The Threat List

Status:Conflict

GlobalConflictNews-derivedmedium confidenceSourcing reviewed 2026-09-11

Transboundary Water Disputes

Disputes over shared rivers, aquifers, and other cross-border water resources threaten water security, agriculture, energy, ecosystems, livelihoods, and interstate stability. Climate change and growing demand may intensify scarcity and tensions across basins supporting much of the global population.

Severity score

61.7

Severe · default weighting

Trajectory

Steady

How this is ranked

What this is

Score breakdown

Each factor is a 0–100 relative severity index, not the raw figure or a specific time period. The actual counts and periods are listed under "Standardized Impact" on the right.

Loss of life

20

Direct and attributable mortality, normalised across annual and cumulative tolls.

Lives negatively impacted

90

People displaced, injured, food-insecure, exposed or otherwise materially harmed.

Financial cost

70

Direct damage, lost output and health-system spend attributable to the event.

Environmental impact

73

Emissions, habitat and biodiversity loss, contamination and irreversibility.

Trajectory

82

Whether the situation is escalating, and how much worse it is plausibly getting.

Audit trail

Everything this entry has been through — when it was first searched for, queued, reviewed and approved, and how its figures and rank have moved since.

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