Water’s Relationship to National Security during the COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 has revealed how the unavailability of resources individuals and communities rely upon for everyday living – even if they never actually manifested during the pandemic – can lead to consequences that threaten national security, write two security scholars and analysts. They categorize these issues under the topic of resource security, which consists of three areas: institutional resources, human resources, and natural resources. For the last area, they identify water – specifically drinking water – as one of its components (it also includes food and energy, together constituting the “food-water-energy” nexus). The issues they raise regarding water, such as the ability of people to access and use water and wastewater treatment infrastructure, are mostly in the context of populations in developing countries. But they demonstrate the importance of a population’s access to adequate and sanitary water supplies in combating a pandemic. Additionally, in their discussion of the other components of resource security, the authors observe how institutional and human resources are required to make natural resources like water available for human use. These types of resources have been impacted during the COVID-19, including in developed countries, with corresponding impacts of the threat of impacts to water and wastewater utilities. Taken together, the authors argue for more attention to be paid to resource security, submitting that it is often the context, the root cause, behind the issue seen at the high-priority national security threat. Read the article at Homeland Security Today.