Water Crisis in the Middle East - Research Paper Example

According to the World Health Organization, every individual requires 1000 cubic meters of water annually for proper health but many countries in the world cannot fulfill these requirements of water for its residents. The Middle East Countries lie top amongst this list (Sivakumar 2010, p25). An article published in the Gulf News in the year 2011 and written by Samihah Zaman further sheds light upon this crisis. The article explains that the water crisis would surge to greater levels and cause more trouble in the coming years and thus steps should be taken at the national and international levels to curb this problem and solve the situation (Zaman 2011).

The Middle East Countries are in the center of a crisis of water shortage owing to the increased demand and reduced reserves and this should be tackled effectively to prevent the worsening of the situation. The gravity of the water crisis in the Middle East can be understood with the example of many countries in the region. The population of Egypt is increasing at a fast pace and there is a rise of one million people in the country within every nine months. This raises the demand of water in the country.

In Jordan, the situation has aggravated to a level where many towns in the country receive water only on one day in a week. Furthermore, the situation in the country is further worsened by the 60 percent loss of paper from the water pipes. Israel which has already levied taxes upon water consumption is also facing pressure owing to the increase in immigrants in the country. In Syria, the Euphrates River has been contaminated with pollutants and there has been a drop in the level of the river which has led the authorities to take measures like reducing the electrical supply and water to drink in major cities including Damascus and Aleppo.

Thus, the scarcity of water in the countries of the Middle East has escalated (Inbar 1995, p234,235). The water crisis in the Middle East exists due to several reasons. The dry climatic conditions and the barren lands in most of the countries is one of the natural causes of the reduced amount of water resources. The other environmental cause is the climatic changes around the globe which have resulted in droughts and have made the scarcity in the region even worse. This has been accompanied with the boom in the growth rate of the population leading to a rise in the demand of water.

Not only this, there has been an increase in the agricultural activities in the region as well as a surge in the tourism industry. Thus, the demand for water has greatly increased. Along with this, pollution has also increased in the Middle East and reduced regulations and checks have led to the contamination of water resources with pollutants coming from industries and agricultural sites. Thus, these factors have not only accounted for reduced quantity of water but the quality of the water supply has also been compromised (Selby 2003, p 25; Hamdy and Liuzzi 2005, p16).

The water crisis in the Middle East is worsening and strategies should be implemented to overcome this grave problem. The most important measure which needs to be understood is the achievement of control over the growth rate of the population. This is because the natural supply of water in the region will not increase and the population rise would put further pressure. Thus it should be reduced. The next step should be the proper management of water through the building of reservoirs like dams, desalination plants and new pipelines so that the leakage is reduced (Selby 2003, p 26,27).

Lastly, political stability is