Water Wars: When Drought, Flood and Greed Collide

from Multimedia Library Collection:
Environmental Film Profiles (videos)

Burroughs, Jim. Water Wars: When Drought, Flood and Greed Collide. Los Angeles: Cinema Libre Films, 2009. HD, 55 min. https://youtu.be/fgXau5VcX3Y?list=PLCOaARTycsUL3rterlp3Hk9uiZMuupnxX.

The nation of Bangladesh is prey to every threat from water known to man. To understand the plight of this downriver delta nation is to understand what all of us will face in the coming years. Water Wars tells the story of this land at war with not only rising seas, but devastating floods and droughts—from India’s dams dumping their excess in the wet season and siphoning off river water in the dry season. And as Bangladesh sees less and less river water during the dry season it is forced to dig more wells going deeper, encountering arsenic poisoning that is filling hospitals and graveyards. Today the struggle “with” water and “for” water has become a global crisis. Shot in Bangladesh, India, New Orleans, and Holland, Water Wars features interviews with water management experts, activists, crisis managers and politicians. Can the global community work together to deal with the impending calamity and perhaps avert it? (Source: Adapted from the Official Film Website)

© 2010 Cinema Libre Films. Trailer used with permission.

This film is available at the Rachel Carson Center Library (RCC, 4th floor, Leopoldstrasse 11a, 80802 Munich) for on-site viewing only. For more information, please contact library@rcc.lmu.de.

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Further readings: 
  • Burke, J., et al. Climate Change, Water and Food Security. Rome: FAO, 2011.
  • Cernea, M. M. "Poverty Risks from Population Displacement in Water Resources Development." Harvard Institute for International Development 355 (1990): 55.
  • Green, Pamela, et al. "Global Water Resources: Vulnerability from Climate Change and Population Growth." Science 289, no. 5477 (2000): 284–8.
  • Kneitz, Agnes, and Marc Landry, eds. “On Water: Perceptions, Politics, Perils.” Special issue, RCC Perspectives 2 (2012).
  • Lahiri-Dutt, Kuntala."Commodified Land, Dangerous Water: Colonial Perceptions of Riverine Bengal." In "Asian Environments: Connections across Borders, Landscapes, and Times," edited by Ursula Münster, Shiho Satsuka, and Gunnel Cederlöf. Special issue, RCC Perspectives 3 (2014): 17–22.