Home » Politics & Society » Middle East Politics » Water, Water No Where

Water, Water No Where

© Michael Siegel

When thinking about the natural resources of the Middle East, the first one that comes to mind is generally oil. However, the most precious natural resource is water. Drinking water and water for irrigation are the region's most important asset and is the one that will cause the greatest number of headaches among politicians, national leaders, and regional planners.

Even though the region is bordered by large bodies of water; the Red Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Arabian Sea, Persian Gulf and Gulf of Aquaba, these waters are all very saline and require great effort to turn their waters into something useful for irrigation. Well over 250 million people live in the region and a large percentage draw their waters from one of three main sources; the Sea of Galiee/Jordan River, the Tigris/Euphrates River, and the Nile River. These water systems are almost at their limits, and a country at the headwater (where the river begins its journey to the sea), can take advantage of this through damming or diverting those waters from countries downstream.

This is particularly true where the Jordan River runs along the borders of Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Jordan. These four countries all divert water from the river to irrigate their crops and deliver potable water to their populations. This diversion has caused the level of the Dead Sea to drop dramatically to the point that it is almost split in two. More worrisome is that Syria and Lebanon could divert enough water to prevent Jordan or Israel from using the river to meet their water needs. Israel gets well over 50 percent of its water needs from the Jordan River and should their access be cut, Israel and Palestinian water supply would be extreme since most of the region is desert.

Egypt has sought to increase its water assets through building the Aswan dam to electrify the country as well as feed the population through its irrigation projects. However, damming has caused the fertility of the riverbanks to decrease, as the dam has prevented annual flood cycles which carried nutrient laden soils down from the mountains of Sudan and Lake Victoria.

Pollution is a major problem with the Tigris and Euphrates River systems and those river's headwaters are subject to control by Turkey who has made plans to build dams along both river systems to provide power.

Some solutions to this increasingly difficult problem include better irrigation techniques, regional water controls, desalinization plant construction and limits on water consumption. Of these solutions, better irrigation techniques may have the best chance of success. Israel has been particularly successful in reclaiming desert lands through use of drip irrigation which targets only the plant that is being grown and limits wastewater. Increasing the foliage across the region may also help moderate the temperature and increase the water retained in the soil. Desalinization plants would be extremely expensive and very few countries in the region would be able to pay for them without aid from the International Monetary Fund or other sources. However, a group of countries could agree to build a plant together to share the costs and benefits of new water sources. At the present, there are ongoing negotiations to try to develop a working policy on water usage, and should these negotiations be successful, the region will definitely be better off.

The copyright of the article Water, Water No Where in Middle East Politics is owned by lawhawk. Permission to republish Water, Water No Where in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.