Water, Peace and WEFE Nexus: the value of Nexus approaches in understanding water conflicts

Water plays a multi-dimensional role in human security, acting on different fronts. Indeed, the definition itself of water security entails aspects related to human livelihoods and well-being, socio-economic development as well as environmental resilience, and, ultimately, peace. This interconnectedness of apparently separated dynamics much resembles the one at the basis of the WEFE Nexus concept, between water security, energy security, food security and the safeguard of the environment and of ecosystem services.

POLIMI research team has been researching for some time now how different processes related to water and to the WEFE Nexus interact with conflictual dynamics in critical contexts.

POLIMI scientists investigated the recent history of armed conflicts in the region surrounding Lake Chad, in Central Africa, finding that the complex interweaving of conflicts could be streamlined into distinct dynamics, each characterized by different water availability, water use, and water scarcity situations, something like a fingerprint of the conflict dynamic, stamped on the interface between water systems and human systems. Most importantly, this interface had a lot to do with how water is used in agriculture, to produce food that sustains the local population. For instance, places where water coming from rainfall makes it possible to cultivate more can become critical in territorial conflicts, or political tension has escalated in places where the opportunity to produce more food is missed because water infrastructures are lacking.

Learning from these lessons, two decades of urban conflicts in Central America were investigated. This time POLIMI authors have directly simulated the impact of water availability on food production in agricultural areas and "virtually" transported this effect along the internal trade routes, quantifying the food security problems in the cities where the conflicts happen. This means that, if a particular dry season comes, less agricultural goods are produced on the countryside, and thus less food arrives to the city markets. The researchers have found that, even though the root cause is the same (a change in precipitation), looking at it in terms of food contributes better to the description of how conflicts evolve in space and time than looking at it in terms of water. 

Thus, the relation between Water and Peace lies at the core of the WEFE Nexus, where water, food and the limits of the ecosystem interact. If we flip this message, we can understand how this way of thinking can help us manage, and maybe fix, critical situations of water and human security, besides helping us describe them.

The WEFE Nexus is a link between Water and Peace, thus acknowledging Nexus interactions and managing resources with a Nexus thinking can be a step towards improved stability in critical hydrosocial contexts.