Turkey’s Ataturk Dam was completed in 1990. It is the largest of a series of dams along the two major rivers of the region, the Tigris and Euphrates, which both have their headwaters in southeastern Turkey. Landsat 7 ETM+ image provided courtesy of USDA Foreign Agricultural Service Production Estimates and Crop Assessment Division (PECAD)

By STEVEN LEE MYERS
22 March 2012 WASHINGTON – The American intelligence community warned in a report released Thursday that problems with water could destabilize countries in North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia over the next decade. Increasing demand and competition caused by the world’s rising population and scarcities created by climate change and poor management threaten to disrupt economies and increase regional tensions, the report concludes. Prepared at the request of the State Department, the report is based on a classified National Intelligence Estimate completed last October that reflected an increasing focus on environmental and other factors that threaten security. An estimate reflects the consensus judgment of all intelligence agencies. While the report concluded that wars over water are unlikely in the coming decade, it said that countries could use water for political and economic leverage over neighbors and that major facilities like dams and desalination plants could become targets of terrorist attacks. Coupled with poverty and other social factors, problems with water could even contribute to the political failure of weaker nations. The public report, unlike the classified version, did not specify countries at greatest risk for water-related disruption but analyzed conditions on major river basins in regions with high potential for conflict — from the Jordan to the Tigris and Euphrates to the Brahmaputra in South Asia. […]

U.S. Intelligence Report Warns of Global Water Tensions