Water in Middle East

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Principle 24 of the Stockholm Declaration calls the states to cooperate to ensure the protection of the environment. In the area of water, principle 24 incorporates the notion of equitable and sustainable use of shared water resources.

- How to manage the crisis

The problems of poor water management are caused by the diminishing supply and increasing demand for water.

- Increasing supply

For increasing supply, major capital-intensive schemes like dams or canals are often necessary because even if the construction of dams is sometimes source of conflicts in Middle-East, it contributes to fight against mismanagement and wasting.

Desalination can increase supply. Over 70% of worldwide desalinated water is in the Middle-East especially in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar), however it’s costly. Desalination’s advantage is to provide a reliable and clean source of water, however the drawbacks of this method are to use big quantities of heat and to have an impact on the environment.

This scheme shows the steps of a desalination plant:

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source: http://www.sydneydesal.com.au/how-we-do-it/infrastructure/

Examples: Famous desalination plants in Middle-East are Ashkelon (one of the first built) in Israel and Jebel Ali (largest in the world) in United Arab Emirates.

Qanat is a traditional process for bringing and collecting water to the surface. It consists of interconnected tunnels which are sloped to create an oasis in very arid area. A lot of qanats are found in Iran.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), or the IPOGEA Traditional Knowledge Center for example, are some of serious organizations that are encouraging this traditional method in their studies.

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Source :http://www.mei.edu/content/harvesting-water-and-harnessing-cooperation-qanat-systems-middle-east-and-asia

Rainwater harvesting is a traditional process to collect water from cisterns, roofs for example.

It’s necessary to institute a regional cooperation in Middle-East with cooperative management, payments. Trading water, transports could help population in water stress however the ecological consequences can be important and pumping water from one basin to another area can impact hydrology and local ecosystems seriously.

Sequential water use consists to capture, treat water ever used in one activity, so it is possible to direct the water for other uses. For example, domestic use requires the cleanest water so the pertinent order to use water is first to be used in the household, then in industry and finally in agriculture.

- Managing demand

To improve demand management, there should be water pricing, community management, privatization, cost recovery, distribution efficiencies, a better water conservation, public education, community involvement, standards for water recycling with a measure of quality. Water reallocation with modalities for reallocation of water rights must be developed by the countries. It is important to improve water-use efficiency.

More efficient use and retention of water in agriculture is important to reduce irrigation water waste. It needs less Water-Intensive Crops. Better technologies could improve efficiency and reduce long-term costs. Compared with traditional irrigation, the drip irrigation cuts water use by between 30 percent and 70 percent and increases crop yields by between 20 percent and 90 percent according to Population Reference Bureau. For example, Israeli farmers, have more than doubled their food production in the last 30 years without increasing their use of water because they use drip-irrigation techniques.

Rapid urbanization could be really positive because it could be an opportunity to develop adequate infrastructures with sewage systems, regulatory mechanisms and effective distribution methods.

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Sources: Peter H. Gleick, The World's Water 2000-2001: The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources; United Nations, World Population Prospects; C. Haub and D. Cornelius, 2001 World Population Data Sheet; and UNICEF.

We can see with this data that people in urban areas have generally more access to safe water but the demand of water increases for people in urban areas and the increase (modest) of living standards leads to greater demand.

- The impact of climate change and the sustainable development goals

- Climate change

According to the Regional Coordinator for Climate Change (World Bank) “MENA is highly vulnerable to climate change impacts in strategic sectors such as agriculture, water resource management, and urban development". (Raffaello Cervigni, 2015).

In the Middle-East, climate change, is an important problem because this region already suffers of a looming water supply shortage and increasingly frequent droughts

The UN’s latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment estimates the Middle-East will become hotter and drier (less precipitation, higher temperatures). The climate change will cause more pressure on already depleted groundwater resources and will increase occurrence of droughts.

The Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that for states affecting by climate change areas and touched by water stress, it increases the risk of armed conflict. So the subject is legitimate and serious.

Climate change will have an impact on agricultural yields. We can see that the productivity will decrease in the future.

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source : http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/projected-impact-of-climate-change

But according to the Director of the Sustainable Development Department in the Bank’s MENA region “Throughout the ages, societies of the MENA region have been under pressure to adapt to water scarcity and heat, and have developed various technical solutions and institutional mechanisms to deal with these environmental constraints” (Inger Andersen, 2015)

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