Water Security: A Discursive Analysis

Uttam Kumar Sinha

Uttam Kumar Sinha is a leading scholar and commentator on transboundary rivers, climate change and the Arctic. He is currently Co-Chair of the Think-20 Task Force on ‘Accelerating SDGs: Exploring… Continue reading Water Security: A Discursive Analysis read more

Water resources continue to attract considerable attention and have increasingly become a significant feature of the world security environment. In order to locate water in the security continuum, it is necessary to revisit the debate on the traditional and non-traditional aspects of security. On the one hand, notions and images often conjured up when water issue is highlighted are often associated with concerns like national survival, inter and intra-state tension and the likelihood of “water wars”– the ‘securitisation’ of water. On the other hand, the security discourse also examines the necessity to ‘desecuritise’ waterrelated problems so as to reduce perception of threat and facilitate negotiations.