- Here, however, is the real kicker in the FAO report. Buried about 35 pages in, the FAO identifies 11 countries where irrigated cropland is currently under very high water stress and where rainfed cropland experiences a very high frequency of drought: Morocco, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Syria, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. Four additional countries fall just below the line set for “very high” – Iraq, Rwanda, India, and Ethiopia.
That is not an exhaustive list of the countries whose geopolitics are being impacted by water issues – that list would basically be every country in the world, in some way. But it is the list of the countries where water issues are creating the most intense pressure points today, and where a potential drought or the exhaustion of a key water source could be a tipping point into chaos. That is the lens through which you should view developments in some of these countries, like the controversial new agricultural laws in India we alerted you about in June and which the English-speaking media has finally discovered, or the Iranian government’s tenuous grip on its own country, or Ethiopia’s civil war, or the breakneck rush to push through significant reforms in places like Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia that seem deceptively calm on the surface.