shared river basins, groundwater resources, water infrastructure, changing rainfall patterns and the relationships between water governance and regional stability.
Our wider ambition is to explore how the tracker could support comparative analysis across other regions experiencing similar challenges.
Regional analysis must always be grounded in local realities, not assumptions made from afar.
Responsible research. Meaningful evidence.
The tracker will be developed around principles that prioritise accuracy, context and the experiences of affected communities.
Evidence over assumptions
Distinguishing between documented developments, emerging pressures and potential risks.
Community-informed analysis
Recognising local knowledge as an important source of understanding and interpretation.
Conflict sensitivity
Avoiding simplistic narratives that portray resource scarcity as an inevitable cause of violence.
Understanding the limits of risk monitoring
The proposed tracker is a research and monitoring initiative, not a predictive system or a substitute for local expertise. Any future assessments will distinguish verified events from analytical interpretations, identify source limitations and avoid assigning conflict-risk scores without a transparent and defensible methodology.
Better understanding can support better prevention.
We are developing this initiative with the aim of bringing together researchers, data specialists, universities, civil society organisations and community partners. We welcome opportunities to collaborate on research, methodology and the development of a more informed approach to understanding water-security challenges.
INITIATIVE IN DEVELOPMENT · WATER & SECURITY