German forces use waters from the Isoletta Dam (Liri River, Italy) in January and February to successfully destroy British assault forces crossing the Garigliano River (downstream of Liri River). The German Army then dam the Rapido River, flooding a valley occupied by the American Army.
Germans flood the Ill River Valley during the Battle of the Bulge (winter 1944-45) creating a lake 16 kilometers long, 3-6 kilometers wide, and 1-2 meters deep, greatly delaying the American Army’s advance toward the Rhine.
Arab forces cut of West Jerusalem’s water supply in first Arab-Israeli war.
Water and food supplies are cut off during Arab siege of Jerusalem from December 1, 1947 to July 10, 1948. Arab forces block the road to Jerusalem, in an attempt to defeat Jewish Jerusalem. Shortages cause Israelis to begin rationing water on May 12, limiting each person to 2 gallons per day (8 L), of which 4 pints (2 L) are for drinking.
In 1957, Eastern Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) begins building the Kaptai Hydroelectric Dam on the Karnaphuli River in the Chittagong Hills Tract in the southeast. Completed in 1962, the dam flooded 655 square kilometers of land and displaced 100,000 people, most of them Jumma, or ethnic minorities in a country ruled by a Bengali majority. The displaced Jumma are offered little land or compensation and many flee to neighboring India. These conditions contributed to 20+ years of conflict.
Partition leaves Indus basin divided between India and Pakistan; disputes over irrigation water ensue, during which India stems flow of water into irrigation canals in Pakistan. Indus Waters Agreement reached in 1960 after 12 years of World Bank-led negotiations.
In November 1941, Soviet troops flood the area to the south of the Istra Reservoir near Moscow in an effort to slow the German advance. Just a few weeks later, German troops use the same tactic to create a water barrier to halt advances by the Soviet 16th Army.
In June, the Soviet air force attacked the Svir River Dam near Leningrad, then under the control of the Finnish military.
In one of the few verified German tactical uses of biological warfare, German forces pollute a large reservoir in northwestern Bohemia, Czechoslovakia with sewage in May 1945. See also the entry for the Pontine Marshes in 1944.
Germans flood the Ay River in France in July 1944, creating a lake two meters deep and several kilometers wide, slowing an advance on Saint-L?, a German communications center in Normandy.