UN climate report strengthens case for wise management of Middle East groundwater reserves

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People look at the Dukan dam in Iraq's northern autonomous region of Kurdistan, 65 kms northwest of Suleimaniyah, which was built in 1955 and has reached its highest water levels following heavy rains in the region, on April 2, 2019. (AFP)
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Updated 21 October 2021
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UN climate report strengthens case for wise management of Middle East groundwater reserves

  • Mismanagement could have dire environmental and political consequences for MENA
  • IPCC report contributor says water management should be a vehicle for cooperation

NEW YORK CITY: A landmark UN study on climate has sounded a stark warning about the impending irreversible changes to the natural environment and the catastrophic consequences for humanity that a failure to act could entail.

In its report, released on Monday, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said: “Climate change is widespread, rapid and intensifying, and some trends are now irreversible.”

Among the approaching changes are the well-documented warming of the atmosphere, rising sea levels, severe and unpredictable weather and catastrophic damage to natural life on land and in the sea.

But one less acknowledged, but perhaps equally existential, effect of climate change is the rapid decline in the availability of fresh and drinkable water through groundwater reserves — and for the hot and arid countries of the Middle East, the threat is particularly acute.

“Climate change is intensifying the natural production of water — the water cycle. This brings more intense rainfall and associated flooding, as well as more intense drought in many regions,” the UN report added.

In the Middle East, mismanagement of groundwater — particularly in Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran — could have catastrophic environmental and knock-on political consequences.

Groundwater is the term used for the massive reservoirs, known as aquifers, of fresh water available beneath the earth’s surface, which formed naturally over millions of years. Similar to the reservoirs that are drilled into for the extraction of oil, they are finite — and dwindling fast.

“Increasing global freshwater withdrawals, primarily associated with the expansion of irrigated agriculture in drylands, have led to global groundwater depletion,” said the UN report, adding that the massive extraction of groundwater was so severe that it was contributing to rising sea levels — and ushering in all the associated complications that came with it.

The consequences of groundwater extraction are more immediately obvious on a local level than globally.

Water scarcity, particularly in the Middle East, is not a new problem, and countries such as Saudi Arabia have been ramping up efforts to produce fresh water, for example through desalination plants that remove salt and other harmful materials from seawater to ultimately process it and make it safe to drink and useful in agriculture and everyday life.

While desalination does not come without its own challenges, it has alleviated reliance on groundwater and reduced the pressure of economic growth and human needs on fragile groundwater systems.

However, Jay Famiglietti, executive director at the Global Institute for Water Security and one of the senior authors of a study that the UN drew on for Monday’s report, told Arab News that such forward-thinking water management was scarce at best — or non-existent at worst — in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

“About a third of the world’s population relies on groundwater as their primary water source,” he said, adding that groundwater usage “depends on your resources.” Where there was less rain and surface water available, such as rivers and lakes, states were more likely to pump it from deep reservoirs, many of which were too deep to be replenished with rainwater.

“Regions that have groundwater access — they use it. They should be balancing their surface water use with groundwater, but in fact they pull water out of the ground like it’s free money — literally. But this is the norm,” Famiglietti said.

He noted that a huge amount of groundwater was used for agriculture but pointed out that this should not be condemned. “We need to eat food.”

The only solution to the problem of managing the fast-dwindling supply of groundwater reserves with the need for food and economic growth, he added, was through international cooperation.

In Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey, this is absolutely critical because of their significant reliance on groundwater as a result of the short supply of surface water.

“These aquifers that are running out of water are so big now that they cross over political boundaries — whether they are international or intranational,” Famiglietti said, adding that the issue presented a political challenge as well as an opportunity for progressive cooperation.

“Imagine pulling together a group of Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, and Syria to cooperate — it’s really, really hard. But that is the only way forward. We have to switch what has been a vehicle, a trigger for conflict — water — for something that becomes a vehicle for collaboration and cooperation. Monday’s report makes that crystal clear,” he said.

The political pitfalls of failing to reform water management have recently become abundantly clear in Iran.

The country’s southwestern Khuzestan province was recently convulsed by weeks of violent protests spurred by a lack of clean drinking water. Human rights groups have verified that at least nine people were killed by security forces during the demonstrations.

A police officer was also killed, and the violence prompted a rare admission of guilt by then-President Hassan Rouhani.

People were incensed by the authorities’ mismanagement of their water, which pushed the province, the water-wealthiest in Iran in terms of natural resources, into what has now become known as a state of “water bankruptcy.”

Those protests that started because of water shortages in Khuzestan province quickly turned into anti-regime chants in Tehran — crystallizing the destabilizing potential of water mismanagement.




An Iraqi man walks past a canoe siting on dry, cracked earth in the Chibayish marshes near the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah. Marsh areas in southern Iraq have been affected since Daesh started closing the gates of a dam on the Euphrates River in the central city of Ramadi, which is under the group's control. (AFP/File Photo)

Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, said: “In Iran in particular, the water crisis is a political one, because it is intimately tied to, and exacerbated by, longstanding regime neglect and mismanagement. That’s a situation that’s unlikely to change in the near future, unfortunately.”

Despite repeated warnings from the UN about climate catastrophe, as well as from Iranians who took to the streets in July, Berman said, Tehran did not appear to have taken on board the existential threat posed by water mismanagement.

“In fact, Iran seems to be headed in the opposite direction, because we’re now seeing a consolidation of the hardline clerical status quo around new President Ebrahim Raisi.

“All that makes Iran unlikely to pivot toward regional cooperation of the sort that the UN report envisions, or to invest in technologies, like desalination, that have helped other regional states, such as Saudi Arabia, turn the corner on their hydrological issues.”

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Twitter: @CHamillStewart


Lebanon holds local polls in first vote since Israel-Hezbollah war

Updated 7 sec ago
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Lebanon holds local polls in first vote since Israel-Hezbollah war

BEIRUT: Lebanon on Sunday began the first stage of long-delayed municipal elections, the first vote since a devastating war between Israel and Hezbollah and after a new national government was formed.
Polls opened at 7:00 am (0400 GMT) for voters in the Mount Lebanon district, a heavily populated area with mixed political and religious affiliations that includes Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold that was heavily damaged by Israeli strikes.
“We have come to exercise our right and have our voices heard,” said Hashem Shamas, 39, a Hezbollah supporter, after voting in south Beirut’s Shiyah neighborhood.
According to the interior ministry, 9,321 candidates including 1,179 women are running in the Mount Lebanon district.
Lebanon is supposed to hold municipal elections every six years, but cash-strapped authorities last held a local ballot in 2016.
President Joseph Aoun emphasized the vote’s importance to “give confidence to the people and internationally that Lebanon is rebuilding its institutions and is back on the right track.”
Aoun was elected in January and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam formed a government the following month, ending a more than two-year vacuum as Lebanon’s balance of power shifted following the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The new authorities have promised reforms in order to gain the trust of the international community, as well as unlock billions in bail-out funds amid a five-year economic crisis. They have also vowed a state monopoly on bearing arms.
Hezbollah was left badly weakened in more than a year of hostilities with Israel, with a slew of commanders including the group’s longtime chief, Hassan Nasrallah, killed and its strongholds pummelled in the south and east and in south Beirut.
Israel has continued to strike targets in Lebanon despite a ceasefire and still has troops in five areas it considers “strategic.”
In April 2024, the municipal polls were postponed amid the hostilities, which escalated in September into a major Israeli bombing campaign and ground incursion before the ceasefire about two months later.
Aoun urged voters not to let sectarian, “partisan or financial factors” impact their vote.
Religious and political affiliations are usually key electoral considerations in multi-confessional Lebanon, where power is shared along sectarian lines.
Municipal ballots however provide a greater margin for local community dynamics to play a role.
Polls are set to close at 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.
Areas of northern Lebanon will vote on May 11, with Beirut and the country’s eastern Bekaa Valley area set to go to the polls on May 18, while voters in the heavily damaged south will cast ballots on May 24.


Lebanese army says Hamas handed over suspect in missile launches toward Israel

Updated 9 min 56 sec ago
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Lebanese army says Hamas handed over suspect in missile launches toward Israel

CAIRO: The Lebanese army said on Sunday that Hamas handed over a suspect involved in launching missiles towards Israel in March, days after Lebanon warned the Palestinian group not to conduct operations that compromise Lebanese security or sovereignty.


UAE to lift Lebanon travel ban on May 7

Updated 04 May 2025
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UAE to lift Lebanon travel ban on May 7

  • UAE will lift a ban for its citizens traveling to Lebanon as of May 7, 2025

DUBAI: The UAE Foreign Ministry announced Sunday that it will lift a ban on its citizens traveling to Lebanon as of May 7, 2025, following a visit by the Lebanese head of state last week, according to WAM News Agency. 

The decision comes after a joint statement issued on Thursday, announcing that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed agreed to implement measures to facilitate travel and improve movement between the two countries.

The UAE banned its citizens from traveling to Lebanon in 2021. Lebanese citizens were not banned from traveling to the UAE. 


Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army

Updated 04 May 2025
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Paramilitaries launch first attack on Port Sudan: army

  • The paramilitaries have expanded the scope and frequency of their drone attacks on army-held areas since losing control of areas including most of the capital Khartoum in March
  • UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.

PORT SUDAN: Sudanese paramilitaries on Sunday struck Port Sudan, the army said, in the first attack on the seat of the army-aligned government in the country’s two-year war.
The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), at war with the regular army since April 2023, have increased their use of drones since losing territory including much of the capital Khartoum in March.
Army spokesman Nabil Abdullah said in a statement that the RSF “targeted Osman Digna Air Base, a goods warehouse and some civilian facilities in the city of Port Sudan with suicide drones.”
He reported no casualties but “limited damage” in the city, on Sudan’s Red Sea coast.
AFP images showed smoke billowing from the area of the airport in Port Sudan, about 650 kilometers (400 miles) from the nearest known RSF positions on the outskirts of Khartoum.
In the eastern border town of Kassala, some 500 kilometers south of Port Sudan, near Eritrea, witnesses said three drones struck the airport on Sunday for the second day in a row.
An AFP correspondent in Port Sudan said his home, about 20 kilometers from the airport, was shaking as explosions were heard early Sunday.
A passenger told AFP from the airport that “we were on the way to the plane when we were quickly evacuated and taken out of the terminal.”
On social media, users shared videos which AFP was not able to immediately verify showing a large explosion followed by a cloud of smoke rising from the blast site.
Flights to and from Port Sudan, the country’s main port of entry since the start of the war, were suspended until further notice, a government source told AFP.
The rare attacks on the airports in Port Sudan and Kassala, both far from areas that have seen much of the fighting since April 2023, come as the RSF has expanded the scope and frequency of its drone attacks.
The paramilitaries led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo have been battling the regular army, headed by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, in a devastating war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
In the early days of the war, the government relocated from Khartoum to Port Sudan, which until Sunday’s attack had been spared the violence.
UN agencies have also moved their offices and staff to Port Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people have sought refuge from the war.
The conflict has left Sudan, Africa’s third largest country, effectively divided.
The army controls the center, east and north, while the RSF has conquered nearly all of the vast western region of Darfur and parts of the south.
Lacking the army’s fighter jets, the RSF has relied on drones, including makeshift ones, for air power.


Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport

Updated 04 May 2025
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Missile launched from Yemen lands near Israel’s main airport

  • Yemen's Houthis claim missile attack on Israel's main airport
  • Sirens were activated in Tel Aviv and other areas in the country

TEL AVIV: A missile landed inside the perimeter of Israel’s main airport on Sunday, wounding six people, halting flights and gouging a wide crater, in an attack claimed by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militants.
The Israeli military said “several attempts were made to intercept” the missile that was launched from Yemen, a rare Houthi attack that penetrated Israel’s air defenses.
A video issued by Israel’s police force showed officers standing on the edge of a deep crater with the control tower visible in the distance behind them. No damage was reported to airport buildings or runways.
The police reported a “missile impact” at Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main international gateway.
An AFP photographer said the missile hit near the parking lots of Terminal 3, the airport’s largest, with the crater less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) away from the closest tarmac.
“You can see the area just behind us: a crater was formed here, several dozen meters (yards) wide and several dozen meters deep,” central Israel’s police chief, Yair Hezroni, said in the video shared by the force.
It was not immediately clear whether the impact was caused by the Yemeni missile or by an interceptor.
The attack was claimed by Yemen’s Houthis, who say they act in support for Palestinians in war-ravaged Gaza.
“The missile force of the Yemeni armed forces carried out a military operation targeting Ben Gurion airport” with a “hypersonic ballistic missile,” the Houthis said in a statement, referring to their own forces.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said it had treated at least six people with light to moderate injuries.
An AFP journalist inside the airport at the time of the attack said he heard a “loud bang” at around 9:35 am (0635 GMT), adding the “reverberation was very strong.”
“Security staff immediately asked hundreds of passengers to take shelter, some in bunkers,” the AFP journalist said.
“Many passengers are now waiting for their flights to take off, and others are trying to find alternative flights.”
An incoming Air India flight was diverted to Abu Dhabi, an airport official told AFP.
A passenger said the attack, which came shortly after air raid sirens sounded across parts of the country, caused panic.
“It is crazy to say but since October 7 we are used to this,” said the passenger, who did not want to be named, referring to the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
“A missile might come at any time and life stops for some time. Today at the airport there was panic and even I was scared, because the blast was big.”

Israel’s airport authority said that “departures and arrivals have resumed” at Ben Gurion, a short while after they had been interrupted due to the missile fire.
The airport “is open and operational,” the aviation authority said in a statement.
Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened a forceful response, saying: “Anyone who hits us, we will hit them seven times stronger.”

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas praised the missile attack on Israel's airport that was claimed by the Houthis.

“Yemen... escalates its attacks on the heart of the illegitimate Zionist entity, surpassing the most advanced defense systems in the world and striking its targets with precision,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.