The role of climate change on water resources management in the Southern Caucasus in the post-conflict period

Climate change has various impacts on different living conditions of societies. Climate change-induced environmental impacts have had an especially strong influence on water resources, which has had negative consequences for societies’ living conditions. Increasing global temperatures are bringing huge problems with surface water evaporation, while the warmer atmosphere is maintaining more moisture aloft that causes both heavy floods and induces extreme droughts in different parts of the world. Declining water availability not only is resulting in droughts but is also responsible for decreasing the quality of water in water-scarce regions, such as the South Caucasus. Countries cannot adopt to climate change by themselves and require international governance of water and other natural resources. Without sufficient water resources, the overall productivity of societies is decreasing, influencing demographic change, economic development, urbanization, and globalization, as well as intensifying conflicts over water use. In the Southern Caucasus, the long-standing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1988-present) between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted again into war in 2020, resulting in Azerbaijan recapturing much of its territory from local Armenian separatists and Russia negotiating a new truce and installing troops to maintain the peace. In my paper, ask what the nexus is between conflict and insufficient water resources? How will intensifying climate change in the region affect the current political situation – is there any chance of multilateral cooperation on water management?