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Maps Show How Water Can Be a Precious Lifeline—or a Deadly Weapon

February 18, 2019

A new atlas by “guerrilla cartographers” explores the importance of water in everything from ancient mythology to modern warfare.

By Greg Miller (National Geographic)

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED August 8, 2017

In the recent conflicts in Iraq and Syria, water has often been used as a weapon. When ISIS seized the Fallujah Barrage, a dam on the Euphrates River, in 2014, they raised the floodgates to deprive downstream cities of water.

Later, they released water from the dam in an attempt to flood approaching Iraqi forces, which eventually recaptured the dam in 2016. (See “What You Need to Know About the World’s Water Wars.”)

Water touches every aspect of human life, sometimes in unexpected ways, says Darin Jensen, a cartographer at the University of California and founder of a nonprofit group called Guerrilla Cartography.

The group’s latest project, Water: An Atlas, takes an unconventional look at the importance of water through more than 80 maps, including one showing the sites where water has played a role in the conflict with ISIS (included in the gallery above).

The maps in the atlas come from artists, activists, academics, and other mapmakers. Like the group’s first atlas, which focused on food issues, it was a crowdsourced effort. Organizers picked the theme and solicited contributions.

If interested in viewing article please see..

Also this Atlas is published on Square 

 

Filed Under: Climate Change, Rainfall, Stormwater, Streams and Rivers

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