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.

In recent years, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network has reported that annual snow depth in Afghanistan has been markedly below average, reducing runoff. In 2021, the greatest snow deficit was recorded in the central Hindu Kush mountains, where all of Afghanistan’s major rivers, including the Helmand, originate.

Those trends have exacerbated long-standing tensions over a 1973 treaty between Afghanistan and Iran that guarantees Iran a share of the Helmand’s water. This year, the Iranian government claims it has been receiving less than 4% of the promised amount. The Taliban, in turn, have blamed drought for the restricted flow.

It’s a familiar spat, says Najibullah Sadid, an Afghan water specialist at the University of Stuttgart. “If you look at the history of dispute between Iran and Afghanistan—starting from 1872,1898,1902, and 1935—they all coincide with the years of droughts in the region,” he says. But now he and other researchers fear a warming climate and political instability will fuel more frequent and more intense conflicts.

One factor fueling distrust between the two nations is a lack of robust monitoring data. One key gauging station along the Helmand in Afghanistan, for example, “was destroyed in the conflict years ago … making it difficult to estimate water flows,” Sadid says.

In 2021, Afghanistan gained greater control over the river’s flow with the completion of the Kamal Khan Dam, creating a reservoir not far from the Iranian border that can store some 52 million cubic meters of water. But Iran has accused the Taliban of withholding water behind the dam in ways that violate the water-sharing treaty. In June, Iranian officials said the Taliban had agreed to a request for an Iranian “technical team” to visit the dam to measure water levels. Late last month, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had reached a “preliminary agreement” with the Taliban on water sharing but released no details.

Over the long term, researchers say ensuring there is enough water for the region will involve extensive changes in farming, water storage, and other practices. Iran, for example, has built four reservoirs that lose enormous amounts of water to evaporation, Sadid says. And both nations have built highly inefficient irrigation systems. Overall, researchers estimate up to 70% of the available water is wasted. “If systems are updated and new technologies are applied it will help save and allocate water downstream,” Mayar says.

A shift in crops could also help. In Afghanistan, many farmers grow wheat varieties that are poorly adapted to heat and drought, Mayar notes. Other options, including saffron and some vegetables, need less water, but “Afghan farmers don’t opt for them since there aren’t sufficient facilities such as transport [or] access to regularized markets,” Mayar says. In some cases, water shortages have prompted farmers to switch to growing more drought-tolerant opium poppies—despite a Taliban-imposed ban on the crop because it is used to make heroin and other narcotics.

Noman says that although some farmers in his area have switched to growing opium, he will not. “My father and grandfather considered it a dirty crop,” he says. But Noman worries about what the future will bring if Afghanistan and Iran do not develop a workable water sharing system in an era of rapid climate change.

“The world should not ignore us and the situation we are in,” Noman says. “This conflict could spill over into the entire region.”

Source: Science

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