Borders: Between Freshwater and Conflict

The oldest recorded dispute over control of a watercourse is between Lagash and Umma, two Sumerian cities, concerning the irrigated lands between the Tigris and the Euphrates. The Stele of the Vultures recounts this story. Four thousand five hundred years ago, control of the cisterns and Punic aqueducts became part of the administration of the territory conquered by Rome. Israel, Syria and Lebanon fought in 1964 for control of the Jordan, and the diversion of its course led to the Six-Day War. Then, in the 1980s, came the GAP, the South-Eastern Anatolia Project, and the Atatürk Dam on the Euphrates: Turkey as the ‘water custodian’ upstream. But the need for water has also driven modern technologies. Louis XIV commissioned the construction of the Canal du Midi, from the River Garonne to the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the first desalination plant was operating under the flag of Curaçao in 1928. An age-old problem that keeps resurfacing in our societies

The wars of the future may no longer be fought over oil, but over water. Today, competition takes various forms. Over the past two years, for example, Turkey’s strategy to expand its soft power in Iraq – devised by Hakan Fidan – has found one of its main instruments of influence in investment in water infrastructure.

From the Nile – with the Ethiopian dam – to the major water projects carried out in Libya during Gaddafi’s rule, right through to the gamble of the Mattei Plan, cases across the Mediterranean illustrate just how much control over water affects political and economic balances. NextMed compares the countries in the basin in terms of infrastructure, demand, network losses and reuse capacity. Israel stands out as a benchmark, thanks to the reuse of over 80 per cent of treated wastewater in agriculture and the contribution of desalination, which has transformed an uncertain resource into a reliable service. Spain, which ranks first in the European Union for desalination capacity, and Malta follow, whilst Italia and Spain show mixed results.

This issue also directly affects Europe: in 2023, water scarcity affected 28 per cent of the EU’s territory and 32 per cent of its population. In southern Europe, around 30 per cent of the population lives in areas subject to permanent water stress, a figure that rises to 70 per cent in summer. The response requires integrated investments: desalination, wastewater reuse, leak reduction and digitised networks. For Italia, the issues of tariffs, lacking infrastructure and investment in agriculture remain unresolved. This is because water security is now a strategic issue, set to weigh heavily on the balance of power in the Mediterranean.