Iran faces major challenges in securing water and food for its growing population. These challenges result from both the country’s semi-arid climate and declining precipitation over the past decade.

Sustainable water resource management in Iraq has no shortage of challenges. Some of Iraq’s water hardships, like seasonal floods and droughts, occur naturally. Many of the most disruptive and destructive problems are, however, man-made: water infrastructure debilitated from decades of war and neglect; inefficient and outdated agricultural practices; rapid population growth and urbanization; competing water management approaches within transboundary river systems; and the looming crisis of climate change. The government of Iraq has plans to address the situation but it remains to be seen whether major reform will transpire.

The political climate in the Middle East makes it impossible to discuss water without addressing the political contexts that have shaped its availability.

Lebanon has announced the construction of the dam via the United Nations as per the UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (to which Israel is not a signatory), which stipulates that signatories must give “prior notification of planned measures”. The plan is currently pending.

All water resources in Palestine are shared, mainly with Israel. Shared water usually needs to be governed through agreements on allocation and use between the different parties.

The catchment of the Dead Sea covers approximately 42,000km2, stretching from southern Lebanon to the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt (see map below, the area bordered in white). All rainfall in this area that is not evaporated or extracted for use elsewhere accumulates in the Dead Sea, a low-lying saline lake. Because the catchment of the […]