Water Security

Competing demands for freshwater play out between sectors and regions within the same country, and between nations that vie for access to the water on which their entire economies—agriculture, energy, and industry—rely. This web page is the library for all content on water security by scholars across CSIS. The CSIS Project on Water Security web page present comprehensive policy solutions to the challenges water insecurity poses to U.S. geopolitical and economic interests, with a special focus on global food security, produced by the CSIS Global Food and Water Security Program. The Water and the Future of the Middle East project webpage houses the Middle East Program’s work to energize the policy environment around the issue of water insecurity in the region and provide constructive recommendations for necessary transformation.

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Photo: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Experts React: What Else Is Needed to Address Global Water Insecurity?

Water security is a multifaceted challenge, made more complicated by climate change and the demands of a growing and urbanizing global population. Here, CSIS experts react to the most urgent threats to water security and offer insight into what more can be done.

Commentary by Caitlin Welsh , Franck Gbaguidi , Tanvi Nagpal , Rod Schoonover , and Sera Young — July 26, 2023

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Featured Video

Photo: iLab/CSIS

Watershed: Agriculture and The Colorado River Crisis

The Colorado River is in crisis. Due to historically low water flow levels and increasing demand from all states in the basin, water stress in the Colorado River has attracted unprecedented attention from policymakers, the media, and the general public. Caitlin Welsh, Director of The CSIS Project on Water Security and Global Food and Water Security Program, unfolds how water stress in the Colorado River is a story about agriculture, both as a consumer of water and a source of solutions.

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Past Events

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Experts

Caitlin Welsh

Caitlin Welsh

Director, Global Food and Water Security Program
Katherine E. Bliss

Katherine E. Bliss

Senior Fellow and Director, Immunizations and Health Systems Resilience, Global Health Policy Center

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The Waterfall’s Shadow in the Mekong Region

Infrastructure programs like China's Belt and Road Initiative further authoritarian influence in climate and water-stressed regions. The United States needs strategies that simultaneously advance water security and national security to compete with China. 

Brief by Benjamin Jensen , Daniel F. Runde , and Thomas Bryja — September 29, 2023

Babel: Translating the Middle East

Viewpoint: Data Dead Zone

The Middle East is largely a water data dead zone, complicating water management strategies that could lead to development and peace.

Podcast Episode by Natasha Hall and Leah Hickert — September 26, 2023

CSIS Babel

Running Dry: Exploring the Water Crisis in Syria

Please join the Middle East Program for an event that sheds light on the water crisis in Syria and explores its effects on local communities with a focus on the political, financial, and social obstacles to alleviating water insecurity.

Event by Natasha Hall , Marjolaine Bos , Simav Hassan , Marie Schellens , Peter Schwartzstein , and Nadeen Taha — September 19, 2023

Audio Briefs

“Whose Water Is It Anyway”: Audio Brief with Natasha Hall

A short, spoken-word summary from CSIS’s Natasha Hall on her commentary with Husam Sobhi, “Whose Water Is It Anyway: How Political Violence and Corruption Has Become Iraq’s Existential Challenge.”

Podcast Episode by Natasha Hall — September 19, 2023

Audio Briefs

2023’s Summer of Climate Shocks

What happened this summer? Were successive climate shocks merely an exclamation point to a deeper ongoing march? Or were they a thunderclap, signaling a pivot?

Event by Stephanie Segal , Joseph Majkut , J. Stephen Morrison , and Caitlin Welsh — September 11, 2023

Building the Future: Freedom, Prosperity, and Foreign Policy with Dan Runde

Water Strategy: Investment and Security

In this episode of Building the Future, Dan is joined by Nancy Eslick of USAID who shares insights into the ways in which water strategy underpins issues such as climate resilience and international security, the need for financing and investment in water strategy, and the measures the U.S. government has taken to support global water security initiatives.  

Podcast Episode by Daniel F. Runde — August 24, 2023

CSIS Building the Future
The CommonHealth

Sera Young, Northwestern University: “Accountability is probably the most powerful tool that we have”

In this episode, Sera Young discusses the relationship between gender and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and explains why it’s important to gather data, not just about men’s and women’s access to water and sanitation infrastructure, but also about how individuals’ experience of water insecurity affects their physical and mental health.

Podcast Episode by Katherine E. Bliss and Sera Young — August 3, 2023

Photo: iLab/CSIS