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What does the Arab world do when its water runs out?
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1.

Water awareness is definitely growing, says Kala Krishnan, member of an eco-club at the large

Indian school in Abu Dhabi.

2. The region's most food- and water-insecure country is Yemen, the poorest in the Arab world,
which gets less than 200 cubic metres of water per person a year well below the international
water poverty line of 1,000m3 and must import 80-90% of its food.
3. Algeria and Tunisia, along with the seven emirates in the UAE, Morocco, Iraq and Iran are all in
"water deficit" using far more than they receive in rain or snowfall.
4. The diverse states that make up the Arab world, stretching from the Atlantic coast to Iraq,
have some of the world's greatest oil reserves, but this disguises the fact that they mostly
occupy hyper-arid places.
5. Only now are countries starting to see the downsides of desalination.
6. Other Arab countries are not faring much better.
7. In recent reports they separately warn that the riots and demonstrations after the three
major food-price rises of the last five years in North Africa and the Middle East might be just
a taste of greater troubles to come unless countries start to share their natural resources, and
reduce their profligate energy and water use.
8. The more drastic response to the crisis is to shift farming elsewhere and to build reserves.
9. Some oil-rich Arab countries are belatedly beginning to address the problem.
10. A few Arab leaders recognise that water and energy profligacy must be curbed if ecological
disaster is to be avoided.

Water usage in North Africa and the Middle East is unsustainable and shortages are likely to
lead to further instability unless governments take action to solve the impending crisis. Failure
to act on crop shortages is fuelling political instability.
John Vidal , The Observer, Sunday 20 February 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/feb/20/arab-nations-water-running-out/print
Poverty, repression, decades of injustice and mass unemployment have all been cited as
causes of the political convulsions in the Middle East and north Africa these last weeks. But a

less recognised reason for the turmoil in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Jordan and now Iran
has been rising food prices, directly linked to a growing regional water crisis.
The diverse states that make up the Arab world, stretching from the Atlantic coast to Iraq,
have some of the world's greatest oil reserves, but this disguises the fact that they
mostly occupy hyper-arid places. Rivers are few, water demand is increasing as populations
grow, underground reserves are shrinking and nearly all depend on imported staple foods that
are now trading at record prices. For a region that expects populations to double to more than
600 million within 40 years, and climate change to raise temperatures, these structural problems
are political dynamite and already destabilising countries, say the World Bank, the UN and
many independent studies.
In recent reports they separately warn that the riots and demonstrations after the three
major food-price rises of the last five years in north Africa and the Middle East might be
just a taste of greater troubles to come unless countries start to share their natural
resources, and reduce their profligate energy and water use.

The Blue Peace report

examined long-term prospects for seven countries, including Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, the
Palestinian territories and Israel. Five already suffer major structural shortages, it said, and the
amount of water being taken from dwindling sources across the region cannot continue much
longer. "Unless there is a technological breakthrough or a miraculous discovery, the Middle East
will not escape a serious [water] shortage," said SundeepWaslekar, a researcher from the
Strategic Foresight Group who wrote the report.
Autocratic, oil-rich rulers have been able to control their people by controlling nature and have
kept the lid on political turmoil at home by heavily subsidising "virtual" or "embedded" water in
the form of staple grains imported from the US and elsewhere. Water is a fundamental part of
the social contract in Middle Eastern countries. Along with subsidised food and fuel,
governments provide cheap or even free water to ensure the consent of the governed. But when
subsidised commodities have been cut, instability has often followed.
The region's most food- and water-insecure country is Yemen, the poorest in the Arab
world, which gets less than 200 cubic metres of water per person a year well below the
international water poverty line of 1,000m3 and must import 80-90% o f its food.
According to Mahmoud Shidiwah, chair of the Yemeni water and environment protection agency,
19 of the country's 21 main aquifers are no longer being replenished and the government has

considered moving Sana'a, the capital city, with around two million people, which is expected to
run dry within six years.
Other Arab countries are not faring much better. Jordan, which expects water demand to
double in the next 20 years, faces massive shortages because of population growth and a
longstanding water dispute with Israel. Its per capita water supply will fall from the current
200m3 per person to 91m3 within 30 years, says the World Bank. Palestine and Israel fiercely
dispute fragile water resources.
Algeria and Tunisia, along with the seven emirates in the UAE, Morocco, Iraq and Iran are
all in "water deficit" using far more than they receive in rain or snowfall. Only Turkey has
a major surplus, but it is unwilling to share. Abu Dhabi, the world's most profligate water user,
says it will run out of its ancient fossil water reserves in 40 years; Libya has spent $20bn
pumping unreplenishable water from deep wells in the desert but has no idea how long the
resource will last; Saudi Arabian water demand has increased by 500% in 25 years and is
expected to double again in 20 years as power demand surges as much as 10% a year. The
Blue Peace report highlights the rapid decline in many of the region's major water sources. The
water level in the Dead Sea has dropped by nearly 150ft since the 1960s. The marshlands in
Iraq have shrunk by 90% and the Sea of Galilee (Lake Kinneret) is at risk of becoming
irreversibly salinised by salt water springs below it. Meanwhile, says the UN, farm land is
becoming unusable as irrigation schemes and intensive farming lead to waterlogging and
desalination.
Some oil-rich Arab countries are belatedly beginning to address the problem .Having
drained underground aquifers to grow inappropriate crops for many years, they have turned en
masse to desalination. More than 1,500 massive plants now line the Gulf and the Mediterranean
and provide much of North Africa and the Middle East's drinking water and two-thirds of the
world's desalinated water. The plants take salty or brackish water, and either warm it, vaporise it
and separate off the salts and impurities, or pass it through filters. According to the WWF, it's an
"expensive, energy intensive and greenhouse gas-emitting way to get fresh water", but costs
are falling and the industry is booming. Solar-powered plants are being built for small
communities but no way has been found to avoid the concentrated salt stream that the plants
produce. The impurities extracted from the water mostly end up back in the sea or in aquifers
and kill marine life.

Only now are countries starting to see the downsides of desalination .Salt levels in the
Arabian Gulf are eight times higher in some places than they should be, as power-hungry water
plants return salt to an already saline sea. The higher salinity of the seawater intake reduces the
plant's efficiency and, in some areas, marine life is suffering badly, affecting coral and fishing
catches. Desalination has allowed dictators and elites to continue to waste water on a massive
scale. Nearly 20% of all Saudi oil money in the 1970s and 80s was used to provide clean water
to grow wheat and other crops in regions that would not naturally be able to do so. Parks, golf
courses, roadside verges and household gardens are all still watered with expensively produced
clean drinking water. The energy and therefore water needed to keep barely insulated
buildings super-cold in Gulf states is astonishing.
A few Arab leaders recognise that water and energy profligacy must be curbed if
ecological disaster is to be avoided. In Abu Dhabi, which is building Masdar, the $20bn
futuristic city to be run on renewable energy, the environment agency is spearheading a
massive drive to reduce water use. Concrete is replacing water-hungry grass verges and new
laws demand water-saving devices in all buildings.
Water awareness is definitely growing, says Kala Krishnan, member of an eco club at the
large Indian school in Abu Dhabi. "People were amazed when we showed them how much
they use in a day. We stacked up 550 one-litre bottles and they refused to believe it. Now
schools are competing with each other to reduce water wastage." More than 2,000 mosques in
Abu Dhabi have been fitted with water-saving devices. This is saving millions of gallons of water
a year when people wash before prayer. Other UAE states are expected to follow.
The more drastic response to the crisis is to shift farming elsewhere and to build
reserves. Saudi Arabia said in 2008 it would cut domestic wheat output by 12.5% a year to
save its water supplies. It is now subsidising traders to buy land in Africa. Since the troubles in
Egypt and North Africa, it has said it aims to double its wheat reserves to 1.4m tonnes, enough
to satisfy demand for a year.
Countries now recognise how vulnerable they are to conflict. The UAE, which includes Abu
Dhabi and Dubai, has started to build the world's largest underground reservoir, with
26,000,000m3 of desalinated water. It will store enough water for 90 days when completed. The
reasoning is that the UAE is now wholly dependent on desalination to survive.

"Wars can erupt because of water," said Mohammed Khalfan al-Rumaithi, director general of the
UAE's National Emergency and Crisis Management Authority last week. "Using groundwater for
agriculture is risky. If it doesn't harm us it will harm other generations," he told the Federal
National Council. "We suffer from a shortage of water and we should think about solutions to
preserve it rather than using it for agriculture," he said.
Water shortages, concludes the Blue Peace report, are now so alarming that in a few years
opposing camps will have little choice but to co-operate and share resources, or face ruinous
conflict. That way, it says, instead of a potential accelerator of conflict, the water crisis can
become an opportunity for a new form of peace where any two countries with access to
adequate, clean and sustainable water resources do not feel motivated to engage in a military
conflict. It sounds optimistic, but the wind of change blowing through the region suggests
everything is possible.
IN NUMBERS: Middle East water facts
10.7% Food-price inflation in Egypt during 2010.
25% Expected increase in Saudi water demand up to 2020.
2.9% Yemen population growth each year.
14 cubic kilometres of water loss from Dead Sea in the past 30 years (1980-2010).
240 cubic metres per person annual water use in Israel.
75 cubic metres per person annual water use in Palestinian West Bank.
$0.53 Cost per cubic metre of desalinated water.
120 Desalination plants throughout UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran.