Editor's Note: This article is part of an ongoing RANE series on the geopolitical impacts of water stress. The first installment of this series provided a broad overview of how the unequal distribution of freshwater shapes geopolitical patterns. Other installments have examined the impacts of water stress on the global economy , Europe , China , the Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa , Israel , Central Asia and Chile . In the Middle East and North Africa, worsening water stress due to years of bad governance, security vacuums and population growth will increasingly make water a highly contested resource, raising the risk of social unrest, violence from non-state armed groups, and interstate conflict.