The impact of attacks on urban services II: Reverberating effects of damage to water and wastewater systems on infectious disease

Abstract

This article investigates the effects that attacks during armed conflict which damage water and wastewater services have on the outbreak and transmission of infectious disease. It employs a lens of uncertainty to assess the level of knowledge about the reverberations along this consequential chain and to discuss the relevance to military planning and targeting processes, and to the laws of armed conflict. It draws on data in policy reports and research from a wide variety of contexts, and evidence from protracted armed conflicts in Iraq, Yemen and Gaza. The review finds a strong base of evidence of the impact of attacks on water and wastewater services, and a high level of confidence in information about the transmission of infectious disease. One clear risk identified is when people are exposed to water supplies which are contaminated by untreated wastewater. Obtaining a similar level of confidence about the cause and effect along the full consequential chain is challenged by numerous compounding variables, though there are a number of patterns related to the duration of the armed conflict within which the attacks occur. As the conflict protracts, both the risk of the spread of infectious disease and the evidence base for gauging the reverberating effects becomes stronger, for example. The article concludes that the reverberating effects of damage from an attack can be foreseen in some contexts and can be expected to become more foreseeable over time. The analysis suggests that the most pragmatic path for military institutions and those involved in targeting operations to take this knowledge into account is through a “precautionary approach” which assumes the existence of the reverberating effects, and works them in to the standard information-gathering and planning processes.

Targeting Libya’s rentier economy: The politics of energy, water, and infrastructural decay

“…Cities and their infrastructures were the foci of conflict since most populations are urbanized and because the 2011 revolutions became large-scale urban and semi-urban rebellions in response to regime repression (Sowers et al, 2017). Indirect impacts, what Talhami and Zeitoun (2016) refer to as “reverberating effects,” include the deterioration or disruption of infrastructural services, resulting from lack of personnel, maintenance, spare parts, inputs, and investment. For example, as medical infrastructure has deteriorated from protracted conflict in Yemen, malnourishment in children increased and epidemics of water-borne diseases such as cholera emerged (Sowers & Weinthal, 2021).…”

“…The direct and indirect targeting of civilian infrastructures by local and regional parties have been an important feature of protracted conflicts throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) (see e.g., Daoudy, 2020; Gleick, 2019; Schillinger et al, 2020; Sowers & Weinthal, 2021; Sowers et al, 2017; Talhami & Zeitoun, 2016; Weinthal & Sowers, 2019). In the case of Libya, however, we find that parties to the Libyan conflict have largely not sought to destroy but rather control and disrupt the vestiges of Libya’s rentier state institutions, in what Lacher has termed “rentierism without central authority” (Lacher, 2023; also see Lacher, 2020).…”

Assessing the impact of war on the water supply infrastructure in Tigray, Ethiopia

“…However, acts that create conditions of mass starvation through targeted destruction and looting of public infrastructures like water supply systems are considered violations of international humanitarian law which are prohibited by the Geneva Convention and its Protocols (Pertile and Faccio, 2020;Gleick, 2019b;Weinthal and Sowers, 2019;Zeitoun et al, 2014). Further, such acts are also considered as against international humanitarian law, as they disrupt access to clean water leading to conditions ripe for outbreaks of normally preventable diseases such as cholera, malaria, and measles (Talhami and Zeitoun, 2021). The damages to the water supply systems in Tigray forced local communities, and the…”

Disruption to water supply and waterborne communicable diseases in northeast Syria: a spatiotemporal analysis

“…have recently developed an analytical framework to facilitate the identification whether attacks are indiscriminate (not directed at a specific military objective) or discriminate (intentional and targeted at a specific military objective) and enable evaluation in terms of international norms and law [ 6 ]. This is more evident in contemporary conflicts where there is increased use of high yield munitions which penetrate the ground and have wider impacts on critical civil infrastructure, including for WASH as a secondary effect [ 7 ]. This has also occurred alongside the changing nature of warfare whereby there is a higher likelihood of ‘urban warfare’ with such heavy munitions used, leading to these secondary effects [ 8 ].…”