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January 6th, 2011
Via Sustentator, an interesting article on water in the Middle East and the likelihood that it may provoke conflicts in the years ahead. As the report notes:
‘The real wild card for political and social unrest in the Middle East over the next 20 years is not war, terrorism, or revolution—it is water. Conventional security threats dominate public debate and government thinking, but water is the true game-changer in Middle Eastern politics’. These are the shocking sentences that are used at the beginning of the new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies entitled Clear Gold: Water as a Strategic Resource in the Middle East. A report written by Jon B. Alterman and Michael Dziuban.
Middle East is a water-scarce region. Of the 15 most water-poor countries in the world, 10 are in the Middle East. An additional five Middle Eastern countries are well below the United Nations water “poverty line†of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year, and two others barely surpass it. On a world map of water scarcity, the Middle East is the largest region in which water demand outstrips supply.
The report also stresses how Middle East is also home to 60 percent of the world’s entire desalination capacity—with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) alone accounting for about half that amount. What for? To supply the growing municipal water systems comino from increasing urban populations during the twentieth century. Each of these two countries continues to spend over $3 billion on desalination every year. In Saudi Arabia, more than half of the country’s domestic oil consumption is devoted to the linked processes of desalination and electricity generation, and demand for both is growing sharply.
Regarding the agriculture Middle East also experienced a “green revolutionâ€, beginning in the 70s and reching its peak in 80s and 90s. Thus, through intensive irrigation, Saudi Arabia roughly tripled its area of farmland between 1980 and 1992 and more than quadrupled its food production. Between 1984 and 2000. A total investment of $83.6 billion was spent on agricultural development, helping it become the world’s sixthlargest exporter of wheat. This is a unique case in the Middle East but definetely this investment’s growth in agricultura it is not (Jordan revenues from vegetables increased tenfold during the 1980s and 1990s).
Today the consequences of the Middle East’s green revolution is that between 65-90 percent of national water consumption is being used in agriculture which represents a very small portion of the whole economy.