This Will Be The Arab World's Next Battle
Population growth and water supply are on a collision
course. Hunger is set to become the main issue
Lester Brown
The Guardian
22 April 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/22/water-the-next-arab-battle

Long after the political uprisings in the Middle East
have subsided, many underlying challenges that are not
now in the news will remain. Prominent among these are
rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, and
growing food insecurity.

In some countries grain production is now falling as
aquifers - underground water-bearing rocks - are
depleted. After the Arab oil-export embargo of the
1970s, the Saudis realised that since they were heavily
dependent on imported grain, they were vulnerable to a
grain counter-embargo. Using oil-drilling technology,
they tapped into an aquifer far below the desert to
produce irrigated wheat. In a matter of years, Saudi
Arabia was self-sufficient in its principal food staple.

But after more than 20 years of wheat self-sufficiency,
the Saudis announced in January 2008 that this aquifer
was largely depleted and they would be phasing out wheat
production. Between 2007 and 2010, the harvest of nearly
3m tonnes dropped by more than two-thirds. At this rate
the Saudis could harvest their last wheat crop in 2012
and then be totally dependent on imported grain to feed
their population of nearly 30 million.

The unusually rapid phaseout of wheat farming in Saudi
Arabia is due to two factors. First, in this arid
country there is little farming without irrigation.
Second, irrigation depends almost entirely on a fossil
aquifer - which, unlike most aquifers, does not recharge
naturally from rainfall. And the desalted sea water the
country uses to supply its cities is far too costly for
irrigation use - even for the Saudis.

Saudi Arabia's growing food insecurity has led it to buy
or lease land in several other countries, including two
of the world's hungriest, Ethiopia and Sudan. In effect,
the Saudis are planning to produce food for themselves
with the land and water resources of other countries to
augment their fast-growing imports.

In neighbouring Yemen, replenishable aquifers are being
pumped well beyond the rate of recharge, and the deeper
fossil aquifers are also being rapidly depleted. Water
tables are falling throughout Yemen by about two metres
per year. In the capital, Sana'a - home to 2 million
people - tap water is available only once every four
days. In Taiz, a smaller city to the south, it is once
every 20 days.

Yemen, with one of the world's fastest-growing
populations, is becoming a hydrological basket case.
With water tables falling, the grain harvest has shrunk
by one-third over the last 40 years, while demand has
continued its steady rise. As a result the Yemenis
import more than 80% of their grain. With its meagre oil
exports falling, with no industry to speak of, and with
nearly 60% of its children physically stunted and
chronically undernourished, this poorest of the Arab
countries is facing a bleak and potentially turbulent
future.

The likely result of the depletion of Yemen's aquifers -
which will lead to further shrinkage of its harvest and
spreading hunger and thirst - is social collapse.
Already a failing state, it may well devolve into a
group of tribal fiefdoms, warring over whatever meagre
water resources remain. Yemen's internal conflicts could
spill over its long, unguarded border with Saudi Arabia.

Syria and Iraq - the other two populous countries in the
region - have water troubles, too. Some of these arise
from the reduced flows of the Euphrates and Tigris
rivers, which they depend on for irrigation water.
Turkey, which controls the headwaters of these rivers,
is in the midst of a massive dam building programme that
is reducing downstream flows. Although all three
countries are party to water-sharing arrangements,
Turkey's plans to expand hydropower generation and its
area of irrigation are being fulfilled partly at the
expense of its two downstream neighbours.

Given the future uncertainty of river water supplies,
farmers in Syria and Iraq are drilling more wells for
irrigation. This is leading to overpumping in both
countries. Syria's grain harvest has fallen by one-fifth
since peaking at roughly 7m tonnes in 2001. In Iraq, the
grain harvest has fallen by a quarter since peaking at
4.5m tonnes in 2002.

Jordan, with 6 million people, is also on the ropes
agriculturally. Forty or so years ago, it was producing
more than 300,000 tonnes of grain per year. Today it
produces only 60,000 tonnes and thus must import over
90% of its grain. In this region, only Lebanon has
avoided a decline in grain production.

Thus in the Arab Middle East, where populations are
growing fast, the world is seeing the first collision
between population growth and water supply at the
regional level. For the first time in history, grain
production is dropping in a region with nothing in sight
to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of
governments to mesh population and water policies, each
day now brings 10,000 more people to feed, and less
irrigation water with which to feed them.

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