Rethinking the link between climate and violent conflict over water

The climatisation of security has given a new impulse to fears of violent environmental conflict over scarce resources such as water. The present contribution links water conflict narratives to climate as a driver of conflict and notions of scarcity. Each of these narratives tends to have rather linear assumptions proving a false sense of certainty This is worrying as the uptake of particular narratives has material consequences, directing material resources in particular, in potentially harmful or wasteful ways. It is argued we will have to accept that climate-fuelled water conflict is an unstructured problem we do not understand very well, and have to take systemic complexity and emergence far more seriously than we have done so far. This contribution first introduces the concept of (environmental policy) narratives, after which it expounds ‘water wars’ and two contending narratives: ‘water peace’ and ‘water justice’.