An Egyptian farmer shows the dryness of the land due to drought in a farm formerly irrigated by the river Nile. Photograph: Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Corbis
Excerpts from The Guardian, February 9
…Already a billion people, or one in seven people on the planet, lack access to safe drinking water. Britain, of course, is currently at the other extreme. Great swaths of the country are drowning in misery, after a series of Atlantic storms off the south-western coast. But that too is part of the picture that has been coming into sharper focus over 12 years of the gravity-sensing Grace satellites record.
Countries at northern latitudes and in the tropics are getting wetter. But those countries at mid-latitude are running increasingly low on water. Some of those tensions are already apparent on the ground. The Pacific Institute found a fourfold increase in violent confrontations over water over the last decade. “I think the risk of conflicts over water is growing – not shrinking – because of increased competition, because of bad management and, ultimately, because of the impacts of climate change,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute.
There are dozens of potential flashpoints, spanning the globe. In the Middle East, Iranian officials are making contingency plans for water rationing in the greater Tehran area, home to 22 million people.
Egypt has demanded Ethiopia stop construction of a mega-dam on the Nile, vowing to protect its historical rights to the river at “any cost”. The Egyptian authorities have called for a study into whether the project would reduce the river’s flow.
Jordan, which has the third lowest reserves in the region, is struggling with an influx of Syrian refugees. The country is undergoing power cuts because of water shortages. Last week, Prince Hassan, the uncle of King Abdullah, warned that a war over water and energy could be even bloodier than the Arab spring.
The United Arab Emirates, faced with a growing population, has invested in desalination projects and is harvesting rainwater. At an international water conference in Abu Dhabi last year, Crown Prince General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan said: “For us, water is [now] more important than oil….”
Eric Koch’s new book, New Beginnings, was launched on September 20. The book is available from 
Water is life. I truly wonder why it has not become a defining issue in national and international forums. Canada has many waterways under threat. China lives with contaminated water and poisoned agricultural lands. Countries fight each other over major water flows - from the Himalayas, the Andes to the Colorado River or Mexico City trying to siphon water from surrounding areas. California is facing a major drought. The world has no issue except how to ensure clean water and air and somehow producing enough food for all. And yet the power brokers and politicians, money makers and ordinary people carry on denying - I hope our poor planet (and all its flora and fauna) somehow survive what we are doing to it.