Document Type : Research Paper
Abstract
Today, water-resources shortages have been considered as one of the major issues on the agenda of governments. Some geopolitics theorists consider the 21st century as the hydro-politics century and believe that most conflicts and regional wars in the world would be due to water-shortage crisis. Hydro politics is the study of conflict and cooperation between nations over the sharing of water resources. Homer Dixon believes that Future wars as well as civil and social violence would be caused mainly by lack of water, food, forests and fisheries resources. While both the modern states as well as countries highly dependent on renewable sources will be involved together over these sources. It is noteworthy that the status of water resources in countries has been so important from a theoretical perspective that the concept of virtual water is on the agenda of the governments as a way to prevent water loss and optimal use of water resources. This paper applies an analytical-descriptive method as well as library resources and websites to survey the condition of water resources, especially fresh water and its scarcity in selected Islamic countries, particularly in Iran. The findings show that in some Islamic countries, particularly Iran, freshwater rand usable resources are not in good condition. And, in the future, there will be challenges and conflicts over water resources as there already exists protests and riots over the sharing of water in Iran.
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