Introduction
Water availability is becoming a very important and tough problem worldwide, though every country is attentive towards this problem; there are a few countries like North Africa and Middle East that have a lot of semi-arid and arid regions, and for them water provision is a major national issue and has a lot of political and social importance.[ CITATION JuU04 \l 1033 ]
Some of the common reasons for these issues in the Middle East are, lack of natural water resources, rapid population growth and proportional increase in the demand of water, no effective management of the current resources, the current resources not being used efficiently, very little cooperation between these countries on issues related to water resources, lack of presence of advanced irrigation methods, cultivation of crops that has a high water demand and misuse of fresh water e.g. swimming pools etc. [ CITATION Got96 \l 1033 ]
The Middle East specially suffers from water problems due to several reasons mentioned above, and in this paper we will look at the problems, the political and social aspects of these issues and possible solutions.
Al-furat and Dijila are the two major rivers in the Middle East, known as Tigris and Euphrates and Including Nile, there are three in total. There are other small rivers like Oronates and Litani which have a mild presence in these areas and Jordan River though has a good availability its presence is only in Jordan. Now the areas that we are looking in particular along with the availability of these resources have a huge physical presence and population, due to which there is always a political and social tension mounted in the area. [ CITATION JuU04 \l 1033 ]
It is not a shocking statement that the United Nations has made on this issue and they have declared that a future war in the Middle East may be fought due to this problem, the details state that in the next 30 years, this problem will increase by leaps and bounds. The below table shows us a comparison between the water requirement in 1985, 2000 and 2030, as per the given table we can see that the area and resources remain the same however the requirement has gone up by sixty-percent on an average.[ CITATION App98 \l 1033 ]
As per the above discussions, we have majorly analyzed the socio-political reasons for the water shortage in the Middle East, and it must be understood that the list is long and we may go on and on discussion about the geographic and climatic conditions, responsible for this issue, however we will move on to talk about a direct and realistic approach to the solution of this problem in the coming section.[ CITATION JuU04 \l 1033 ]
Water Management in Middle East: The dual approach . . .
It is pretty obvious that considering a lot of political importance, this issue of water management is being handled with care by all the countries in the Middle East region and there have been several negotiations to tackle this issue, but primarily it is more important to look at the issue in a more scientific than political manner.[ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
In order to ensure that this issue is eradicated or relieved, we need to imply a dual approach and the same is possible only by either Decreasing the Demand of water or by Increasing the supply of water in this area, hence an analysis of these two approaches will help to deduce the various techniques, that will help to resolve this issue.[ CITATION Mur05 \l 1033 ][ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
Decreasing Demand
The first and the most important reason is population control, though it is a social problem in itself however this is one of the greatest reasons as to why the water population actually exists and therefore controlling it would mean that the requirement as expected to increase in the coming time will actually not increase in a very high manner as expected.[ CITATION Mur05 \l 1033 ]
As of now per our discussion, the water availability does not have a stagnant ratio and therefore it is used according to availability and irrationally, hence it is important to allocate the water in the entire area in such a manner that the division serves the purpose according to genuine need only.
Public Awareness may seem to be an alternative method however in reality, it may become the most successful channel to decrease the demand as once the awareness arises in people’s mind, it will become much easier for the nations to save on the overall usage of water. [ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
Agriculture and Pricing are the last two important methods of handling the decrease in demand, on one hand the pricing can really help to explain the people the importance of water and subsidized rates can be a reason as to why the local public fails to understand the issues that are being faced at a national level. Also the agricultural usage in the Middle East today really lacks the involvement of the latest techniques like Drip Irrigation, Greenhouse Technology and Genetic Engineering, thus these must be implemented to the farming techniques without fail.[ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
Increasing Supply
Waste Water reclamation systems, if implemented, will definitely bring a revolution to the entire issue, as that would mean a large percentage of water to be available for reuse. If we look at the usage, we will realize that the domestic usage is much lesser than the industrial usage and therefore implementing this will mean a major part of the supply can be managed simply using the reclamation system.[ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
Desalination is another major factor, which is being looked at, however considering the amount of cost involved, it is still under discussion and there are lots of researches going on, in order to find cheap methods of producing desalinated water. [ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
Cloud Seeding and Fossil Aquifiers are more ways to add the resources however they are not only costly but difficult to follow as well, Israel however boasts of producing its 15% need through cloud seeding, but these may be important aspects, being considered in future however as of now, only implementing the easier options can really help to manage the issue. [ CITATION Wol96 \l 1033 ]
Conclusion
The water issue in the Middle East has taken the shape of “hydro politics”, and it is not a surprise that gradually this has become a national issue for all Middle Eastern countries and is heading towards a more serious outcome. There have been multiple conversations between these nations on this issue, but it is time to go to the root of the problem; it is high time now and more then a political resolution to this problem a scientific approach must be used and focus is required to implement the dual methodology of decreasing usage and increasing resources.
Works Cited
Applied Research Institute of Jerusalem (ARIJ). (1998). “Water Resources and Irrigated. Bethlehem: ARIJ.
Gotlibovski, C. (1996). The Water Economics in the Middle East Main Problems and Possible Solutions. Hydrogeologie-Aachen University of Technology: Government of Israel.
Ju'Ub, A. G. (2004). WATER CONFLICTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST BETWEEN THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE. Aachen: Hydrogeologie-Aachen University of Technology.
Murakami, M. (2005). Managing Water for Peace in the Middle East: Alternative Strategies. Hong Kong: The United Nations University.
Wolf, A. T. (1996). Middle East Water Conflicts and Directions for Conflict Resolution. Food, Agriculture, and the Environment Vol 2 No.4 , 1-24.
