The Middle East is running dry - and into the perfect storm?
The most water-stressed nations on Earth are all in the Middle East and
North Africa. Add surging populations and food and energy costs, and trouble
seems inevitable
. John Vidal: What does the Arab world do when its water runs out?
03/05/2013
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/water> Water, it's the very stuff of
life, and a high-resolution analysis of the most water-stressed places on
Earth reveals anew a stark reality. The Middle East and north
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/africa> Africa (Mena), currently in the
middle of a <
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast/roundup> historic
wave of unrest, is by far the worst affected region.
Of the 16 nations suffering extreme water stress, according to risk analysts
<
http://www.maplecroft.com/> Maplecroft, every single one is in the Mena
region. Bahrain tops the list of those using far more water than they
sustainably receive. Other crisis-hit countries, including Libya,
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/26/yemen-qat-water-drought>
Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia, are not far behind. Syria tops the next category:
high stress. (The full top 20 is in a table below, with a bit on the
methodology).
The obvious question is to what extent this severe lack of water underlies
the troubles affecting these nations? The obvious response is that only a
fool would wade into political and historical waters so deep and try to
divine the role of a single factor, amid poverty, unemployment, repression
and more.
But reassured by a middle east expert here at the Guardian that water is
indeed a major underlying issue in many Mena nations, and John Vidal's
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/20/arab-nations-water-runnin
g-out> article from February, I'm going to dip my toe in as far as following
the chain of events that starts with scarce water. Why? Because it
powerfully demonstrates how the world's biggest environmental problems link
together with profound effect.
First, the Mena region has seen rapid and ongoing population growth, from
127m in 1970 to 305m in 2005. That's a lot more people to feed, and to grow
food you need water. But there isn't enough water any more.
That problem was solved by simply throwing money at it: many of the Mena
states are rich in oil. Water could be produced by desalination,
<
http://www.worldwater.org/data20062007/Table22.pdf> virtually non-existent
in 1970, or, more commonly, food could be bought in from wetter places,
importing water in effect.
But when oil and food prices rise, the money-throwing solution becomes
harder to sustain. And food prices in particular have certainly been a
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/07/crop-shortages-political-
instability> contributing factor to the so-called Arab spring.
The next solution is to cut out the middle men and buy or lease land in
wetter places in order to grow food for export back to the dry Mena
countries. Saudi Arabia has done so in Ethiopia, and Qatar in Kenya. Along
with other countries including China and South Korea, the Mena countries are
leading the "
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/07/food-water-africa-land-gr
ab> land grab" to alleviate their water woes.
It's a compelling, sweeping (and simplistic?) narrative. It encompasses
water, population, food, energy, land grabs and civil unrest. It could, I
think, be the start of the first large scale example of the "
<
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/mar/18/perfect-storm-john-beddington
-energy-food-climate> perfect storm" predicted by the UK's chief scientific
advisor, Professor John Beddington, and 20 years sooner than he foretold.
But more than anything, as we nervously watch the Middle East, it shows how
environmental problems in one region send waves around our globalised world.
Top 20 water stressed nations
Country
Water Stress 2011 category
Water Stress 2011 rank
Bahrain
Extreme
1
Qatar
Extreme
2
Kuwait
Extreme
3
Saudi Arabia
Extreme
4
Libya
Extreme
5
Western Sahara
Extreme
6
Yemen
Extreme
7
Israel
Extreme
8
Egypt
Extreme
9
Djibouti
Extreme
10
Jordan
Extreme
11
Morocco
Extreme
12
Algeria
Extreme
13
Oman
Extreme
14
Tunisia
Extreme
15
Malta
Extreme
16
Syria
High
17
Mauritania
High
18
United Arab Emirates
High
19
Methodology: Maplecroft give this definition of their water stress index:
The Water Stress Index evaluates the ratio of total water use (sum of
domestic, industrial and agricultural demand) to renewable water supply,
which is the available local run off (precipitation less evaporation) as
delivered through streams, rivers and shallow groundwater. It does not
include access to deep subterranean aquifers of water accumulated over
centuries and millennia [as these are not renewable].
It also excludes fresh water produced by desalination, as almost all of this
is powered by oil and is hence not renewable.
All the nations in the extreme category use more water than they naturally
receive, which in some cases is virtually none.
<
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Environment/Pix/columnists/2011/5/18/13
05726936081/Maplecroft-Water-Stress-I-007.jpg>
Water stress is at its most extreme in the Middle East and north Africa,
according to Maplecroft's water stress index. Photograph: maplecroft.com
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Received on Fri May 03 2013 - 17:04:14 EDT
