A water scarcity report issued recently as a collaboration of several U.S. intelligence agencies predicts that the likelihood of conflict over water will increase in the coming decades. The report argues that the Middle East, as perhaps the most water impoverished region of the world, will be particularly susceptible to so-called “water wars.”
The strain on the global water supply is the result of a number of factors. First, most of the Earth’s water is simply unavailable for consumption, sanitation, or agricultural purposes because 97% of it is salt water. Of the remaining 3%, only 1% is available for direct human use. Moreover, in some areas of the world, the available freshwater supply is being depleted faster than it is being replenished. Saudi Arabia, for example, gets 70% of its water from 21 aquifers where water is being extracted faster than nature can restore the supply. In the case of Yemen, the state’s current water demand exceeds its renewable water resources by 900 million cubic meters per year.
As the world’s population continues to grow, the demand for water will increase correspondingly. The high population growth rates, hovering around 2% in the region compared to the world average of 1.1%, and paucity of arable land in the Middle East will make water shortages in the region particularly acute. The United Nations predicts that by 2025, 30 countries will be water scarce, out of which 18 will be in the Middle East and North Africa
