Water resources as structuring factor of regionalization

Gaujous Didier

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• Publié par: DGaujous
• Publié le: 29 juin 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 8
• Langue: English

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Water resources as structuring factor of regionalization.


Didier Gaujous, May 2018

Abstract
This article present a regionalist vision of the organization of the world based on well-balanced resources between the
proposed regions, called “meta-states”. The importance of water resources, through the introduction new concepts such as
ABCD areas and Rain-fed Land Surplus (RLS), is specifically highlighted. The author develops the interest of such a
balanced regionalization compared to the classic Braudel/Huntington “civilizations” one, where unsteady wealth may
conduct to critical conflicts.
Introduction
Fruit of the history of the last centuries, the current world map of our countries looks like a patchwork:


Fig. 1: countries - world projection © D. Gaujous

But the world is changing: Europe is under construction, economy is globalizing, new Giants emerge, walls collapse and
revolutions are changing well-established regimes.
What will be the world of tomorrow? It is unpredictable. But that does not prevent to think and imagine.
Towards new geopolitical entities: the meta-states
One thing seems likely, is that in the context of globalization, states, countries, will have interest to gather in larger
ensembles. Let’s call them the meta-states and imagine them.
We propose to conceive seven meta-states:
 North America, with the United States and its two neighbors, the Canada and Mexico,
 South America, with the Portuguese-speaking Brazil and its Spanish-speaking neighbors belt,
 Europe, eventually including Turkey, Russia, Switzerland and UK,
 Africa, immense continent full of youth and hope,
 West Asia, bringing together, around the Iranian plateau, Indian and Arabic peninsulas and the steppes of Central
Asia,
 Asia-Pacific, buzzing land on the far side of the world,
 Antarctica, the new frontier.
1


Fig. 2: meta-states - world projection © D. Gaujous

The wealth of meta-states
The borders of our meta-states being now established, we can compare their current wealth according to four economic
indicators:
 Population, which is dominated by the two Asias (Pacific 2.2 and West 1.8 billion), far ahead of Africa (0.9
billion), Europe (0.8 billion) and the Americas (two times 0.45 billion).
1 Production of goods and services , dominated by Europe, Asia Pacific and North America (17 trillion $ each), then
West Asia, South America and Africa (6; 4 and 3 trillion).
2 Hydrocarbon reserves , predominant in West Asia (760 billion barrels), then North America (210 billion), Africa,
South America and Europe (around 100 billion each), ahead of Asia Pacific (30 billion), Antarctica reserves
remaining unknown.
3 Rain-fed Land Surplus (RLS) , with Africa and South America dominating (14 and 12 million square km), ahead
Asia-Pacific and North America (8 million each) and Europe (5 million). RLS is reduced in West Asia (1.4
million) and virtual in Antarctica.


Fig. 3: the wealth of meta-states (in % of global resources)


1 as the gross domestic product at parity of purchasing power - The World Fact Book CIA 2013
2 as the known crude oil reserves - The World Fact Book CIA 2013
3 Defined as the balance between surfaces receiving more than 500 mm/year of rainfall (A+B=production areas) and half of
surfaces with population density greater than 10 people per square km2 (B+C=consumption areas) - see next paragraph for
ABCD definitions.
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RLS: a key factor of sustainability
Among the economic assets we have just quoted, RLS seems to be a key factor: indeed, an economic organization may not
be sustainable if not self-sufficient in terms of agricultural potential.
While this assertion looks like an 18th c. Physiocrat’s one, it seems it still apply nowadays as we will try to demonstrate.
The distribution of the population on the Earth's surface is fairly well correlated with the rainfall. On the following map, we
superimposed the populated areas (with more than 10 inhabitants per km2), and the rain-fed areas (more than 500 mm per
4year) .

Fig. 4: ABCD areas
It results four types of areas:
 Areas A (for Available) in blue; humid and sparsely populated, they are mainly covered with forests. They are
developing areas, often seen as lands of the future (Canada, Australia, Brazil, Africa...). In these areas, the main
issue regarding water is the preservation of forest, essential to maintain the water cycle.
 Areas B (for Busy) in mauve; most of the human population is currently distributed in those populated and
rainfed areas. From a hydrological point of view, they face problems of pollution and water use conflicts may develop
if not properly managed.
 Areas C (for Critical) in red; populated and arid areas, they are essentially related to antique human settlements:
aridity may be a consequence of ancient deforestation. Water issues are nowadays very serious. We can see on the
map that most of these zones are the ones facing the strongest tensions (fundamentalism, riots, and wars).
 Areas D (for Desert) in white; arid and sparsely populated; water resources, limited essentially to the groundwater
or desalination, are generally sufficient for the needs of nomad population and isolated industrial sites.

This ABCD zonation enables a simplified but significant geostrategic analysis: an organization like the United States can
easily afford C areas because they are not predominant compared to A and B areas. Transfer of food from a production area
to a consumption area (virtual water) is easy. It is not the case in Afghanistan and in most of the Fragile and
ConflictAffected States (FCS), where the lack of water and eventually of food brings population to despair.
Having available agricultural resources appears to be a factor of sustainability. In our model, we assume that a territory will
be sustainable if it has a positive RLS, meaning if the production area (A&B) is greater than half of the consumption area
(B&C), i.e. = ( + ) − ( + ) > 0 with = 0.5 (model parameter).

4 Data from the Atlas géographique et and historique, Bordas, 1994
3
The clash of civilizations? Reopening the debate
In 1963, during the cold war and at the end of colonization, Fernand Braudel wrote a magnificent “grammar of
civilizations”. Thirty years later, while the end of the cold war reveals new geostrategic stakes, Samuel P. Huntington
radicalized the theses of Braudel in the “clash of civilizations”. For these authors, the world will be divided following nine
civilizations:
 Western (USA, Western Europe, Canada, Australia), of Christian religion
 Latin American, of Catholic not Protestant religion
 Orthodox (Russia, Ukraine, Greece, Serbia)
 Islamic,
 African, restricted to black Africa, animist
 Hindu
 Buddhist
 Sinic
 Japanese

According to Huntington, there would be a great risk of confrontation between these civilizations, a modern version of the
wars of religion.
A criticism made to Huntington (and thus to Braudel) is that this model can become a self-fulfilling Phantasmagoria. The
reason is that some of these entities are little consistent and unbalanced, especially the so-called “Islamic civilization”:
Indeed, Muslims from the Asian steppes, Indo-Europeans from Iran and Pakistan, Arabs, Berbers, Nilotic, Somali,
Indonesians, etc., are dissimilar Peoples from a cultural and historical point of view. In addition, the countries where they
live are very dry (dominant areas C in Saudi, in the Maghreb, Central Asia) or mountainous and populous (Indonesia). This
would constitute an organization with no food self-sufficiency (very negative RLS) and therefore dangerously unstable.
Comparative advantages of the meta-states
In our system, we favored a regional approach related to well understand economic interests of countries within each
metastate:
 United States and Canada would benefit from the demographic growth of Mexico;
 Brazil and Argentina will forget the treaty of Tordesillas and fight for soccer only!
 Western Europe would give to the vast and empty Russia the weight it needs to face China, and would benefit in
exchange of its natural resources;
 India would take profit from the energy resources of Central Asia and the Middle East, providing in exchange
manpower and agricultural resources, giving to the meta-state a positive RLS and therefore internalizing the
oilfor-food system.
 China and its southern neighbors will perpetuate millenary trading in the Pacific-Austronesian world;
 In Africa, Sahara, Sahel and the Nile valley will continue their historical role of transcontinental links.

In addition to their internal market, a system of harmonious relations, based on their comparative a