Posted on 03/17/2005 3:08:12 PM PST by srm913
IT IS common knowledge that oil and territorial issues spark conflict in the Middle East, but there is now growing alarm over the risk that water could be the catalyst for the next war in the region.
Middle East nations record some of the highest birth rates in the world but have only 0.4 per cent of the world's recoverable water resources. Some 80 per cent of people in the region rely on water that flows into their country from at least one other.
The potential for disputes over this scarce essential resource is obvious, a risk clearly illustrated by a currently escalating row between Ethiopia and Egypt over access to the waters of the River Nile.
Former United Nations secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali said last month that if no solution is found, the disagreement will 'certainly' spark military confrontation.
Dr Joyce Shira Starr, author of the influential book Covenant Over Middle Eastern Waters: Key To World Survival, has been warning along with Dr Boutros-Ghali for years that the region is on the brink of war over water.
She told The Straits Times that the '21st-century challenge for the international community is to harness and link technological advances with water-sharing agreements'.
'The quote 'The next war in the Middle East will be over water' came from Dr Boutros-Ghali. It was that single sentence that launched my own 'mission' over water,' she added.
Ethiopia plans to draw more water from the Blue Nile. Although the river's source is in Ethiopia, an agreement in 1929 between Britain and Egypt gave Egypt most of the Nile's water, and Cairo has already made clear that any attempt to alter the waterway's status will be deemed an act of war.
Another reason for some observers' growing concern over the potential for war is an alarming report issued this week by Friends of the Earth. The international environmental organisation says that the River Jordan - depleted by huge water diversions by Israel, Jordan and Syria - will dry up within two years.
The potential for 'water wars' has long loomed large over the Middle East. When former Egyptian president Anwar Sadat signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, he said Egypt would never go to war again - except to protect its water resources.
The late King Hussein of Jordan made a similar declaration.
While Dr Boutros-Ghali's warning of 'certain' war may seem alarmist, there are precedents.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said that the Six Days War started because Syrian engineers were working on diverting part of a shared water flow away from Israel. And Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon was planned, in part, as a way of gaining control over Lebanon's Litani River.
Access to water is also a stumbling block for any permanent settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
However, not all experts agree that water wars are inevitable.
Dr Jan Selby, lecturer in the Department of International Relations at the University of Sussex and the author of Water, Power, And Politics In The Middle East, believes that the problem is not allocation of water per se but rather uneven socio-economic development. He cited the Palestinians to illustrate his point that there would be nothing to gain from confrontation.
'Even if the Palestinians were granted their fair share of regional water resources, it is very unlikely that their water problems would go away unless they had the economic and institutional capacity to manage water adequately - to desalinate, treat, conserve and distribute it well,' he told The Straits Times.
It is in the interest of all parties who need water resources to cooperate, this contrary view concerning the risk of war goes.
Dr Daniel Hillel, author of Rivers Of Eden: The Struggle For Water And The Quest For Peace In The Middle East, told The Straits Times that a decision to go to war over water would be 'based on a mistaken perception of the problem and a failure of positive vision'.
'So mechanisms are needed to address those issues in a spirit of cooperation and the quest for peace,' he said.
Maybe the U.S. could organize OWEC (Organization of Water Exporting Countries) and stick it to them like OPEC did to us.
I think you're on to something! A barrel of water for a barrel of oil ... I like the sound of that ... especially since I happen to be in the barrel business.
Not just the Middle East. India/Pakistan have the Kashmiri waterways as an additional stumbling points there to any future settlement and several Indian states have begun growling at each other over water rights as though they're ready for an internal war over water resources...
The only nations with enough water to export are Canada and Russia. I wouldn't want to organize them into any sort of cartel.
The nation that REALLY needs water is China. China is drying up (due to ecological and agricultural mismanagement), and quite a lot of the water the do have is wretchedly polluted.
Accessing water goes back in records to the Roman Empire.
As for potable water?....For that I'm not sure.
It's odd that, after 30 plus years, the failure of Egyptian agriculture due to the alteration of the Nile's natural flow -- the Aswan High Dam -- would not be correctly attributed or even acknowledged. The Nile Delta fishing industry was also killed by the interruption not only of water, but the mineral content of the silt from the African interior. So the Egyptian government continues to do the same thing, to get more of what they already don't want.Source of Peace?The Palestinians have announced they intend to exercise ownership rights to the West Bank's mountain aquifer - which provides Israel with a quarter of its drinking-quality water; Israel has sent tanks to guard its pumping stations. Ignoring Israeli warnings, Syria is damming the Hatzbani, a main tributary of the Jordan River system; it has also taken all the Yarmuk River water that used to flow to Jordan. Lake Kinneret is a worst-ever two meters below the "red line" that spells irrevocable salinity and Israel can no longer meet its obligation, under the 1994 peace treaty, to supply Jordan with 150 million cubic meters a year. King Abdullah says he will use force if necessary to secure Jordan's rights... Egypt's rising food imports reflect its water crisis, although the government hasn't dared acknowledge to its citizens that, after 6,000 years, the Nile is no longer capable of meeting their needs. The Litani's abundant, largely unused waters now raise another tantalizing possibility. Infinitely more practical than tankers, far less costly than the Turkish pipeline, but entirely dependent on a harmonious regional climate quite at odds with today's reality, is the idea of digging a tunnel from the Litani into one of the Jordan's tributaries. "The Litani is in a deep gorge, and you could build a 10-km. tunnel into the Dan or the Hatzbani," says Hillel Shuval, a Hebrew University water expert... [F]or the next 25 to 30 years, until its own domestic demand increases, a Lebanon at peace with Israel might be able to sell as much as 500 million cu.m. a year - a quarter of Israel's present needs - and Israel could then make more available to the Palestinians and Jordan... A November 1999 "white paper" put forward by the Washington Center envisions a string of desalination plants along Israel's coast, and a 50 cu.m. facility next to a new power station in Gaza.
by Hanan SherThe Potential for Cooperation or Conflict in the Tigris-Euphrates BasinAfter completion of Syria's al-Thawra dam in 1975, the Iraqis claimed that the resulting flow reduction threatened the livelihood of three million farmers (Cordahi). As the problem became more heated, the prospect of open hostilities became more real. As the League of Arab States failed to mediate the conflict, Iraq positioned troops along the Syrian-Iraqi border (Kliot 102). In reaction, Syria relinquished water from various dams and for the moment war was avoided. However, the future could still see the potential for conflict between the two countries if Syria continues to remain uncompromising on the pace of Euphrates development. Iraq is in the worst position of the three countries. Iraq stresses that the current share of 58% of the 500 cubic meters flowing through Syria per second is insufficient and satisfies only half the country's needs (Parker). Not only does Iraq have to worry about impediments to the flow of both rivers, but also the quality of the water received.
by Shelby FrenchWater wars - the global viewpointThe influential environmental research institute, Worldwatch says that if the combined population of the three countries the Nile runs through - Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt - rises as predicted from 150 million today to 340 million in 2050 there could be intense competition for water resources. And the institute predicts that Egypt is unlikely to take kindly to losing out to Ethiopia on water issues. Egypt already eyes Addis Ababa's plans for the Blue Nile with deep suspicion. There is also another potential water war in southern Africa involving Botswana, Namibia and Angola. The three countries share the Okavango River, the largest river in the region which doesn't drain to the sea. Botswana has contested Namibia's plans to pump water from the Okavango Delta to help deal with drought and anticipated water shortages.
by Peter Allison
and from the fringe:
The Coming Water Wars
by Hal Lindsey
November 16, 2000
http://www.hallindseyoracle.com/waterwars.html
"Israel will run out of fresh water before the year 2015 according to recent scientific projections. Unless radical and expensive steps are taken now, there will be no more fresh water in the cities for either drinking or bathing. No more recycled water for agriculture. Industry will cease."
China's Water Shortage Could Shake World Food SecurityChina depends on irrigated land to produce 70 percent of the grain for its huge population of 1.2 billion people, but it is drawing more and more of that water to supply the needs of its fast-growing cities and industries. As rivers run dry and aquifers are depleted, the emerging water shortages could sharply raise the country's demand for grain imports, pushing the world's total import needs beyond exportable supplies.
by Lester R. Brown
and Brian Halweil
"in fact we can live without oil".
Uh, no we can't. The agricultural surplus we enjoy is built on high farm productivity, and that is founded on hydrocarbon fuels. Distribution is also made possible by hydrocarbon fuels. Processing, packaging, preparing, even picking it up from the store, all count on hydrocarbon fuels.
one more oldie, plus a link, and then off to bed I go:
Politics spur Israeli Turkish water deal
By Joshua Brilliant
United Press International
March 04, 2004
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040304-042311-1974r.htm
"Turkey said it would sell Israel a billion cubic meters of water over a 20-year period... It would be cheaper to desalinate water than to buy it from Turkey, Israeli officials said Thursday. However, Israel's foreign ministry said the two countries would thus be 'further consolidating their strategic cooperation.' ...Ankara officials appeared eager for the deal to make good a $150 million investment in water exporting facilities built on the Manavgat River in Anatolia, which is in southern Turkey. Those facilities have a capacity to export 180 million cubic meters of pure water a year and, 'We must find clients,' said a Turkish diplomat involved in negotiations... Israel built a pipeline from the Sea of Galilee to the Negev desert about 40 years ago. Tank gunners knocked out equipment the Syrians used in an attempt to divert the Jordan River's tributaries so that the water would bypass Israel. Officials reduced the size of agricultural areas and introduced a drip irrigation system to save water. However its population is growing, it undertook to provide Jordan with 55 million cubic meters of water a year, and it transfers 40 million more to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Saguy noted."
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
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Another reason for some observers' growing concern over the potential for war is an alarming report issued this week by Friends of the Earth. The international environmental organisation says that the River Jordan - depleted by huge water diversions by Israel, Jordan and Syria - will dry up within two years.
Indeed, the Great Lakes are the greatest resviours of fresh water in the world. I'm thinking $100bbl for our water to the OPEC countries.
We survived as an agrarian people. 400 years ago the European ancestors living in the Americas were essentially 100 per cent agrarian. Now we are perhaps 2 per cent agrarian. The percentage has dropped since internal combustion engine tractors made it possible for farms to be managed by few hands. Internal combustion engines burn petroleum products. So do the machines that make the distribution system possible.
Coal-to-liquid solution for energy woes
The StraitsTimes | July 19, 2004 | David Dapice
Posted on 07/20/2004 9:27:15 AM PDT by Baby Bear
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1174878/posts
Oil from Coal....Boon, Bane, or Boondoggle? (posted 12/31/2001)
various links | 12-31-01 | backhoe
Posted on 12/31/2001 5:37:24 AM PST by backhoe
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/599330/posts
Heavy-Metal Nuclear Power
American Scientist (abstract) | November-December 2004 | Eric P. Loewen
Posted on 11/25/2004 5:05:53 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1288533/posts
Warning: The Hydrogen Economy May Be More Distant Than It Appears
Popular Science | 12/15/04 | Michael Behar
Posted on 12/15/2004 5:34:11 AM PST by crv16
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1301843/posts
Where Our Energy Will Come From
BusinessWeek | October 11, 2004 | Michael Arndt
Posted on 11/04/2004 11:15:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1271331/posts
Interesting. That hadn't occurred to me....must do a nethunt....
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