Water, climate and peace across the Mediterranean, Sahel-edge and Horn: evidence for cooperation

1. Context and why it matters now

Water is where climate change, state capacity and politics meet most visibly in the thirteen countries where TIPCS has offices: Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Türkiye, Jordan, Iraq, Kenya and Italy. The physical change is rapid. The IPCC reports that Mediterranean surface temperature is now 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level, that warming since the 1980s has exceeded global averages, and that droughts have become more frequent and intense, especially in the north of the basin [5]. The MedECC network states that 180 million people suffer from water scarcity in the basin and projects a fall in summer precipitation of 10% to 30% depending on location [9]. Reported violence involving water has also risen: the Pacific Institute recorded 420 events in 2024, a record, nearly 20% above 2023 and 78% above 2022 [7]. Several shared-water arrangements are being tested at once, as Section 3 documents.

The subject attracts strong claims in both directions: that scarcity drives war, or that water is a basis for cooperation and the security framing is exaggerated. The evidence supports neither in its simple form. This report distinguishes documented facts, attributed to their source; interpretations offered by institutions or researchers, labelled as such; and the proposal in Section 6, which describes what TIPCS would do and is not evidence. It is written for governments, donors, municipalities, civil society organisations and researchers. Terminology follows United Nations usage, figures are quoted as the source gives them, and 'n/a' or 'n/r' means that no comparable figure was verified or reported.

Measuring water scarcity: three indicators used in this report

• Availability per person. The Falkenmark indicator treats a country as experiencing water stress below 1,700 cubic metres per person per year, scarcity below 1,000 and absolute scarcity below 500 [10]. The World Bank series used here counts internal renewable resources only and so excludes inflows from upstream countries [3].
• Pressure on resources. UN-Water describes a territory withdrawing 25% or more of its renewable freshwater as water-stressed [11]. The SDG 6.4.2 ratio used here compares total withdrawals with renewable resources after environmental water requirements, and can exceed 100% where abstraction relies on non-renewable groundwater, desalination or reuse [4].
• Cooperation coverage. SDG indicator 6.5.2 reports the share of transboundary river, lake or aquifer area covered by an operational cooperation arrangement [6].

2. What the evidence says

Climate and armed conflict: the strongest global evidence

The most cited synthesis is the expert elicitation by Mach and colleagues (Nature, 2019). The experts agreed that climate has affected organised armed conflict within countries, but judged low socioeconomic development and low state capacity to be substantially more influential, and identified the mechanisms as a key uncertainty [1]. In Stanford University's summary, they estimated that climate influenced between 3% and 20% of conflict risk over the last century, that this influence would more than double at 2°C, to a 13% chance of a substantial increase in conflict risk, and rise more than fivefold at 4°C, to 26% [2]. These are structured judgments, not statistical estimates, and the figures come from the university summary because the journal page could not be retrieved.

Institutional assessments are similar but more cautious. The IPCC's Mediterranean paper makes no direct causal claim linking water scarcity to conflict; it notes that scarcity and rain-fed agriculture in the Middle East and North Africa are exacerbated by poverty and political instability, and that climate impacts may have contributed to migration decisions, a point still debated [5]. SIPRI describes a 'confluence' of security, water and climate crises in which each worsens the others, and argues that securitised governance suppresses public debate on water [12]. The ICRC, drawing on field research in southern Iraq, northern Mali and the Central African Republic, concludes that conflict-affected countries are disproportionately vulnerable to climate change because adaptive capacity is consumed by fighting [13].

Syria as the contested test case

Syria is the case most often used to illustrate the link, and the one whose causal chain has been most closely examined. Kelley and colleagues concluded in 2015 that the drought before the 2011 uprising, the most severe in the instrumental record for the Fertile Crescent, was 'more than twice as likely' as a consequence of human interference in the climate system, and called it a catalyst for unrest in a country with weak governance and unsustainable agricultural policies [14]. Selby and colleagues examined each link, namely human attribution, large-scale drought-driven migration and migration as a trigger of war, found little support for each, and urged caution about securitising climate change [15]. The papers address different links. The lesson here is that a claim about climate and conflict needs evidence at every step: the hydrological change, its effect on livelihoods, the political response and the pathway to violence.

Water as trigger, target and weapon

The Pacific Institute's Water Conflict Chronology records incidents in which water systems act as a trigger, a target or casualty, or a weapon. It counted 420 events in 2024: 61% involved attacks on water infrastructure, 34% disputes over access or control and 5% the use of water as a weapon of war; about 12% were linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and 16% to the war between Russia and Ukraine. Western Asia, Southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa have the most cases, and subnational conflicts, such as those between farmers and pastoralists, far outnumber conflicts between states [7]. The data come from news reports, eyewitness accounts and other conflict databases, so a rise can reflect better detection as well as more violence. Most recorded water violence is not a war over a river but damage to water systems during conflict and local disputes.

Cooperation between states is more common than conflict, but treaties are not sufficient

Dinar, Katz, De Stefano and Blankespoor analysed dyadic event data on shared basins for 1948 to 2008. They found only limited support for the proposition that a treaty alone promotes cooperation, a positive association between the number of agreements and the level of cooperation, and no sign that treaties reduce conflict when conflictual and cooperative events are analysed separately [16]. UN data show the extent of formal coverage: in 2023, 153 countries shared transboundary waters and 58.54% of transboundary basin area was covered by an operational arrangement, 65.75% for rivers and lakes and 45.88% for aquifers [6]. The World Bank notes that about 60% of surface water in the Middle East and North Africa is transboundary, that every country in the region shares at least one aquifer, and that climate-related losses could reach 6% to 14% of GDP by 2050 [17].

Attribution of recent droughts

For the southern Horn of Africa (parts of southern Ethiopia, southern Somalia and eastern Kenya), World Weather Attribution found that human-induced climate change made the 2020 to 2022 drought about 100 times more likely, a conservative estimate, with higher temperatures and evaporation the main driver of severity. About 4.35 million people needed humanitarian assistance. The study names state fragility, conflict and the drought's duration as aggravating factors, especially in Somalia, and notes that the drought contributed to human conflict [18]. Attribution addresses the weather event, not the political outcome, and does not show that drought caused violence.

3. The regional picture across the 13 countries

Table 1 brings together four sets of indicators for the thirteen countries: two from FAO AQUASTAT through the World Bank's World Development Indicators; one from the UN SDG 6.5.2 reporting for 2023; and the INFORM Risk Index (Mid 2026 release, version 0.7.3), which combines hazard and exposure, vulnerability and lack of coping capacity on a scale of 0 to 10 and ranks 191 countries, with rank 1 the highest risk [19]. The related INFORM Climate Change index projects the same model to 2050 and 2080 by altering only the hazard and exposure dimension under climate and socioeconomic scenarios [20]; its country values were not extracted here. The columns measure different things and should not be added or averaged.

Four readings follow, each with limits. First, scarcity is structural in the Maghreb, the Levant, Mesopotamia and the Nile valley but not uniform: Türkiye and Italy have more than 2,600 cubic metres per person, Lebanon and Iraq are near the 1,000 mark, and Egypt, Jordan and Libya sit far below it [3]. Second, withdrawals exceed 100% of resources in Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Libya and Syria, and reach 98% in Tunisia [4]; this is consistent with dependence on non-renewable groundwater, upstream inflows or desalination, an interpretation not stated by the source. Third, cooperation coverage is high where aquifer arrangements exist (Tunisia, Libya, Italy) and low for Iraq and Jordan [6]. Fourth, humanitarian risk does not follow water scarcity: Syria, Palestine and Lebanon rank highest on INFORM because of conflict and vulnerability, while Egypt, with very low internal availability, is in the medium class [19]. The IPCC adds that Tunisia, Algeria and Libya are below the FAO water scarcity threshold [5].

Maghreb and Libya: drought, governance and shared aquifers

Tunisia illustrates multi-year drought on an urban and agricultural system. The National Agriculture Observatory reported that dams held 902 million cubic metres on 27 June 2025, a filling rate of 38.1%, up 27.4% on a year earlier but only about 6% above the three-year average of 850.3 million [21]. A 2023 Fanack analysis recorded that average dam filling did not exceed 25% at the end of winter, that official availability was about 400 cubic metres per person, and that in March 2023 the authorities introduced scheduled cuts in Tunis, Hammamet, Sousse, Monastir, Mahdia and Sfax, described as the country's first rationing system [22]. AGBI reported a World Bank estimate that shortages could cost up to US$1.3 billion a year by 2030 [23]. Cooperation coverage of 80.5% rests wholly on aquifer arrangements [6]. No comparable verified data on water-related unrest were retrieved, and the report makes no claim about it.

Libya shows heavy reliance on fossil groundwater combined with a governance problem. The Arab Reform Initiative states that the Great Man-Made River project provides over 90% of the country's water, that three of the four main aquifers lie within the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System and are close to depletion, and that five institutions share responsibility for water; it concludes that the crisis is one of management, not scarcity, and, citing Reuters, that forces under Khalifa Haftar vandalised water control systems during the attack on Tripoli [24]. The Nubian aquifer is shared with Egypt, Sudan and Chad; a Joint Authority agreement dates from 1992, with headquarters in Tripoli, Sudan joining in 1996 and Chad in 1999, and terms of reference on monitoring and data sharing were added in October 2000 [25]. For Algeria and Mauritania the verified evidence is limited to Table 1; the INFORM drought score of 8.6 for Mauritania is a modelled hazard score, not an observation [19].

The Nile: Egypt, and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam

Egypt depends on the Nile for nearly 97% of its freshwater; per-person availability fell from almost 1,900 cubic metres in 1959 to fewer than 600, with a projection below 500 by 2050, according to an Atlantic Council analysis [26]. The 1959 Egypt-Sudan agreement divided the flow into 55.5 billion cubic metres for Egypt and 18.5 billion for Sudan; Ethiopia was not a party [26]. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), on the Blue Nile about 14 kilometres from the Sudanese border, has a reservoir of 74 billion cubic metres, cost roughly US$5 billion, completed its final filling in September 2023 and was inaugurated on 9 September 2025 [26]. Crisis Group reported in 2019 that the filling dispute centred on pace, with Egypt seeking a minimum annual release of 40 billion cubic metres and Ethiopia willing to accept about 35 billion [27].

The positions remain opposed. Egypt wrote to the UN Security Council on 9 September 2025 about the inauguration; the public record describes the letter but not its contents [28]. Ethiopia's reply of 10 September presents the dam as a symbol of self-reliance and climate-friendly energy, cites the Declaration of Principles of 23 March 2015, states that the Cooperative Framework Agreement entered into force on 13 October 2024, and rejects Egypt's claims of 'historic right' [29]. After heavy rains in October 2025, Egypt's irrigation ministry attributed flooding in three governorates to abrupt GERD discharges, while Ethiopia said its operations followed technical protocols and reduced flooding in Sudan [26]. This report does not adjudicate. The documented gap is the absence of a jointly verified data and operations framework; the Atlantic Council recommends a trilateral technical commission and a joint early-warning system [26].

The Levant: Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestine

Jordan combines the lowest per-person availability in the Levant (61 cubic metres) with 105% water stress [3, 4]. Annex II of the 1994 peace treaty sets seasonal allocations from the Yarmouk and Jordan rivers, entitles Jordan to 10 million cubic metres a year of desalinated water, commits the parties to cooperate to find a further 50 million cubic metres a year, and creates a Joint Water Committee with three members from each side [30]. The National reported on 27 February 2026 that an annual arrangement of 50 million cubic metres from Israel, agreed in 2021, had not been renewed and had expired about three months earlier, according to an official quoted by Al Mamlaka TV; exports had reportedly halved, and Jordan hoped to finalise a deal for a desalination plant near Aqaba producing 300 million cubic metres a year [31]. These details rest on a news report quoting an official and should be checked against official releases.

Lebanon's 2025 drought shows how quickly a country with 836 cubic metres per person can face acute shortage. A drought report circulated through Action Against Hunger, which does not clearly name its publisher, records winter 2024 to 2025 rainfall about 50% lower than the year before, Lake Qaraoun at about 50 million cubic metres, down 64% from 138 million, 44% of the population relying on water trucking, and isolated violent disputes over water [32]. On shared rivers, Lebanon and Syria signed an Orontes agreement in September 1994 giving Lebanon 80 million cubic metres a year under conditions, amended in 1997 and 2001, and a Nahr el Kabir agreement in 2002 allocating 60% to Syria and 40% to Lebanon [33]. A study at the American University of Beirut reports that the 2002 arrangement gives Lebanon 96 of 403 million cubic metres at the Hermel Bridge gauge, which differs from the commonly cited 80 million and shows how contested documented allocations can be [34]. No agreement involving Lebanon governs the Hasbani and Wazzani waters shared with Israel [33].

Syria's water situation cannot be separated from the war. Table 1 shows 318 cubic metres per person, 124% stress and the highest INFORM risk score of the thirteen countries [3, 4, 19]. FAO's country brief describes the 2025 harvest as drought-affected and forecasts 2026 wheat output at 2.7 million tonnes, more than 50% above the five-year average and the highest since 2020, which shows large year-to-year swings [35]. In Gaza, UNICEF's update for the period to 29 May 2026 reports that up to 70% of families cannot collect the minimum 6 litres of water per person per day for drinking and cooking, that 82% of families are water insecure, that desalination output fell from 20,000 to 16,000 cubic metres per day for lack of chemicals and spare parts, and that the Al Mansoura filling point, which supplied about 2 million litres a day to 285,000 people, has been inaccessible since 17 April, with two UNICEF-contracted truck drivers killed there [36]. These are UNICEF's figures, not tied to a named survey method in the text retrieved. A comparable current per-person water-use figure for the West Bank was not verified (n/a).

Mesopotamia: Iraq, Türkiye and the Tigris and Euphrates

Iraq has 799 cubic metres per person of internal renewable water but depends on rivers that rise in Türkiye, and only 18.4% of its transboundary basin area was reported as covered by an operational arrangement in 2023 [3, 6]. A water ministry spokesperson told AFP on 25 May 2025 that reserves were at their lowest in 80 years, about 10 billion cubic metres against the 18 billion needed at the start of summer, and that Iraq was receiving less than 40% of its share from the Tigris and Euphrates [37]. SIPRI describes high exposure to droughts, floods, heatwaves and dust storms that, combined with other factors, raise the risk of instability [38]. CNN reported that about 60% of Iraq's water comes from Türkiye, that agriculture uses more than 80% of it, and that the IOM recorded over 168,000 people displaced by climate and environmental pressures [39].

Iraq and Türkiye have moved towards institutional arrangements. In October 2025 the foreign ministers announced a draft framework on water management after talks in Ankara; the Turkish minister said the rivers belong to both countries and that the shortage would persist for years [40]. A framework agreement of April 2024 was followed on 2 November 2025 by a mechanism under which water projects would be financed through a structure based on Iraqi oil revenues, with Turkish companies participating; amounts were not disclosed in the sources retrieved [41]. Readings differ. A Turkish analyst presents the mechanism as an institutional step in a longer partnership [41]; CNN quotes critics who say tying water projects to oil revenue departs from recognised principles of water diplomacy and gives Türkiye leverage, while Iraqi officials say water management remains under Iraqi sovereignty [39]. Without the full terms, independent assessment is not yet possible.

The Horn of Africa and Italy: Kenya and a destination country

Kenya has 382 cubic metres of internal renewable water per person and 33% water stress, and ranks 26th on INFORM with a drought hazard score of 6.6 [3, 4, 19]. During the 2020 to 2022 drought, at least 180,000 refugees from Somalia and South Sudan also arrived in drought-affected areas of Kenya and Ethiopia [18]. The conflict literature on northern Kenya is mixed. Dietz, Adano and Witsenburg found, in long-term data from Marsabit, no evidence that ethnic violence was related to environmental scarcity, roughly twice as many deaths in wet years as in drought years, and herders reporting that sharing scarce water across ethnic groups in droughts is the more rational strategy, supported by long-standing local institutions [8]. Ember and colleagues, listed in a replication atlas as a failed replication of an earlier rain-and-raids study, reported that drier months and drought years in Turkana District were associated with more livestock-raiding violence [42]. The studies differ in district, period and measure, which is why local evidence is needed before any general claim.

Italy has 3,093 cubic metres per person, 30% water stress, a Low INFORM class and 97.1% transboundary coverage [3, 4, 6, 19]. It is included because it is the northern destination of the same climate trends: the IPCC states that droughts have become more frequent and intense, especially in the north Mediterranean [5]. No comparable verified data on Italian drought impacts or on water-related disputes were retrieved for this review, so no further claim is made.

4. Analysis: drivers, mechanisms and openings for cooperation

Mechanisms that the evidence supports

The cases support a small number of mechanisms, with differing strength of evidence. First, hydrological pressure is structural and worsening, as Table 1 and the IPCC findings on warming, drought and reduced river flows indicate [5]. Second, governance shapes the effect of scarcity: Libya's measured withdrawals are 817% of renewable resources, and the Arab Reform analysis attributes its shortages to institutional fragmentation and a strategy that drew attention and funding away from desalination [4, 24]. Third, asymmetry between upstream and downstream states makes unilateral infrastructure politically salient, as on the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates; in this report's reading, cooperation then depends on shared data and operating rules rather than on principles alone [26, 29, 41]. Fourth, armed conflict damages water systems and removes the capacity to adapt, as documented in Gaza, Lebanon and Libya [24, 32, 36] and generalised by the ICRC [13]. Fifth, rain-fed farming and pastoralism carry the first impacts of drought [18].

The evidence for a direct chain from scarcity to armed conflict is weaker than for these five mechanisms. The expert assessment ranks low development and weak states above climate [1], the Syrian chain is disputed link by link [14, 15], the Marsabit data show more violence in wet years [8], and the global chronology indicates that most water violence consists of attacks on infrastructure during conflict and of local disputes [7]. The more defensible proposition is that water scarcity and climate shocks raise the cost of weak governance and conflict, and that conflict in turn removes the capacity to manage water.

Cooperation instruments across the thirteen countries

Table 2 supports three observations. Formal instruments exist for most shared systems, consistent with the finding that cooperation is common [6, 16]. Their performance is rarely evaluated in public: for the Nubian Authority, the Orontes agreements and the Iraq-Türkiye mechanism, the sources describe terms but not outcomes. And supplementary arrangements that depend on political context appear more fragile than treaty allocations, an inference from a single reported case [31].

Openings for cooperation

• Data and monitoring. The Nile case suggests that disagreement over flows can be narrowed through shared data and models; a trilateral technical commission and early-warning system is one concrete option [26]. The Nubian Authority's 2000 terms of reference on monitoring and data sharing are an existing template [25].
• Aquifers. Arrangements already cover most transboundary aquifer area in Tunisia, Libya and Italy [6]; shared groundwater monitoring is a lower-profile area for cooperation than river allocation.
• Local institutions. The Marsabit study credits long-standing local institutions with avoiding conflict even in drought [8]; strengthening them, rather than replacing them, is consistent with the evidence.
• Drought preparedness. Shortage arrived faster than infrastructure in Lebanon, Tunisia and Iraq; early warning and demand management deserve attention alongside emergency trucking, which 44% of the Lebanese population relied on in 2025 and which the report describes as costly and often unsafe [32].

Counter-evidence and competing interpretations

Reasonable readers interpret the same material differently. One reading, close to the SIPRI analysis, is that the security risk is real and that frameworks should treat water, climate and conflict together [12]. A second, reflected in the Syrian critique and the Marsabit data, is that securitising climate can obscure political causes [8, 15]. A third, reflected in the treaty study, is that conflict and cooperation coexist, and that more agreements are associated with more cooperation without reducing conflict [16]. The evidence does not allow these readings to be separated cleanly, and the report does not take a side between governments; the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates and Jordan cases attribute each statement to its source.

5. Implications for policy and practice

The implications below follow from the evidence in the preceding sections. They are addressed to named kinds of actors and are options for consideration, not positions on contested political questions.

• Governments of riparian states: publish allocation rules, flow and storage data and operating protocols for shared systems, since the Nile and Orontes cases show that disputes persist where figures differ and are not jointly verified [26, 34]; and publish the terms of water financing mechanisms, as in the Iraq-Türkiye case, so that independent assessment is possible [41].
• Water utilities and ministries in drought-affected countries: plan for multi-year drought, not single-season shortage. Tunisia's dams stood at 38.1% in June 2025, close to the three-year average [21], and Lebanon's main reservoir fell by 64% in a year [32]. Demand management and rationing rules published in advance would make cuts more predictable.
• Donors and UN agencies: fund protection and repair of water systems in conflict settings, since attacks on infrastructure are the most frequent category of reported water violence [7]; fund independent evaluation of cooperation instruments, which the sources reviewed rarely report [25, 33, 41]; and avoid presenting climate as the cause of conflict in programme design when the evidence ranks other drivers higher [1].
• Municipalities: local authorities carry the first impact of shortage; rationing in Tunisian cities, trucking in Lebanon and distribution points in Gaza show that fairness in allocation is tested locally [22, 32, 36]. Published schedules, complaint channels and priority rules for hospitals and schools would reduce the risk of disputes.
• Civil society organisations: document local water-sharing practices, record disputes under agreed ethical protocols, and support user associations and pastoral institutions [8].
• Researchers: test the causal chain link by link [14, 15]; use geocoded local data instead of national averages; disclose reliability limits as INFORM does [19]; and report measurement choices when comparing water stress [3, 4].

6. What TIPCS proposes

TIPCS is an independent, nonpartisan research, dialogue and training institute headquartered in Monastir, with offices in the thirteen countries covered by this report and working in English, French and Arabic. It has seven policies in force (code of conduct, safeguarding and PSEA, anti-fraud and anti-corruption, conflict of interest, whistleblowing and complaints, sanctions and due diligence, and research ethics and editorial independence) and publishes its funding. TIPCS proposes three linked workstreams designed to address the evidence gaps identified in this report.

Workstream 1: a comparative evidence base on shared-water cooperation

TIPCS would test the hypothesis that the performance of shared-water instruments depends more on data transparency and institutional capacity than on legal form. It would build an open register of instruments in the thirteen countries and their neighbours, recording allocation rules, monitoring and dispute-settlement provisions and public performance data, and compare them with a transparent coding scheme. Methods would combine desk review of treaty texts and official releases with interviews with consenting water officials and technical experts. Results would be published with data and codebook in English, French and Arabic.

Workstream 2: local water governance and cooperation in selected sites

TIPCS would examine, in a few subnational sites chosen to include high and low water stress and conflict-affected and stable settings, how communities and municipalities allocate scarce water and settle disputes, and whether local institutions are associated with fewer disputes. Methods would include mapping of water points and governance arrangements, group discussions, municipal records and, where safe, repeat surveys with comparison sites. Association would not be presented as cause. Where fieldwork would endanger participants or staff, work would use remote methods and local partners or would not proceed.

Workstream 3: technical dialogue and training

TIPCS would convene closed technical dialogues for water professionals, municipal officers and civil society, on data sharing, drought preparedness and conflict-sensitive water management, and would offer training in conflict sensitivity and do-no-harm for water programmes. Dialogues would be technical, not negotiating forums, and would not claim a mandate on any state's rights or allocations. Participation would be voluntary, and Chatham House-style rules would apply where participants request them.

Safeguarding and do-no-harm

• Safeguarding and PSEA, research ethics and editorial independence policies would apply to all staff, partners and consultants, with complaints and whistleblowing channels in English, French and Arabic.
• Data minimisation: no personal data beyond what the research question needs; no information on water use that could identify a household to authorities; consent in the participant's language, with the right to withdraw; sensitive data stored under access controls.
• Local ethical review in each country of fieldwork, an independent advisory group including hydrology, law and conflict-sensitivity specialists, and a documented stop rule if work appears to create risk for participants or communities.
• Neutrality: TIPCS would not take a position on the allocation of shared waters between states, would present each party's documented position with attribution, and would publish funding sources and conflicts of interest.
• Security: fieldwork in conflict-affected settings would follow a written risk assessment, and no staff or partner would be asked to travel where it advises against it.

Partnership model and measurement

TIPCS would seek partnerships with universities and research institutes, water utilities and municipal authorities, river basin and aquifer bodies, civil society organisations and UN agencies, with roles agreed in writing and shared data governance. Results would be measured against the indicators in Table 3 at baseline, mid-term and end-line, with an external evaluator, and published in English, French and Arabic, including findings that do not support the proposal's assumptions.

7. Risks, limitations and what we do not know

• Measurement. Internal renewable resources exclude upstream inflows, which is why Egypt records 9 cubic metres per person, and the SDG 6.4.2 ratio can exceed 100% where non-renewable groundwater or desalination is used [3, 4]. Table 1 should be read column by column, not as a ranking.
• Attribution. Attributing a drought to climate change does not establish a political outcome [18], and expert elicitation provides judgment, not measurement [1, 2].
• Source mix. Several figures rest on news reports or secondary sources: the Jordan-Israel arrangement [31], the Tunisian cost estimate [23], the Iraqi reserves [37], the Lebanese drought report [32] and the Iraq-Türkiye terms [39, 41]. They should be checked against official releases.
• Currency and gaps. Figures for Gaza, Lebanon and Iraq change quickly. No verified comparable public data were found on water-related conflict in Algeria, Mauritania and Italy, on current per-person water use in the West Bank, or on INFORM Climate Change country values, and Orontes allocation figures differ between sources [33, 34].
• Proposal risks. Research on water and conflict can be misread as taking sides, and fieldwork in some settings carries risks of exposure; the measures in Section 6 are designed to reduce, not remove, these risks.

8. Conclusion

The public evidence supports a measured conclusion. Water scarcity is structural across most of the thirteen countries and is being intensified by a warming climate [3, 5], but the best available assessment ranks poverty and weak state capacity above climate as influences on armed conflict [1], and the most closely examined case, Syria, remains disputed [14, 15]. Cooperation between states over shared water is common, though agreements alone do not reduce conflict [16], and several arrangements are under strain or lack published performance data [31, 41]. Most reported water violence concerns damage to infrastructure during conflict and local disputes [7]. What is missing is comparable, open evidence: flow and allocation data on shared systems, independent evaluations of cooperation instruments, local data on how communities share water, and current figures for the most affected settings. The proposal in Section 6 aims to contribute to that evidence base from within the region, with safeguards that match the sensitivity of the subject.

Method and limits of this brief

This report is a desk review of public sources accessed on 26 October 2026; it does not draw on primary fieldwork, interviews or non-public data. National indicators come from World Bank and UN datasets and the INFORM Risk spreadsheet, whose values are revised over time and whose country coverage and reliability vary. Several sources are news reports, thesis abstracts or web summaries of primary documents, and in a few cases (Mach et al., Kelley et al., Selby et al., the Egyptian Security Council letter, the Ethiopian letter's characterisation of other parties' positions) the primary text was not read in full, which is noted where it matters. Gaza and Lebanon figures change rapidly. The report does not adjudicate disputes between states over shared waters. Statements about TIPCS are limited to its institutional profile and to the proposal in Section 6, which describes intended work and not results.

References

1. [1]Mach, K. J., Kraan, C. M., Adger, W. N., et al. (2019). Climate as a risk factor for armed conflict. Nature 571, 193-197. Peace Research Institute Oslo repository record. https://www.prio.org/publications/11405 (accessed 2026-10-26)
2. [2]Stanford University News (2019). Climate change and armed conflict: expert assessment (news release, 12 June 2019, on Mach et al., Nature). https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2019/06/climate-change-cause-armed-conflict (accessed 2026-10-26)
3. [3]World Bank (2026). Renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (cubic metres), indicator ER.H2O.INTR.PC, source FAO AQUASTAT (World Development Indicators, updated 8 October 2026; API query, latest non-empty value). https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/TUN;DZA;LBY;EGY;MRT;PSE;LBN;SYR;TUR;JOR;IRQ;KEN;ITA/indicator/ER.H2O.INTR.PC?format=json&mrnev=1&per_page=200 (accessed 2026-10-26)
4. [4]World Bank (2026). Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources (SDG 6.4.2), indicator ER.H2O.FWST.ZS, source FAO AQUASTAT (World Development Indicators, updated 8 October 2026; API query, latest non-empty value). https://api.worldbank.org/v2/country/TUN;DZA;LBY;EGY;MRT;PSE;LBN;SYR;TUR;JOR;IRQ;KEN;ITA/indicator/ER.H2O.FWST.ZS?format=json&mrnev=1&per_page=200 (accessed 2026-10-26)
5. [5]IPCC (2022). Cross-Chapter Paper 4: Mediterranean Region. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, Working Group II contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/chapter/ccp4/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
6. [6]UN-Water, UNECE and UNESCO (2024). Progress on Transboundary Water Cooperation, SDG indicator 6.5.2 (2023 reporting data, country and global values). SDG 6 Data Portal. https://www.sdg6data.org/indicator/6.5.2 (accessed 2026-10-26)
7. [7]Pacific Institute (2025). Pacific Institute analysis finds surge in reported water-related violence (announcement on the Water Conflict Chronology, 11 November 2025; page updated 2026). https://pacinst.org/announcement/pacific-institute-analysis-finds-surge-in-reported-water-related-violence/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
8. [8]Dietz, T., Adano, W. R. and Witsenburg, K. (2015). Natural Resources and Conflicts: Theoretical Flaws and Empirical Evidence from Northern Kenya. African Environmental Review. https://www.environmentalpeacebuilding.org/library/show/libraryitem-1474 (accessed 2026-10-26)
9. [9]MedECC (2020). 1st Mediterranean Assessment Report (MAR1): main results. Mediterranean Experts on Climate and environmental Change. https://www.medecc.org/1st-mediterranean-assessment-report-mar1-main-results/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
10. [10]White, C. (2012). Understanding water scarcity: definitions and measurements. Global Water Forum, citing Falkenmark, M., Lundqvist, J. and Widstrand, C. (1989), Natural Resources Forum 13(4), 258-267 (reproduced as an IWMI-hosted PDF). https://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/News_Room/pdf/Understanding_water_scarcity.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
11. [11]UN-Water (2025). Water scarcity (water facts page). United Nations. https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-scarcity (accessed 2026-10-26)
12. [12]Schaar, J. (2019). A Confluence of Crises: On Water, Climate and Security in the Middle East and North Africa. SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security, July 2019. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. https://www.sipri.org/publications/2019/sipri-insights-peace-and-security/confluence-crises-water-climate-and-security-middle-east-and-north-africa (accessed 2026-10-26)
13. [13]International Committee of the Red Cross (2020). When rain turns to dust: understanding and responding to the combined impact of armed conflicts and the climate and environment crisis on people's lives (publication page). https://www.icrc.org/en/publication/4487-when-rain-turns-dust (accessed 2026-10-26)
14. [14]Kelley, C. P., Mohtadi, S., Cane, M. A., Seager, R. and Kushnir, Y. (2015). Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (abstract via the Environmental Peacebuilding Association library). https://www.environmentalpeacebuilding.org/library/show/libraryitem-1325 (accessed 2026-10-26)
15. [15]Selby, J., Dahi, O. S., Fröhlich, C. and Hulme, M. (2017). Climate change and the Syrian civil war revisited. Political Geography (summary via the Environmental Peacebuilding Association library). https://www.environmentalpeacebuilding.org/library/show/libraryitem-3118 (accessed 2026-10-26)
16. [16]Dinar, S., Katz, D., De Stefano, L. and Blankespoor, B. (2019). Do treaties matter? Political Geography 69, 162-172 (record on Duke Scholars). https://scholars.duke.edu/publication/1617115 (accessed 2026-10-26)
17. [17]World Bank (2018). Beyond Scarcity: Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa (publication page). https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/publication/beyond-scarcity-water-security-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa (accessed 2026-10-26)
18. [18]World Weather Attribution (2023). Human-induced climate change increased drought severity in southern Horn of Africa (27 April 2023). https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/human-induced-climate-change-increased-drought-severity-in-southern-horn-of-africa/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
19. [19]European Commission Joint Research Centre and INFORM partners (2026). INFORM Risk Index, Mid 2026 release, version 0.7.3 (1 September 2026), country values for Hazard and Exposure (drought), overall risk, class and rank; spreadsheet INFORM_Risk_Mid_2026_v073.xlsx. https://drmkc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/inform-index/Portals/0/InfoRM/2026/INFORM_Risk_Mid_2026_v073.xlsx (accessed 2026-10-26)
20. [20]European Commission Joint Research Centre (2022). INFORM Climate Change Risk Index: methodology. Disaster Risk Management Knowledge Centre. https://drmkc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/inform-index/INFORM-Climate-Change/Methodology (accessed 2026-10-26)
21. [21]AllAfrica (2025). Tunisie: Etat des lieux des barrages à fin juin 2025 (report of data from the Observatoire National de l'Agriculture, ONAGRI, as of 27 June 2025). https://fr.allafrica.com/stories/202506300298.html (accessed 2026-10-26)
22. [22]Fanack Water (2023). Tunisia's vulnerable groups bear the brunt of climate change (15 May 2023). https://water.fanack.com/publications/tunisias-vulnerable-groups-bear-the-brunt-of-climate-change/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
23. [23]AGBI (2023). Droughts could cost Tunisia $1bn annually (report citing a World Bank estimate; publication date not shown on the page, apparently 2023). https://www.agbi.com/sustainability/2023/11/droughts-could-cost-tunisia-1bn-annually/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
24. [24]Altaeb, M. (2021). Water Politics in Libya: A Crisis of Management, not Scarcity. Arab Reform Initiative, 29 June 2021. https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/water-politics-in-libya-a-crisis-of-management-not-scarcity/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
25. [25]International Waters Governance (n.d.). Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS): legal basis and institutions. https://www.internationalwatersgovernance.com/nubian-sandstone-aquifer-system-nsas.html (accessed 2026-10-26)
26. [26]Melcangi, A. (2025). The Nile at a crossroads: navigating the GERD dispute as Egypt's floodwaters rise. Atlantic Council MENASource, 10 November 2025. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/the-nile-at-a-crossroads-navigating-the-gerd-dispute-as-egypts-floodwaters-rise/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
27. [27]International Crisis Group (2019). Calming the Choppy Nile Dam Talks (commentary, 23 October 2019). https://crisisgroup.org/node/11730 (accessed 2026-10-26)
28. [28]United Nations (2025). Letter dated 9 September 2025 from the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2025/562 (record only; text not reviewed). https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4088202 (accessed 2026-10-26)
29. [29]United Nations (2025). Letter dated 10 September 2025 from the Permanent Representative of Ethiopia to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2025/573. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4088333/files/S_2025_573-EN.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
30. [30]Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty (1994). Annex II: Water Related Matters. Yale Law School Avalon Project. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/jordan_treaty_annex2.asp (accessed 2026-10-26)
31. [31]The National (2026). Jordan and Israel water (report of 27 February 2026 on the non-renewal of the 2021 supply arrangement). https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/mena/2026/02/27/jordan-israel-water/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
32. [32]Growing Cross-Sector Impacts of Lebanon's Drought (2025). WaSH sector report hosted by Acción contra el Hambre; publisher and date not stated in the document, data to mid-August 2025. https://accioncontraelhambre.org/sites/default/files/2025-09/Growing%20Cross-Sector%20Impacts%20of%20Lebanon%E2%80%99s%20Drought%20Report%20FINAL.pdf (accessed 2026-10-26)
33. [33]Fanack Water (n.d.). Shared water resources in Lebanon (Orontes, Nahr el Kabir, Hasbani-Wazzani). https://water.fanack.com/lebanon/shared-water-resources-in-lebanon/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
34. [34]American University of Beirut (n.d.). Reviewing the 1994, 1997, and 2002 Agreements on the Orontes River: Is Lebanon's Share Fair and Equitable? (thesis abstract, AUB ScholarWorks). https://scholarworks.aub.edu.lb/items/85317a36-13f5-43ec-872f-557dd561abdc (accessed 2026-10-26)
35. [35]FAO (2026). GIEWS Country Brief: Syrian Arab Republic (reference date 28 August 2026). Global Information and Early Warning System. https://www.fao.org/giews/countrybrief/country.jsp?code=SYR (accessed 2026-10-26)
36. [36]UNICEF State of Palestine (2026). Humanitarian Situation Update: WASH in the Gaza Strip (reporting period to 29 May 2026). https://www.unicef.org/sop/reports/unicef-state-palestine-humanitarian-situation-update-wash-gaza-strip (accessed 2026-10-26)
37. [37]Ahram Online (2025). Iraq's water reserves lowest in 80 years: Official (AFP report of 25 May 2025, quoting the water resources ministry spokesperson). https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/546881.aspx (accessed 2026-10-26)
38. [38]Seyuba, K., O'Driscoll, D., Tarif, K., Kim, K. and Ali, A. (2023). Climate, Peace and Security Fact Sheet: Iraq. SIPRI, April 2023. https://www.sipri.org/publications/2023/partner-publications/climate-peace-and-security-fact-sheet-iraq-2023 (accessed 2026-10-26)
39. [39]CNN (2025). Grappling with its worst drought in a century, Iraq bets on a controversial oil-for-water deal (Tawfeeq, M., 21 December 2025; accessed through an AOL syndication copy). https://www.aol.com/articles/grappling-worst-drought-century-iraq-050101563.html (accessed 2026-10-26)
40. [40]Arab News (2025). Turkiye and Iraq reach draft agreement on sharing water as drought worsens (Associated Press report, 11 October 2025). https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2618535 (accessed 2026-10-26)
41. [41]Çalışkan, S. (2025). Türkiye-Iraq water cooperation: new link in strategic ties. ORSAM, 7 November 2025 (originally Anadolu Agency, 5 November 2025). https://orsam.org.tr/en/yayinlar/turkiye-iraq-water-cooperation-new-link-in-strategic-ties/ (accessed 2026-10-26)
42. [42]FORRT Replication Hub (n.d.). Replication atlas entry for Witsenburg, K. M. and Adano, W. R. (2009), Of Rain and Raids: Violent Livestock Raiding in Northern Kenya, Civil Wars 11(4), and its replication by Ember et al. (2012), Civil Wars. https://forrt.org/flora-replication-atlas/doi/10.1080/13698240903403915/ (accessed 2026-10-26)

How to cite

Tunisian Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies (TIPCS) (2026). Water, climate and peace across the Mediterranean, Sahel-edge and Horn: evidence for cooperation. Monastir: TIPCS. www.tipcs.org/publications/climate-water-peace-mediterranean