NOTE: This article was one of the winners of the 2024 COVERING CLIMATE NOW AWARDS
Earlier this year, Mohammed Noman could hear the faint but persistent sound of gunshots from his farm in western Afghanistan near the border with Iran. The gunfire was a reminder that, since the Taliban won control of the nation in 2021, conflict has continued. This time, however, “The fight is over the precious water,” Noman says.
Fueled in part by a prolonged drought, tensions over water between Iran and Afghanistan have escalated this year, with Iran accusing Taliban leaders of violating a long-standing agreement to share water from the Helmand River that flows from Afghanistan into Iran. In late May, clashes near the river reportedly led to the deaths of at least two Iranian border guards and one Taliban fighter. “We are close to the border, so we witnessed these battles with our own eyes,” Noman told ScienceInsider in June. “We live in constant fear.”
Climate change could only worsen the conflict, researchers say. Although detailed data are scarce, a recent study concluded that average temperatures in Afghanistan have risen by between 0.6°C and 1.8°C since 1950. And, “If you look at the map [of Afghanistan], the area that has the highest change in temperatures [is] … where the conflict has occurred,” says water specialist Assem Mayar, a former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University.
Other recent research finds that the hotter temperatures—together with shifts in precipitation, a growing population, expanding agriculture, and severe political instability—have put increasing pressure on water supplies in the Helmand River Basin, which covers some 40% of Afghanistan. Satellite data show that groundwater levels, for example, dropped by an average of 2.6 meters from 2003 to 2021, as a result of drought, pumping, and water diversions, researchers reported this year in Earth Science Informatics. The Hāmūn Lakes along the border have shrunk by more than 90% since 1999, according to data published last year in Science of the Total Environment. And researchers estimate the amount of Helmand River water reaching Iran has dropped by more than half over the past 2 decades, in part because of the construction of new dams and the expansion of irrigated farming in Afghanistan.
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