By Giorgia Piantanida

In the MENA region today, there is a massive water scarcity crisis, and little is being done to meet it before it becomes completely devastating. In this piece, water scarcity, water stress, and water shortage will refer to the yearly decreasing amount of fresh water available per capita within a country.

Government Response

Today, approximately 60% of people are living in areas of severe water stress in the region, and this percentage will increase as the climate crisis intensifies. Up to 82% of the total water resources in the MENA region are not being used efficiently. Often, the water gets withdrawn faster than it is replenished, creating a dangerous cycle.. This quickly becomes a matter of not only of a humanitarian nature, but also of international security. In Syria, the civil war has pushed more people into poverty, decreasing people’s access to safe drinking water. This has led to an increase in waterborne diseases, and the mortality rate of children under five from diarrhea has tripled since the war started in 2011.

In some countries, governments have indirectly encouraged the over-exploitation of water by selling it at a loss. Some have also failed to implement incentives to curb water consumption and actively promote conservation. In the Western North African area, growing water stress continues to increase the amount of protests across the region, which aim to place pressure on the governments. The government has to face and contend with the protests, though unsuccessfully curbing the root problem of water over-exploitation. In Egypt, there is an uneven water distribution in the population. The government largely misuses their water resources, and has an ineffective irrigation system, so they have to largely rely on water levels of the Nile River, which is shared with Sudan and Ethiopia.

Water as a Weapon

The general control and provision of water resources have been further highlighting tribal and regional divides, sometimes causing violent clashes. Unfortunately, these clashes also bring about the weaponization of water, as one group may take over and threaten the well-being of the resource to gain leverage. It is not rare to see water being withheld as an act of war. In Iraq, Daesh took advantage of the power vacuum created by the US and UK invasion at the start of the War on Terror. They controlled the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which are the main sources of water for the region. By controlling the rivers, they are able to control the civilians around them because Daesh decides who can access water.

War within countries also impacts water access. In Libya, the civil war tearing the country apart reduced water distribution canals from 149 to 101 since 2011. This severely undercuts the access of civilians to safe drinking water. As the conflict continues, the basic needs of civilians are increasingly hard to meet, and migration out of the country remains high.

In the region, water resources are often managed in a cooperative fashion. As that water begins to run out, conflict will likely break out as individuals try to meet their pressing water demands. On top of that, the Food and Agriculture Organization has stressed that the predicted water shortages will cause economic losses between 6 and 14 percent of the total GDP by the year 2050. The steady demand on an increasingly smaller water supply is likely to erode quality of life, adding to the grievances citizens will have against their governments.

In Yemen, along with violent conflict due to the civil war, water scarcity continues to plague residents. When the population in the country increased, Yemeni farming switched to cash crop harvesting in order to make more money. Unfortunately, the cash crops need more water to grow so the already scarce reservoirs were further drained. Now, farmers are increasing the depths of their wells by about 50 meters, but their water access has decreased by two thirds. This has pushed some groups to violent confrontations in order to obtain water once more.

International Security Implications

A lot of the tensions that will continue to come out of the region due to the above issues will not be contained within country borders. Due to the greater water demands, there will likely be military disputes among neighboring countries who share water resources. These disputes will be over who maintains control of the resources and may be ignited by an argument about who’s to blame for the vanishing source. Egypt is currently negotiating with Ethiopia over access to the Nile. While Ethiopia plans to build a dam in the river to increase water access, the project will undercut Egypt’s access to clean, safe water from the same river.

Israel and Palestine are two other nations that are far from a peaceful coexistence, with one obstacle to peace being water. The main source of water in this area is from the Galilee Sea and the West Bank mountain aquifer. Rather than splitting the water evenly, Israel and Israeli settlements take 80%, leaving Palestinians with only 20% of the water. Palestinians then ration the water and be cognizant of how much they use in a way that Israelis do not. This has led to inflamed tensions over who gets to control the water resources, and who decides how to distribute it.

Citizens will also be forced to migrate due to lack of water, and refugee flows, especially to Europe, will increase. This creates further instability in Europe, as they try to take in refugees and meet their basic needs. In Iraq, the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are the main sources of water for the country, are set to dry up completely by 2040. While droughts have already impacted the country and harmed the lives of civilians, they are set to get dramatically worse in the near future.

Water scarcity does not always create conflict, but it exacerbates it. If people are not getting their basic needs met, conflict is a viable attempt to gain that need.