Geopolitical risk induced by terrestrial moisture supply to agricultural hotspots

Water availability can be linked to a country's stability, internal security, and the occurrence of violence and governability, in the environmental change context. For instance, lack of access to water resources can trigger political conflicts, be used as a tool for political negotiation or attacks on water infrastructure can be used as a source of intimidation. The potential political risks associated with water availability take particular relevance at the scale of international and transboundary hydrological basins and under conditions of water-food scarcity or political instability. To date, although water risks occurring within the boundaries of the hydrological basin have been studied across several case studies in the literature, the issue of risks arising from water upwind-downwind dependency has been overlooked. For instance, precipitation in a hydrological basin or agricultural centre regions with a high dependency on terrestrial moisture recycling may originate in upwind terrestrial areas outside of the basin boundaries. Here we study geopolitical risk related to this water dependency by analizing terrestrial moisture recycling. Our analysis shows that some hydrological basins in Africa, Asia and South America present a high risk of experiencing geopolitical conflicts when there is a large extension of croplands, high moisture recycling dependency and their precipitationsheds extend over warmongering countries. Hence, our results indicate that addressing transboundary water security from a surface perspective can underlook potential geopolitical conflicts that may threaten regional water-food security and peace. These risks need special international attention to guarantee global peace and agricultural production.