Science could help prevent water conflicts in Africa
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Essam Heggy, a researcher at the University of Southern California, and his colleagues argue that a lack of strong scientific data, not simply a lack of water, fuels conflicts over shared resources in Africa.
They point to 63 transboundary river basins across the continent, including the Congo, Niger, and Zambezi, that support over a billion people, and note that countries often disagree about future water availability.
Heggy’s team believes that improved, reproducible modeling of water resources can provide governments and international organizations with a shared understanding of how much water will be available during droughts and other extreme climate events. This modeling can simulate water movement, hydropower generation, and the effects of infrastructure decisions, turning an uncertain resource into a measurable one.
By using transparent models, countries could evaluate how different choices would impact everyone sharing a river basin, like balancing Ethiopia’s hydropower needs with Egypt’s water supply on the Nile. Heggy and his co-authors published a commentary in Nature Sustainability calling on scientific journals to prioritize and increase visibility for African water research.
They believe that strengthening editorial engagement and encouraging research grounded in local data will help ensure that scientific evidence, rather than competing narratives, guides negotiations and prevents disputes from escalating into crises. They maintain that reliable scientific findings are essential for evidence-based diplomacy.
