The analytical framework of water and armed conflict: a focus on the 2006 Summer War between Israel and Lebanon

Zeitoun, Mark; Eid-Sabbagh, Karim; Loveless, Jeremy

doi:10.1111/disa.12039

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(24 reference statements)

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“…These pumps would be likely to fail earlier than they normally would have, thus threatening the entire drinking water service. Similar cases have been documented for Beirut, 24 Baghdad, 25 Grozny, 26 Huambo, 27 Kabul, 28 Jenin, 29 Gaza, 30 southern Lebanon, 31 and other places.…”

supporting

confidence: 74%

The impact of explosive weapons on urban services: Direct and reverberating effects across space and time

Zeitoun

Talhami²

2016

Int. rev. Red Cross

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Michael Talhami, ICRC Regional Water and Habitat Advisor (Near and Middle East). Formerly a senior policy advisor addressing the management and governance of water resources problems in conflict settings. AbstractThis article reviews the factors that determine the impact of explosive weapons on urban services in space and time, with a focus on drinking water services. The evidence comes from published and unpublished research and records, as well as experience restoring or maintaining such services. Urban services are seen as interconnected, and each composed of interdependent components of people, consumables, and hardware. Elements that make up the components are labelled 'upstream', 'midstream', and 'downstream', to reflect their location and hierarchy in the production and delivery of any urban service. The impact of explosive weapons is broken into the direct effects on any of the components of a service, and the reverberating effects on up and or downstream components of the same service, or on other services. The effects are most commonly observed in service infrastructure, and determined chiefly by the extent of the damage to the functionality of any component. The spatial extent of the impact is found to be determined primarily by the hierarchy of the component suffering the direct impact, with attacks on upstream components being the furthest reaching. The duration of the impact is determined primarily by the pre-explosion 'baseline resilience' of the service, itself a function of system redundancies and emergency preparedness and response. The analysis suggests that the impact is more reasonably foreseeable than may commonly be thought, in the sense that the direct effects of explosives is well-known and that the most important infrastructure is generally identifiable. It follows that proportionality assessments that involve urban services would benefit from: i) the direct and consistent engagement of specialised engineers within the targeting cell; and ii) greater familiarity of the weapons controller with services, infrastructure and systems in urban areas

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supporting

confidence: 74%

The impact of explosive weapons on urban services: Direct and reverberating effects across space and time

Zeitoun

Talhami²

2016

Int. rev. Red Cross

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“…In line with the abovementioned objective of the paper, we focus the review on scientific literature only. There is a significant amount of gray literature on water resources and water management in conflict‐affected settings, particularly in the context of humanitarian interventions (as discussed in Zeitoun, Eid‐Sabbagh, & Loveless, 2014). However, this body of literature is not included in the review, since the methodology applied in such reports is often unclear and many do not adhere to the academic peer‐review principle 1…”

Section: Review Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The contamination of water resources due to damage to infrastructure is a recurring theme in studies on the impacts of conflict (Philip, 2014). Specific examples include the damage to wastewater treatment plants in the Gaza Strip during the Israeli military operations "Cast Lead" in 2008 (Mason, Zeitoun, & El Sheikh, 2011) and "Protective Edge" in 2014 (Weinthal & Sowers, 2019) from which untreated wastewater leaked, and damage to sewage lines and a wastewater treatment plant in Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War, where large amounts of sludge were consequently deposited directly into the Mediterranean Sea (Zeitoun et al, 2014).…”

Section: Conflict Impacts On Water Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The most common qualitative approach to analyzing conflict impacts is the distinction between “direct” and “indirect” impacts ( n = 6). According to Solomon et al (2018, p. 285), direct impacts “may be physically linked to military action and […] typically arise within the immediate short‐term,” while indirect impacts “can be reliably attributed to the conflict but they usually tangle with many factors and only fully manifest themselves in the medium to longer term.” Zeitoun et al (2014) alternatively refer to direct impacts as “primary” and indirect impacts as “secondary”. Additional categories include “reverberating effects” (Weinthal & Sowers, 2019) and “cumulative impacts” (Zeitoun et al, 2017), both referring to the combination and interplay of conflict impacts on different elements of the water system and beyond.…”

Section: Characterization Of the Scientific Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Water in war: Understanding the impacts of armed conflict on water resources and their management

et al. 2020

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Armed conflict has the potential to disrupt water systems that are crucial to environmental and human wellbeing. Yet there is no comprehensive overview of scientific evidence on the impact of armed conflicts on water resources and their management. This paper assesses the relevant scientific evidence through a systematic literature review. We discern conceptual, empirical, and methodological approaches adopted in the reviewed publications and synthesize the overarching research results. Common research topics across the body of literature include the role of water resources in armed conflicts, either as a casualty or as a weapon used by conflict parties, and the implications of armed conflict on water resources management, such as basic service provision and water governance. The analysis also pinpoints the research field's focus on empirical studies based on a small number of cases, and highlights a lack of conceptual engagement with the notion of armed conflict. Future research on water resources and their management in conflict settings needs to be more transparent on conceptual frameworks and assumptions to facilitate knowledge integration across different studies.

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“…Different parts of Beirut suffered continuously from 1982 to 1990 (World Bank, ; Nembrini, ), for instance, and again in 2006 (GOL, ; UNEP, ), even if these most recent attacks are sometimes treated in isolation (e.g. Hamieh and Mac Ginty, ; Fawaz, ; Zeitoun et al ., ). In Iraq, the experience of prolonged conflict was compounded by the trade embargo imposed on the government by the UN in 1990.…”

Section: The Cumulative and Cyclical Impact Of Armed Conflict On Urbamentioning

confidence: 97%

Urban Warfare Ecology: A Study of Water Supply in Basrah

Zeitoun

Elaydi

Dross

et al. 2017

Int J Urban Regional Res

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This article assesses the impact of armed conflict on the drinking water service of Basrah from 1978 to 2013 through an 'urban warfare ecology' lens in order to draw out the implications for relief programming and relevance to urban studies. It interprets an extensive range of unpublished literature through a frame that incorporates the accumulation of direct and indirect impacts upon the hardware, consumables and people upon which urban services rely. The analysis attributes a step-wise decline in service quality to the lack of water treatment chemicals, lack of spare parts, and, primarily, an extended 'brain-drain' of qualified water service staff. The service is found to have been vulnerable to dependence upon foreign parts and people, 'vicious cycles' of impact, and the politics of aid and of reconstruction. It follows that practitioners and donors eschew ideas of relief-rehabilitation-development (RRD) for an appreciation of the needs particular to complex urban warfare biospheres, where armed conflict and sanctions permeate all aspects of service provision through altered biological and social processes. The urban warfare ecology lens is found to be a useful complement to 'infrastructural warfare' research, suggesting the study of protracted armed conflict upon all aspects of urban life be both deepened technically and broadened to other cases.

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The analytical framework of water and armed conflict: a focus on the 2006 Summer War between Israel and Lebanon

Cited by 18 publications

References 31 publications

The impact of explosive weapons on urban services: Direct and reverberating effects across space and time

The impact of explosive weapons on urban services: Direct and reverberating effects across space and time

Water in war: Understanding the impacts of armed conflict on water resources and their management

Urban Warfare Ecology: A Study of Water Supply in Basrah

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