I had the opportunity Tuesday to attend the Funk n' Flow for H20 concert at the Orpheum's Stage Door Theater sponsored by the campus student aid organization Village Health Project. As you can probably guess from the title of the concert, it was all about water. The organization works to build and secure supplies of clean water in the African nation of Uganda. First of all, I'd like to applaud the group for its work Tuesday evening. They put on an excellent production and created a truly amazing photo/video documentary about their role in building rainwater holding tanks and water filters. Most importantly, however, the Village Health Project and other organizations like it serve to promote and raise the awareness of an issue that often seems to stream by the attention of most Americans without a second thought. A century ago, portraying access to water as a security issue for most nations would have seemed ludicrous. However, since then, the world's population has roughly quadrupled. This, together with the rise of industry, has caused the world's usage of water supplies to spike. Today, rising populations and industry, particularly in the developing world, have strained the available supplies of water. Throw in the stresses of climate change, and the potential danger and conflict surrounding water supplies becomes readily apparent. In the United States, access to water supplies is pretty much universal. There are some problems in the West, particularly with the siphoning off of major rivers like the Colorado, and the tapping of aquifers for irrigation purposes in arid regions of California, as well as such states as Arizona, Utah and Nevada. While this is a problem, the prosperity, technology and mobility of people in the United States means that this problem can either be solved or minimized. The real water problems are occurring in the developing world. Many of the countries located in Africa and Asia are facing population and industrial increases that are stressing their water supplies. All of this will of course be complicated if climate change worsens droughts or affects rainfall patterns. While I don't believe the world will devolve into some future dystopia of incessant water wars, I do think there is some potential for conflict. In Southeast Asia, water has already become a contentious issue. Conflict has been brewing between China on one side, and Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand on the other. Several of the region's most important rivers have their headwaters in western China. Of these, the most important is the Mekong River. However, China has already built two dams on the headwaters of the Mekong and plans to build six more. These have been blamed for choking off part of the flow of water on the river, and for threatening the livelihood of the millions who live downstream of the dams. African nations face some of the same problems of Southeast Asia with regard to rivers crossing national boundaries. A quick look at a map of Africa reveals many rivers that cross through multiple countries. Countries downstream on these rivers have to live with the impact of projects that occur upstream. With increasing water scarcity across the continent, cooperation over the use of these water resources will be essential to avoid conflict. Unfortunately, the problem of water supplies goes far beyond simply securing enough liquid to meet demand. A river, lake or well cannot provide much help if it's polluted with industrial chemicals, human and animal waste, or another contaminant. Implementing cheap and effective water and sewage treatment systems to minimize industrial pollution and the dangerous diseases that human and animal waste can introduce into water supplies should be a top priority. In the case of countries that do not have the technical infrastructure to support massive public water treatment systems, there are alternatives. One of them I learned about from the Village Health Project's concert was the use of a sand-based filter system that is effective enough to produce clean drinking supplies from contaminated water that's relatively cheap and easy to produce. Hopefully, with effective solutions such as this one, future efforts to improve access to clean water will succeed. Without international cooperation and planning, at least some conflict over water resources seems likely. While there is no certainty concerning just how big this problem will become, there is no doubt that water will become an even more important resource than it already is. The time to plan for the future is right now. It is essential for global security and for the safety of global citizens that the international community ensures access to water resources for every nation and is ready to arbitrate the inevitable disputes that will arise over ownership of these resources. Andrew Wagner ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in computer science and political science.