As background to this week's focus on The Water Knife, see this article in the New York Times on the 'mega-drought' that has lasted over two decades in the hottest part of the United States.
Along with Bacigalupi's novel, another cultural representation of dystopian water politics can be found in Alex Rivera's 2008 film Sleep Dealer, which imagines a future where the US-Mexican border is sealed, where water privatisation and drone strikes victimise Mexican farmers, and where the problem of immigration is 'solved' by means of automated factories (or maquiladoras) in which workers guide robots on the other side of the border by plugging into a network. A more hopeful (not to say Hollywoodised) ending than The Water Knife, however:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCZJ5mSF3Wc
https://intersections.psu.edu/sleep-dealer/
http://alexrivera.com/project/before-the-making-of-sleep-dealer/
See also Kenya's first ever sci-fi film, Pumzi (2010), which imagines a future after World War III (the Water War) where 'nature has become extinct' and human life survives in arcology-like indoor communities: