We all knew water is a major concern in Middle Eastern deserts, but a new report from the Center for Strategic and Inernational Studies suggests it's much different (and worse) than we thought.
Scholarly work on water has often focused on shared rivers as a potential cause of war between countries. But countries in the Middle East have not gone to war over their rivers, and diplomats have been successful in keeping tensions to a minimum. Instead, finite supplies of underground water within national borders pose a more immediate and strategically consequential challenge. Groundwater has fed the agriculture that many regional leaders have used to cement political loyalties. Its potential exhaustion threatens existing political balances.
Water is a fundamental part of the social contract in Middle Eastern countries. Along with subsidized food and fuel, governments provide cheap or even free water in order to ensure the consent of the governed. But when subsidized commodities have been cut in the Middle East, instability has often followed. Water’s own role in prompting unrest has so far been relatively limited, but that record is unlikely to hold. Water has no substitutes, and while cheap in its natural state, water is expensive to process and transport. Future water scarcity will be much more permanent than past shortages, and the techniques governments have used in responding to past disturbances may not be enough.
Download "Clear Gold: Water as a Strategic Resource in the Middle East"
Comments