The Middle East Water Question

Hydropolitics and the Global Economy

Tony Allan

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781860648137
• eBook ISBN: 9780857733658
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Environmental Economics
• Index: Economics

Is there enough water on this planet for a global population that will shortly double its present size? The answer is of huge importance for people everywhere, but particularly to the peoples and political leaders of the Middle East and North Africa. As well as explaining the particular issues of conflict in the region, Allan argues that the answer to these problems lies at the global rather than local level. The Middle East Water Question is a major book by one of the world's leading authorities on water issues.

Part 1. Mena Water Resources, Allocation, Management and Perception

Chapter 1. Water optimists and water pessimists: insiders and outsiders and an analytical framework

It is a paradox that the water pessimists are wrong but their pessimism is a very useful political tool which can help the innovator to shift the eternally interde­pendent belief systems of the public and their politicians. The water optimists are right but their optimism is dangerous because the notion enables politicians to treat water as a low policy priority and thereby please those who perceive that they are prospering under the old order.

The comparative disadvantage in economic terms of the Middle East and North Africa with respect to water is an extreme and classic case.

Thirty years is a rather short transitional period for the necessary major adjust­ments in water policies to be developed in response to limited water availability.

Those purveying the economic and environmental facts of life which contradict the deeply held belief systems of whole populations will be ignored if they do not shape their message and pace its delivery to accord with political realities.

Not all waters are equal: some are more evident than others.

The issue of whether there will be enough water for a future global population double its present size is controversial. The answer to the question is of particular importance to the peoples and political leaders of the Middle East and North Africa. The region’s economies are already as dependent on global water as they are on the renewable waters of the region. They will be much more dependent on global water in future.

The answer is almost certainly a resounding yes. There will be enough fresh water in the global system. But on the supply side, that is freshwater availability, the science has not yet been done to prove the future capacity of the global freshwater system. A researched estimate of sufficient precision to be useful for politicians and decision makers would cost many billions of dollars. On the demand side, freshwater needs are driven by rising populations. Here the precision of the estimates of future global population vary by over 50 per cent. In this uncertain information domain there is space for numerous pessimists and optimists to spin counter interpretations. Whether we believe the optimists, including the author and most economists (IFPRI 1995 and 1997, Dyson 1994:403), or the pessimists (Brown I996a and 1996b, Brown and Kane 1995, Postel 1997 and 1999) depends upon the assumptions used by the respective analysts.

Mega questions tend to be ignored; or attract untestable ideological interpretations of religious intensity. Is there enough freshwater for future populations is a mega question and it is not given a fraction of the attention it deserves by scientists. In the 1960s and 1970s there were attempts in the former Soviet Union to review the world’s water balance (L’vovich 1969 and 1974). Water availability and use have also been addressed (Shiklamanov 1985, 1986 and 1994, Shiklamanov and Sokolov 1983, Shiklamanov and Markova 1987, Gleick 1994). UNESCO (Shiklamanov 2000) has used the same scientists to refine the estimates.

Meanwhile an agency is prepared to devote five million dollars a year (at least) to providing advice on managing water and on lending much more for water projects without offering a view on the status of global water. Institutions such as the World Bank can produce shelves of reports about allocating and managing water for the interested professional and general reader (World Bank 1993, Serageldin 1994 and 1995) and for the specialist focused on local and regional issues (World Bank 1993, 1994, 1995) without situating the debate in the global resource context. Since 1994 there has been a welcome and responsible attempt by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) to address the subject of water availability for Africa and the Middle East (FAO 1995a and 1997a) and on water use by the major using sector, irrigation (FAO 1995b and 1997b). The publications provide first approximations which should be given prominence so that the reliability of the data can be enhanced by progressive iteration. Meanwhile the water professionals considering the world scale are divided between those that judge that humankind will respond to future resource demands (McCalla 1997) and others who have devoted enormous attention to the need to change the way we respond to the growing water supply challenges (Serageldin 1993 and 1994, World Water Council 2000, GWP 2000).

A balanced perspective on the population, water and food nexus tends to come from the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI 1995 and 1997) which identifies low, medium and high scenarios for population. These predict respectively 7.7 billion, 9.4 billion and 11.1 billion for the global population by 2200.

	In its 1996 study, the United Nations found that population growth between 1990 and 1995 was 1.48 percent per year, rather than the 1.57 percent projected in 1994. In light of this lower rate, the United Nations revised its projections for population growth in the next century, based on three different assumptions about the fertility of the world’s women. The medium fertility model—the one usually considered the most likely—would put the world’s population at 9.4 billion by 2050 (half a billion lower than the United Nations 1994 estimates). World population would continue to grow until 2200, according to this model, when it would stabilize at 10.73 billion. The medium fertility model falls in the middle of a wide range of possible out­comes. Low fertility would result in a world population of 7.7 billion by 2200, whereas high fertility would mean 11.1 billion mouths to feed in 2200. These extremes are by no means unrealistic, and the population debate is far from over. ... Public policy and individual behavior, they say, will ultimately determine the world’s population.
	--(IFPRI 1997)

About Middle East water there is less scientific controversy. The Middle East as a region ran out of water in the 1970s. The news of this important economic fact has been little exposed. In political systems, facts, including those on water, which are judged to have costly political consequences can easily be ignored or de-emphasised. With selection and distortion of information being the norm in political processes it is predictable that discourses on Middle Eastern and North African water will be misleading and confusing.

For political leaders in the region political imperatives are more compelling than scientific facts. On water, these imper...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Figures and Tables
• Is there a water problem in the Middle East and North Africa? Another case of the blind people and the elephant?
• Mena Water Resources, Allocation, Management and Perception
• Economic and Environmental Imperatives Ignored: and Why They are Ignored
• Water: International Relations and Law
• The Future
• Glossary
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• Abbreviations/measurements units
• References
• Index
• eCopyright