Recent Event Highlights: Mumbai residents protest water cuts, Protest in Nigeria over price of water, Strikes to protest water shortages in Bangladesh, Czechoslovakia and Hungary dispute a water diversion, Bloodless coup leads to water agreement between South Africa and Lesotho, Tensions over the Nile threaten a water war, and 8 more...
Created by cjholtzman on Mar 11, 2010
Last updated: 03/12/10 at 04:16 AM
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On December 3, Police clash with hundreds of Mumbai residents protesting water cuts. One man is killed and a dozen others injured. Mumbai authorities are faced with rationing supplies after the worst monsoon season in decades.
A protest over the price of water in Nyanya, Abuja, Nigeria results in violence, including the beating of water vendors.
Two Mexican farmers argued for years over water rights to a small spring used to irrigate a small corn plot near the town of Pihuamo. In March, these farmers shot each other dead.
Violent conflicts break out over water resources in the villages Burna Legan and Taina Legan, and in other parts of the region, as drought depletes local resources.
Fifty people are hurt during strikes called to protest power and water shortages. Protest led by former Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia over deterioration of public services and in law and order.
Hungary abrogates a 1977 treaty with Czechoslovakia concerning construction of the Gabcikovo/Nagymaros project based on environmental concerns. Slovakia continues construction unilaterally, completes the dam, and diverts the Danube into a canal inside the Slovakian republic. Massive public protest and movement of military to the border ensue; issue taken to the International Court of Justice.
Bloodless coup by Lesotho’s defense forces, with support from South Africa, lead to immediate agreement with South Africa for water from the Highlands of Lesotho, after 30 previous years of unsuccessful negotiations. There is disagreement over the degree to which water was a motivating factor for either party.
177 civilians killed in Rio Negro over opposition to Chixoy hydroelectric dam.
Longstanding tensions over the Nile, especially the Blue Nile, originating in Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s proposed construction of dams on the headwaters of the Blue Nile leads Egypt to repeatedly declare the vital importance of water. “The only matter that could take Egypt to war again is water” (Anwar Sadat, 1979). “The next war in our region will be over the waters of the Nile, not politics” (Boutrous-Ghali, 1988).
As upstream dams are filled during a low-flow year on the Euphrates, Iraqis claim that flow reaching its territory is “intolerable” and asks the Arab League to intervene. Syrians claim they are receiving less than half the river’s normal flow and pull out of an Arab League technical committee formed to mediate the conflict. In May Syria closes its airspace to Iraqi flights and both Syria and Iraq reportedly transfer troops to their mutual border. Saudi Arabia successfully mediates the conflict.
Conflicts over excessive water withdrawals and subsequent water shortages from China’s Zhang River have been worsening for over three decades between villages in Shenxian and Linzhou counties. In the 1970s, militias from competing villages fought over withdrawals. (Continued in the years: 1976, 1991, 1992, and 1999.)
U.S. tries cloud-seeding in Indochina to stop flow of materiel along Ho Chi Minh trail. Cloud-seeding is a form of weather modification, which in this case was used to extend the monsoon season.
First attack ever by the Palestinian National Liberation Movement Al-Fatah is on the diversion pumps for the Israeli National Water Carrier. Attack fails.
On February 6, 1964, the Cuban government orderes the water supply to the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay cut off.
Israel begins construction of its National Water Carrier to transfer water from the north of the Sea of Galilee out of the Jordan basin to the Negev Desert for irrigation. Syrian military actions along the border and international disapproval lead Israel to move its intake to the Sea of Galilee.
North Korea releases flood waves from the Hwachon Dam damaging floating bridges operated by U.N. troops in the Pukhan Valley. U.S. Navy planes are then sent to destroy spillway crest gates.
Partition leaves Indus basin divided between India and Pakistan; disputes over irrigation water ensue, during which India stems flow of water into irrigation canals in Pakistan. Indus Waters Agreement reached in 1960 after 12 years of World Bank-led negotiations.
German forces use waters from the Isoletta Dam (Liri River) in January and February to successfully destroy British assault forces crossing the Garigliano River (downstream of Liri River). The German Army then dammed the Rapido River, flooding a valley occupied by the American Army.
During the mobilization of the Dutch at the beginning of World War II, 1939–40, the Dutch attempt to flood the Gelderse Vallei with the New Dutch Water Defence Line, which had been completed in 1885. During the German invasion in May 1940, large areas were inundated.
During the Spanish Civil War, two concrete gravity dams, at Burguillo and Ordunte, are attacked by the Nationalist army, with a 2.5-ton charge placed in an inspection gallery at Ordunte. Some limited damage; repaired 1938-39.
Union of South African troops capture Windhoek, capital of German Southwest Africa (May). Retreating German troops poison wells – “a violation of the Hague convention.”
Violence, including a murder, directed against agents of a land company that claimed title to Reelfoot Lake in northwestern Tennessee who attempted to levy charges for fish taken and threatened to drain the lake for agriculture.
The Los Angeles Valley aqueduct/pipeline suffers repeated bombings in an effort to prevent diversions of water from the Owens Valley to Los Angeles.
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