Water is getting scarcer for a growing human, animan and vegetal biomass, so it won't be long until wars will be provoked in order to fetch some fresh water, unless we do something about the issue.

Water is a must for survival and the conservation of life, so if preservation instincts take over, we will unfortunately see some violent times in the years to come.

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Can ocean water be purified for drinking, irrigation and so on? Oceans are quite a reservoir, and if salty water could be purified, then, with pumps and pipelines it could be brought almost to anywhere. Things could actually improve.

You are right, but as far as I know, processing salt water is rather expensive. They do that in the Gulf States (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, etc.) because they have no other choice, but I don't know if such processes would be cost-effective.

Pipelining oil resources pays, but water? Who's going to pay for expensive water barrels? Nobody will invest millions to build such installations in order to give free water to the poor in - say - Darfour. Unless water becomes a commodity with prices fixed worldwide at "reasonable" levels, companies would not rush to the race for water.

Besides, there are other ways to get fresh water: icebergs coming from glaciers falling into the sea, like those found in Antarctica, Patagonia, Grenland, Alaska, etc.

Water in our world is available in large quantities, but it is limited in practical terms nevertheless; with a growing population, global climate change and political instability in some areas, water might become a motive for conflict, just like oil.