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"Water Worries

Sewage, garbage, poor clean water supply and flooding all make the lives of 
millions in Jakarta a misery and put them at risk of disease. What can be done? 
"


--- In proletar@yahoogroups.com, "sunny" <am...@...> wrote:
>
> RALAT
> 
> Reflekai : Bagaimana  keadaan air [air bersih nan sehat] untuk  kebutuhan 
> konsumsi penduduk yang makin bertambah jumlahnya di NKRI?
> 
> 
> http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2010/1007/focus.htm
> 
> 15 - 21 July 2010
> Issue No. 1007
> 
> Water in the Arab world
> In the coming years, water will fast replace oil in the hierarchy of issues 
> of strategic importance to the region, writes Mohamed Hafez* 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>        Click to view caption 
>       Where the Nile starts flowing from Ethiopia 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
>      
> Since around the 1960s the equilibrium between water resources and population 
> distribution in the world fell out of kilter, giving rise to numerous 
> conflicts over water, especially in Africa, Asia and Europe. To a 
> considerable extent, the growing disequilibrium derives from various 
> political, social and economic developments in the modern world, as well as 
> from the effects of climate change. Modern political boundaries, which impede 
> the free movement of populations, hamper migration due to draught and famine. 
> The pressures on countries that are less fortunate in water resources within 
> their national boundaries can be tremendous. Soaring population growth rates 
> give rise to or exacerbate water shortage crises in many parts of the world 
> and in developing nations in particular. The population of the world is 
> expected to exceed 10 billion in 2050 bringing with it a corresponding 
> decline in the per capita share of water. Supply, in turn, is integrally 
> linked to the interplay between demographic and economic factors. The larger 
> the population the greater is the need to develop water resources to meet the 
> requirements of domestic consumption as well as for agricultural, industrial 
> and energy needs to sustain the population and economic growth.
> 
> Because of all these accumulating pressures on and demands for water, water 
> is no longer the free or even cheap resource it once was. It is a substance 
> that increasingly needs to be used wisely and economically. In fact, water 
> has become a commodity, one that is beginning to vie with oil in terms of its 
> economic importance. Israel, for one, has begun to buy water from Turkey. 
> Economic considerations will certainly become increasingly instrumental in 
> the rise of water crises in the areas where this resource is at its most 
> scarce.
> 
> In the 21st century, the political hotspots as far as water is concerned are 
> situated in those areas where countries have used up or are already utilising 
> all or most of their own available water resources and have begun to tap 
> additional amounts from the international watercourses they share with other 
> countries. In riparian regions with urgent economic development needs and 
> where there are vying and mounting demands on an international watercourse, 
> disputes over water quotas could escalate to war. In fact, political 
> scientists and other scholars and politicians have predicted that the wars of 
> the 21st century will be over water. Arab countries threatened with water 
> shortages or that rely on water resources from outside their borders should 
> devote much more attention to their water security.
> 
> GLOBAL WATER RESOURCES: Some 97 per cent of the world's water is sea and 
> ocean. Paradoxically, saltwater is the primary source of fresh water. Fresh 
> water is the product of the hydrologic cycle, which begins with the 
> evaporation of water from the surface of the ocean. As the water vapour rises 
> into the air it cools and condenses to form the rain and snow that ultimately 
> replenishes part of the water consumed by man. Freshwater is vital to 
> economic growth and will be at the centre of the conflicts of the 21st 
> century, especially in the world's most fragile strategic regions where most 
> countries also have ambitious development plans and aspirations. 
> 
> Since the mid-1970s, international agencies and specialised institutes and 
> strategic research centres started to plan for the eventualities of the 21st 
> century, towards which end they began to collect and process vast amounts of 
> data and to organise hundreds of seminars and conferences. In a report on 
> available freshwater resources around the world, the UN Environment Programme 
> (UNEP) Freshwater Unit observed that from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s the 
> global per capita share of water plunged from 12,900 to 7,600 cubic metres, 
> or by around 40 per cent in the space of a quarter of a century. In the Arab 
> region, the annual per capita share fell from 2,400 to 1,200 cubic metres 
> during the same period. In September 1995, the World Bank announced that more 
> than 80 countries were threatened by water scarcity and that 40 per cent of 
> the population of the world lived in harsh conditions in which the basic 
> amenities of public health were not available. The Middle East and North 
> Africa were cited as areas suffering from water scarcity.
> 
> WATER IN THE ARAB REGION: Water resource development is one of the most 
> serious challenges the Arab nation will face in this century, especially in 
> view of growing demand on declining freshwater resources. Freshwater makes up 
> only three per cent of the water on our planet. Some 77.6 per cent of this is 
> in the form of polar or mountain icecaps and 21.8 per cent is subterranean 
> water. Only the remaining 0.6 per cent is what meets the daily consumption, 
> agricultural and industrial needs of the world's current population of six 
> billion. 
> 
> The Arab region, of which around a tenth is desert, is ranked as one of the 
> poorest regions in freshwater resources. It contains less than one per cent 
> of the world's available surface water and receives only two per cent of 
> global annual rainfall. This relative scarcity hampers the ability to meet 
> the water needs of Arab populaces. According to international agencies, per 
> capita share of water should be no less than 1,000 cubic metres per year, 
> according to the global average. In most countries of the Arab world, the 
> annual per capita share is significantly lower and is estimated to fall to 
> 500 cubic metres by 2025. There are 19 Arab countries that fall below the 
> water poverty line and 14 of these do not have quantities sufficient to meet 
> the basic needs of their citizens. In addition, because much of the Arab 
> region is arid or semi-arid, 30 per cent of its cultivatable land is 
> vulnerable to desertification due to water insufficiency. At the same time, 
> the Arab world utilises only around 50 per cent of its available 340 billion 
> cubic metres of water, exposing the remainder to waste or loss. 
> 
> However, the water problem in the Arab region extends beyond the question of 
> scarcity to the question of quality. For various reasons, the quality of 
> water is deteriorating and large quantities of it are becoming unusable. The 
> problem, moreover, extends to all sources of water in the Arab world. Because 
> the major Arab rivers, such as the Nile and Euphrates, originate in non-Arab 
> countries, those countries have a major strategic advantage over downriver 
> Arab countries. Although the disadvantage could be offset by better use of 
> subterranean water and rainfall, this would require huge investment in 
> necessary projects and equipment. The alternative, water desalinisation 
> projects, is not only costly but requires sophisticated technology. Clearly, 
> then, the water problem is complex and multifaceted. The challenge requires a 
> rational and innovative response, which in turn requires dynamic 
> institutional mechanisms that are not yet available.
> 
> AVAILABLE ARAB RESOURCES: The Arab world has three basic types of water 
> resources: renewable surface waters, slightly renewable subterranean waters, 
> and limited quantities of water from artificial processes such as 
> desalinisation and purification. 
> 
> Rainfall is the most important source of renewable surface water. The Arab 
> region receives an average of 2.282 billion cubic metres of rainfall every 
> year. But rainfall is erratic, both over the course of a year and from one 
> year to the next, which can affect the productivity of irrigated agriculture. 
> In addition, rainfall efficacy is poor, as up to 85 per cent of it is lost to 
> evaporation in some parts of the region, which means that only about 15 per 
> cent of the annual rainfall can be utilised. Naturally, this situation has a 
> direct bearing on the utilisation of land, as well as of surface and 
> subterranean waters. Rainfall levels range from an annual 1,500 millilitres 
> in the heights of northern Yemen, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and 
> Sudan to only five millilitres per year in northern Sudan and Libya. In other 
> words, there are huge departures, positively and negatively, from the 
> regional average of around 300 millilitres a year.
> 
> Rivers constitute the other major source of renewable water, supplying the 
> Arab world with some 350 billion cubic metres of water a year. Of this, 125 
> billion cubic metres -- or 35 per cent -- come from rivers originating 
> outside the region, with 56 billion cubic metres supplied by the Nile, 28 
> billion cubic metres by the Euphrates and 38 billion by the Tigris and its 
> tributaries. At 6,695 kilometres, the Nile is the longest river in the world. 
> Emanating from Lake Victoria and the Ethiopian heights, the Nile River basin 
> is home to 10 countries: Ethiopia, Congo (former Zaire), Kenya, Eritrea, 
> Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Sudan and Egypt. Whereas most of these 
> countries are located along the sources and tributaries of the Nile, Sudan 
> and Egypt host the main course of the river, which has its mouth at the 
> Egyptian Delta. Of all these countries, Egypt is the most dependent on Nile 
> waters in view of its predominantly desert geography and relatively scarce 
> rainfall.
> 
> The Tigris and the Euphrates river system originates in the Anatolian plateau 
> and passes through Turkey, Syria and Iraq. The confluence of the Tigris and 
> Euphrates at Al-Qurnah, to the north of Basra, forms the Shatt Al-Arab. From 
> its source in the Armenian mountains until its confluence with the Tigris, 
> the Euphrates is 2,780 kilometres long, of which 761 kilometres are located 
> in Turkey, 650 kilometres in Syria, and 1,200 kilometres in Iraq. Syria is 
> dependent on the Euphrates for 90 per cent of its water needs. Iraq is almost 
> entirely dependent on it. Numerous dams have been constructed along this 
> river, some of the most notable being the Tabaqa Dam in Syria, and Al-Ramadi, 
> Al-Habaniya and Al-Hindiya dams in Iraq. The Tigris is 1,950 kilometres long, 
> of which 342 kilometres are in Turkey, 37 kilometres form part of the 
> Turkish- Syrian border, another 13 kilometres form part of the Syrian-Iraqi 
> border, and 1,408 kilometres pass through Iraq. This river originates in the 
> Taurus Mountains in Turkey and has dams or barrages at Mosul, Samaraa 
> (Tharthar), and Kut and Amara. 
> 
> The relatively small Jordan River, which forms the borders between Palestine 
> and Jordan, is 360 kilometres long. Formed from the tributaries Al-Hasbani in 
> Lebanon and Al-Laddan and Banias in Syria, it passes through the Hula Valley 
> after which it drops into the Sea of Tabariya (Sea of Galilee). From there, 
> it continues southward through Al-Ghur after which it is joined by the 
> Yarmuk, Zarqa and Jalloud tributaries and then flows into the Dead Sea. 
> Jordan, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Israel are all dependent on water from 
> the Jordan River. 
> 
> In addition to these rivers, there is a vast network of seasonal wadis. Of 
> diverse sizes and capacities, depending on topographical formations and 
> annual rainfall level, they number in the hundreds of thousands. These wadis 
> only fill during certain seasons of the year and sometimes only for a few 
> days or even hours. Although there are no concrete studies on the volume of 
> water that flows through these wadis during their flooding seasons, it is 
> certain to be several dozen billion cubic metres, which could possibly be 
> tapped. 
> 
> In terms of subterranean water, the Arab region sits atop an estimated 7,734 
> billion cubic metres, of which 35 billion cubic metres are available. These 
> resources renew themselves at the rate of only 42 billion cubic metres a year 
> and large portions are non-renewable. Subterranean water resources are 
> replenished primarily from rainfall that seeps down through the ground into 
> subterranean aquifers. But they can also be created from the upward seepage 
> of the steam or water given off from deep geothermal or sedentary processes, 
> and which is then trapped in subterranean pores or rock strata. There are 
> three major aquifers in the Arab world: 
> 
> - The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (SNAS) that spans 1.8 square kilometres 
> covering northwest Sudan, northeast Chad, southeast Libya and most of Egypt. 
> About 150,000 square kilometres of this is in the form of artesian wells. 
> This enormous reservoir contains nearly 20 times the amount of annually 
> renewable water supplies in the Arab world. The SNAS water table rises to 
> create the Dakhla, Kharga and Farafra oases in Egypt's Eastern Desert. 
> Libya's Great Manmade River Project will be able to transport two million 
> cubic metres a day from this aquifer to the Libyan coast where project 
> planners envision that it will be able to irrigate 180,000 hectares of 
> agricultural land.
> 
> - The Bas Saharan Basin is an aquifer system that covers 140,000 square 
> kilometres from the Atlas Mountains to Tunisia, enclosing the Grand Erg 
> Oriental. It is estimated to contain around four times the amount of 
> renewable water supplies in the Arab region. 
> 
> - The Disi Aquifer Basin, which stretches 106,000 kilometres through southern 
> Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia, which is the primary beneficiary. 
> 
> In terms of unconventional water resources, a process pursued primarily by 
> Libya and the Gulf countries, desalinisation provides more than 75 per cent 
> of the water consumed in the Arab Gulf countries. This area produces 1.85 
> billion cubic metres of desalinised water a year, or around 90 per cent of 
> the total amount of desalinised water produced in the Arab region. According 
> to some American sources, 35 per cent of the world's desalinisation plants 
> and 65 per cent of the energy devoted to such plants in the world are located 
> in the Arab world and in the Arabian Peninsula in particular. Meanwhile, the 
> treatment of agricultural, industrial and domestic wastewater to permit for 
> its reutilisation in agricultural and industrial projects saves between 6.5 
> and 7.6 billion cubic metres of water a year. Water consumption for domestic, 
> agricultural and industrial use in the Arab world has increased fivefold over 
> the past 50 years. The current annual level of consumption is estimate at 
> around 230 billion cubic metres, of which 43 billion are for domestic and 
> industrial purposes and 187 are for agriculture. 
> 
> EMERGING WATER CONFLICTS: Water is of critical importance to the Middle East, 
> with vast stretches of arid land, ambitious economic development projects and 
> greater than average population growth rates. A report of the 
> Washington-based Centre for International and Strategic Studies on a seminar 
> it organised in 1987 on US policy towards Middle Eastern water issues stated 
> that by the third millennium water would have supplanted oil as the region's 
> prime concern. But this is not the only region where freshwater resources 
> have been a source of international tension. The UN and its agencies were 
> forced to step in between India and Pakistan in the 1950s after water 
> disputes spiralled into a full-fledged war. 
> 
> Of course, some international water disputes have been resolved peacefully 
> and, occasionally, water resources have proved instrumental in avoiding 
> conflict and bringing countries together. Treaties between countries that 
> share a single river are an example. Nevertheless, of the 215 trans-boundary 
> river systems, many remain unregulated by treaties covering the various 
> aspects of their utilisation. Although there exists a range of international 
> principles and judicial rulings aimed at protecting acquired rights to and 
> the freedom of navigation in what are termed international rivers, they are 
> not comprehensive enough to forestall conflict as the water crunch grows more 
> and more serious. 
> 
> In this region, water will become a chief if not the chief source of tension 
> when the water deficit becomes severe under the impact of the pressures of 
> demographic growth and economic development requirements. Political hotspots 
> surrounding water will surface in those areas where Arab freshwater resources 
> are plundered or used illegally and where there is constant abuse or 
> attrition of Arab water rights. Hydraulic projects on the part of countries 
> at the source or along the tributaries of major rivers that provide the Arab 
> world with 85 per cent of its freshwater could constitute such a threat. The 
> threat and the consequent spectre of war would be greater where there are no 
> treaties regulating water rights to international rivers or where existing 
> treaties have grown obsolete and need to be renewed, or where there are no 
> international mechanisms to enforce accepted conventions or formal agreements 
> on water use.
> 
> The Jordan River basin, the Tigris-Euphrates river system, and the Nile River 
> basin are all potential water resource flashpoints. Perhaps the most serious 
> threat comes from Israel's theft and depletion of Arab water resources in the 
> West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, the Golan Heights and South Lebanon. Israel 
> obtains 60 per cent of its water from the occupied Arab territories. Indeed, 
> it has been conjectured that one of the reasons it occupied these territories 
> in 1967 and attempted to occupy Lebanon up to the Litani River in the 1980s 
> was to ensure its own water security. Meanwhile, major Turkish hydraulic 
> projects such as the Ataturk Dam and the Southeast Anatolia Project have 
> sparked sharp tensions with Syria and Iraq. And to the south of the 
> Tigris-Euphrates basin, the Shatt Al-Arab has been an arena of tension and 
> warfare between Iraq and Iran. 
> 
> The Nile River basin is no less a sensitive region, given that the Nile is 
> the life-giving artery for both Sudan and Egypt. Recently, the quota system 
> became a source of tension between Egypt and Sudan on the one hand, as 
> downstream countries, and the other eight upstream countries, especially in 
> light of Israel's attempts to help Ethiopia build dams along the Blue Nile, 
> which would reduce the amount of water flowing into Sudan and Egypt. The 
> Israeli hand is revealing itself day by day in southern Sudan where its 
> backing of the rebel movement obstructs the completion of the Gongoli Canal, 
> a joint Egyptian-Sudanese project aimed at preventing the waste and loss of 
> Nile waters.
> 
> CHALLENGES AHEAD: Arab countries need to coordinate with other riparian 
> countries in order to prevent or offset the potentially detrimental impact of 
> hydraulic projects upriver. Whether the impact derives from long-term direct 
> effects or from immediate direct effects, it will have considerable social, 
> economic, political and technical repercussions. Otherwise put, the question 
> of water in the Middle East is no less than a question of Arab national 
> security. Reduction in the amount of water available to Arab countries 
> because of upriver hydraulic projects poses a threat to their water security. 
> Water deficiency not only hampers the ability to meet the immediate water 
> consumption needs of a people, it also obstructs agricultural production and 
> development, thereby threatening food security. Without food security, Arab 
> countries cannot achieve economic self-sufficiency and, hence, true autonomy.
> 
> Upriver hydraulic projects could also impair hydraulic projects downriver, 
> especially hydroelectricity projects. Reduction in the efficacy of these 
> would be detrimental to industrial development and economic development in 
> general. Then, too, there is the spectre of pollution deriving from the 
> misuse or abuse of water by upriver riparian nations. In other parts of the 
> Arab world, the theft or abuse of subterranean resources by non-Arab parties 
> threatens artesian wells with salinity, making these waters unfit for 
> consumption and for agriculture.
> 
> The political repercussions of the water crisis are obvious. Countries that 
> can control the source of water, as is the case of upriver riparian nations, 
> can have a powerful influence on the political will of others. Ironically, 
> just as Arab thought turned its attention to the importance of water 
> resources, water crises began to emerge in the Middle East. Around this time, 
> Turkey decided to complete its mega Southeast Anatolia Project, which 
> entailed cutting off Euphrates water from Iraq and Syria for several weeks, 
> nearly triggering a war between these two countries and Turkey. Also around 
> this time, the Middle East peace conference opened in Madrid in 1991. One of 
> its stated aims was to create a climate that would enable higher levels of 
> development in the world. 
> 
> Since the second half of the 20th century, the Arab region has had to 
> maximise the use of its water and compete over and search for additional 
> water sources in order to address three chief challenges: high and rapid 
> population growth rate; agricultural expansion and development in order to 
> feed the growing population; water management. These challenges have proved 
> all the more demanding in view of the fact that a large percentage of the 
> populace of the Arab world depends on river systems shared with non-Arab 
> countries. The problems created by shared international rivers have, so far, 
> compounded other problems that plague the international relations of the 
> region. The strategic challenge, therefore, is how these countries can secure 
> their water rights and maintain peaceful and cooperative relations. The task 
> is not as easy as it may appear, given that water is not the only issue of 
> contention between nations; relations are frequently complicated are other 
> political, economic and social problems of a cumulative historic depth.
> 
> Consider, too, that the challenges are exponential in nature. Rising 
> population rates mean that populations double within shorter and shorter 
> timeframes, meaning that agricultural production needs to double accordingly 
> and so too the amount of water currently used. It is little wonder, 
> therefore, that in this region of limited water resources some countries with 
> the power and wherewithal to dominate water resources grab the quantities 
> they need for the present and for the future and then proceed to turn water 
> into a weapon in order to bend other countries to their will. As water 
> security is increasingly threatened by scarcity and surpasses oil in 
> strategic importance, one can easily picture it becoming not just the key to 
> agricultural and industrial development but also the decider between life and 
> death itself.
> 
> * The writer is a researcher at Al-Ahram Centre for Strategic and Political 
> Studies. 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>




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