Global Policy Forum

By Nadim Kawach

Arab states and other countries in the Middle East should work for a collective agreement on sharing water resources to prevent the outbreak of a major conflict that could be triggered by fear of thirst, an Arab study said yesterday.

A severe water crisis has already started looming in the Arab world which is now classified as the worst region in terms of per capita share of sweet water, and its heavy reliance on foreign water sources mainly from Ethiopia and Turkey, said the study by the Abu Dhabi-based Zayed Centre for Coordination and Follow-up, an Arab League affiliate.Although Arabs account for more than seven per cent of the world's population, their share of the global recoverable water resources does not exceed 0.5 per cent.

In the absence of a strategy to develop water reserves, the per capita share of sweet water in the Arab region plummeted from 3,126 cubic metres in 1950 to only 981 cubic metres in 2000, the lowest in the world, the study said."The water crisis in the Arab world has assumed serious economic, political and legal proportions and it could snowball into a major confrontation," it said.

"This should prompt all parties in the region to reach collective agreements to organise the use of river water while Arab states should develop a common stand towards Israel's demands for a share of the Litani river in Lebanon or even the Nile, as well as Turkey's attempts to control the flow of Tigris and Euphrates into Iraq and Syria on the grounds they are cross-border rivers rather than international waters."

The study said Arab nations had realised the seriousness of the water problem but have failed to chalk out a joint strategy to deal with it on internal or external levels."Achieving water security in the Arab world is possible only through adequate strategies that take into account better exploitation of available water resources, stopping all forms of unnecessary waste and contamination, and taking measures to preserve such a vital resource and encounter challenges facing it," it said.

It presented a gloomy outlook for the water situation in the Arab countries, saying the majority of their population are living under what it called the 'water poverty line'.Citing official estimates it said the traditional available Arab water resources do not exceed 264 million cubic metres while consumption is projected to grow to around 499 million cubic metres in 2025 according to conservative forecasts and nearly 586 million cubic metres if the Arab population growth continues at its present rapid rate.

But according to a study by the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, those reserves could not be fully exploited because of technical, natural and financial reasons."A large part of those resources are far from consumption areas, which makes their exploitation technically and economically unfeasible. This makes the water problem more serious and frightening as this could affect social development," it said.

"Comparing the average per capita share of sweet water in the world of around 7,000 cubic metres per year to the Arab share of less than 1,000 cubic metres, shows that the water problem in the Arab region is the worst in the world ... and the problem has already started looming with more than 26 per cent of the Arab population deprived of regular drinking water services and some cities suffering from chronic shortages."

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