The Middle East and Water

The United Nations says 1,000 cubic metres are the minimum needed in a year for an individual in terms of drinking water, food production and participation in economic activities.

With a population of about 420 million people, the Arab region is the world's poorest in terms of water scarcity and percentage of water per individual - the average percentage share of water for an Arab individual does not exceed 600 cubic metres per year. Countries like Jordan, Palestine and Yemen are the poorest, with an average that does not exceed 200 cubic metres per year. 

Remove the Gulf states from the discussion and water scarcity has a direct impact on the economy of states such as Jordan, Yemen, Tunisia and Palestine, which suffer from high rates of poverty. These countries is their lack financial resources. With money, seawater can be desalinised and provide water for all kind of economic activities. The Gulf countries have no water shortages because they have desalination plants. Even though the cost is too high, it is not an issue for them as they have cheap energy. But other Arab states without the same financial muscle and cheap energy cannot afford that luxury.

The economic instability in Iraq is directly affected by shortages of water coming from its two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. This is because Turkey has built dams over those rivers in its territories, which limited Iraq's share of the rivers' waters. As a result, Iraq has lost billions of cubic metres of water and will continue to lose more if the government does not reach an agreement with Turkey. Egypt is also going to face water problems when Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam becomes operational in the near future. 

The average annual income of Israeli citizens is almost 10 times of those in some Arab countries. Israel has strong financial resources and it also has the technology to build its own desalination plants to provide water for its population. The strength of the Israeli economy is directly related to its abundance of water. Jordan is using water technology that uses water in a smart way and highly effective. For example, in the Jordan Valley, which is an agricultural region, it now uses only half of the water it used in 1990 but produces three times the quantity of agricultural products. This is mainly because of the introduction of new technologies. According to USAID, which spends millions on Jordan water projects, 50 percent of water supplied by the municipality network is lost to leakage and theft. Jordan has absorbed 1.5 million Syrian refugees since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011 which has increased the pressure on our water resources and infrastructure. Also, the illegal usage of water is a contributing factor in the country's water scarcity.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/arab-countries-address-water-security-risk-instability-191004193055025.html