Are water shortages driving migration? Researchers dispel myths

Source: Reuters, 30/08/2019

They warned against over-simplifying the links between water and
migration, and said many of those who do move - at least partly
because of water-related pressures such as floods, droughts and
pollution - may not travel far.
“International migration is very expensive and very risky and it
lies beyond the reach of many of the poorest people who are most
vulnerable to water security and drought,” said Guy Jobbins of the
London-based Overseas Development Institute.
Those who suffer water-related shocks to their livelihoods -
losing animals or crops - “are less likely to have the funds to
start again in South Africa or France”, he told an audience at
World Water Week in Stockholm.
Conversely, there was some evidence to suggest that people who
have better access to secure, affordable water are more likely to
have enough financial resources to migrate, he added.
Although much is made of international migration, most movement
related to water is inside countries, often from one rural place
to another, said Sasha Koo-Oshima, deputy director of land and
water at the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.
Three out of four of the world’s poor live in rural areas and rely
heavily on agricultural production, with food insecurity, water
contamination and drought forcing people from their homes -
especially the young, she added.
Efforts should be stepped up to prevent water scarcity and make it
profitable for young people to stay on rural land, she said.
But if people do leave, “it is not necessarily a negative
phenomenon”, as humans have always moved in search of a better
life, she added.
REFUGEE SCAPEGOATS
Researchers also called for a more sophisticated analysis of how
mass migration impacts on water supplies.
In Jordan - the world’s second most water-scarce country,
according to Hussam Hussein, a Middle East water researcher at
Germany’s University of Kassel - a large influx of refugees from
Syria, after civil war broke out there in 2011, led to tensions
with their host communities, especially in cities.
Jordan hosts about 750,000 Syrians, the vast majority in urban
areas, according to the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR). But contrary
to public discourse, their presence is not the main cause of the
country’s water shortages, said Hussein.
“When we look at the numbers, the impact of refugees is not as
important as unsustainable use (of water) in the agricultural
sector,” he said.
Mismanagement of water resources, leaks, illegal wells and
intensive farming made up the majority of water losses in parched
Jordan, he added.
In war-torn Syria, water scarcity and climate-related events such
as drought had been a “trigger” for the conflict but not a primary
cause, said Fatine Ezbakhe of the Mediterranean Youth for Water
Network.
Instead a lack of water amplified political instability and
poverty that fueled migration and unrest, she added.
Now improvements to water supplies could be used to persuade
people to return home, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“If we actually invest in water, we could... try to make people go
back and restart (in) the rural areas they left in the first
place,” she said.
Reporting by Adela Suliman; editing by Megan Rowling. Please
credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of
Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change,
women`s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking and property rights.
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