According to recent research, an increase in wintertime droughts in the Mediterranean is partly down to human-caused climate change

Over the last 20 years, 10 of the driest winters have taken place in the Mediterranean region that stretches from Gibraltar to the Middle East. As the region accumulates most of its precipitation during the wintertime, an increased dryness during this season is particularly worrying. According to scientist, this emerging trend may have a significant impact on water resources and food security in the future.

Scientists at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) published a report in the Journal of Climate stating that the magnitude and frequency of the drying in the Mediterranean region is “too great to be explained by natural variability.”

The researchers discovered a pattern of increased wintertime droughts and attributed around half of the drying to climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels and other human activities. They found that greenhouse gases are warming tropical oceans more than other ocean regions and this is pushing drought-conductive weather patterns in the Mediterranean.

The scientists, who looked at data from 1902-2010, also found that the shift towards drier winters began around the 1970s. This coincides with the timing of ocean temperature changes which are closely linked to the wintertime droughts.

Winter precipitation trends in the Mediterranean region for the period 1902 – 2010

The Mediterranean region, like the Middle East, is an area that suffers from water scarcity. However researchers wanted to examine whether the projected drying was also occurring in winter – the most important season for water resources. Scientists now say that the evidence shows it is.

Martin Hoerling, lead author of a paper told sciencedaily.com: “This is not encouraging news for a region that already experiences water stress, because it implies natural variability alone is unlikely to return the region’s climate to normal.”

More evidence, if we ever needed it, that we must take serious action on climate change now.

: Science Daily

:: Images via NOAA

For more on water issues and drought see:

Bono Fixes the World The Jewish Way of Sukkot

The Horn Of Africa Famine: A Cautionary Tale For MENA

Bahrain Gives A $4 million Post-Ramadan Gift To Famine-Struck Somalia

The Alliance of Religions and Conservation has launched a special water conservation guide aimed at Muslim women and families

Every year at Hajj, Muslims commemorate the struggle of Hajjar; an Egyptian hand-maid and second wife of the Prophet Ibrahim [pbuh] who was stranded in the desert without water for her child. The hajj pilgrims walk, as she did, between two mountains in the Saudi Arabian wilderness known as Safa and Marwa to remember her search for water. To mark the significance of this event, the Alliance of Religions and Conservation has launched a special water conservation guide which focuses on the story of Hajjar, to accompany its Green Guide to Hajj.

Embracing The Influence Of Muslim Women

The guide uses the story to emphasize the preciousness of water and the need for all Muslims to think more carefully about their water use. It highlights the importance of water in Islam and how the Prophet Muhammed [pbuh] asked his followers to conserve it even if it was available in abundance.

What is particularly unique about this water conservation guide, however, is its focus on women and family learning. Writing in the guide, Dr Husna Ahmed who we interviewed on Green Hajj, says:  “The booklet relates the story of Hajjar (r.a) to emphasize the important role that Muslim women play in Islam and how we should not ignore our duty to protect the planet for our children and future generations… We as Muslim women should act out of love, not fear. I hope we can all confront the challenges that climate change brings forth with a sense of love, compassion and humanity for each other.”

Share With Your Family & Change Their Habits

Click here to view the embedded video.

The team behind the guide have put together a great little video aimed at young families which tells the story of Hajjar and explains why we need to conserve water in clear and accessible terms. The guide also puts forward some practical suggestions to help Muslim families save water. These include recycling water, having shorter showers, using tap water rather than bottled water and also performing the wudhu (ablution before prayers) using water from a small bucket rather than allowing the water tap to run.

Whilst the guide reminds us that the responsibility to care for the planet falls on us all equally, it asks Muslim women to exert their influence and help spread the message of water conservation.  As Dr Husna puts it in the guide, “If we take up the baton for environmental change and pass it on to our immediate families, do you know what an enormous impact we can have? Families all around the world will start to think about our environment and the small changes each family make will be multiplied as whole communities and societies are influenced by changes started by YOU.”

:: Download Islam and Water: The Hajjar (ra) Story and Guide.

For more on water conservation and Islam see:

How Islam Could Help Fight Water Scarcity

Aflaj: Ancient Channels Keep Water Flowing In the Desert

Believers Can Save One Million Gallons Of Water

Water conservation policies are being promoted in the naturally water poor nation of United Arab Emirates

Considering that the United Arab Emirates is located in harsh and arid desert, the fact that the average resident uses around 364 liters of water a day – way above the global average of 200 litres- is surprising. Natural groundwater is supplemented with desalinated water and treated water to boost supplies and provide a steady supply of clean water to residents (well, most of the time). However, a recent report which found that water demand is likely to double by 2030 in the UAE has got government authorities worried and they are now promoting the benefits of water conservation.

The UAE Environment Ministry has come up with a six-part plan to enhance water security and stem the rising tide of water consumption. “The value of water and the need to conserve it in the UAE cannot be underestimated because of its scarcity and lack of rainfall to replenish wells,” Mariam Al Shenasi at the Ministry of Environment and Water, told Gulf News. The new plan includes initiatives such as controlling supply, improving the efficiency of distribution, and strengthening federal water laws and policies.

Cutting The High Cost of Desalination

Currently, the United Arab Emirates uses 4.5 billion cubic metres of water a year. Over half of that comes from groundwater supplies, whilst 37% comes from the 70 desalination plants scattered across the country. As well as good eco-sense, cutting down the water consumption makes good economic sense as the annual production cost of desalinating water is estimated at around Dh11.8 billion or over US$3 billion.

The main culprits behind the high use of water include the agricultural sector which claims 34% of overall water usage, the domestic sector and industry which uses 32%, and less justifiable ‘landscaping’ and beautification projects which use 11%. Treated sewage water for irrigation meets around 8% of the water need and has helped save around 136 million cubic metres of desalinated water.

Can Nuclear Energy & Water Conservation Mix?

The UAE recently announced that they would be sticking by plans to build four nuclear reactors by 2017 to ensure they meet rising demands for electricity. The rising demand for energy can be attributed to inefficient energy subsidies which keep prices artificially low and also the energy-intensive process of water desalination. Indeed, a report by Carboun estimated that the emirate of Abu Dhabi uses more than half of its domestic energy use in desalination. This makes water conservation even more important as it makes little sense to keep supplying cheap energy if the UAE hasn’t got a handle on its water consumption.

Another related issue is that nuclear energy is known to be water intensive which means that the UAE could end up being trapped in a cycle of needing to produce extra energy to make the extra water which they need for nuclear energy. Consequently, the energy and water equation needs to be carefully balanced so that any hydrological gains aren’t written off by poor energy choices.

:: Gulf News

: Image via Danny McL/flickr.

For more on water issues in the UAE see:

Nuclear-Powered Water For UAE

Trouble In Paradise: Water Failure At Luxury Resort In Dubai

Feeding Abu Dhabi Water From The Air

This infographic by Carboun tells you everything you ever wanted to know about water and the Middle East but couldn’t be bothered to read

Building on the blossoming debate on water and its complexities and Carboun’s first infographic on the carbon emissions from the region, comes this second infographic which aims to decode the water situation in the Middle East and North Africa region. At first glance, it’s not as easy to read as Carboun’s previous infographic but this simply reflects the intricacy of the water situation in the Middle East.

The first you need to get your head around is the key. The percentage above all the water drops represents the amount of water a nation uses from the renewable resources available to it. So, if the percentage is 100% or less than that the country is using, respectively, all or less of its renewable resources but if this is over 100% than the country is using more water than it actually has which is clearly a bad thing.

Overused and Overstretched- Water In MENA

Unsurprisingly, it is the major oil-exporting nations that are blowing their water budget with Emiratis using a whopping 1600% more, Saudis using 951% of their available resources, Qataris using 624% and Libyans overusing water by 798%. Of the resource poor nations in the Middle East and North Africa region, Egyptians used 127%, Yemenis used 121% of their renewable water resources whilst Jordanians used 51% more water than was currently available to them at 151%. All of the remaining ‘resource-poor’ nations such as Syria, Iraq and Algeria used below their budget with Lebanon, which is known for its high water wastage, using the least at just 33% of its renewable water resources.

Getting The (Water) Balance Right

The infographic uses a water drop per nation to illustrate this balance of water consumption and water availability per capita. A dark blue outlines represents the water available and a light blue water drop represents the actual amount of water used – as such, any nation with a light blue water drop bigger than the outline means its overusing. Whilst any nation with a light blue water drop smaller/within the dark blue outline means it’s using water within its means. A quick glance at the infographic should help you make sense of all this.

Water Scarcity Impacting Resource-Poor & Resource-Rich Nations

Another useful bit of information which the infographic by Carboun, an organisation which promotes sustainability in the Middle East, includes is water scarcity. There is a water scarcity level line on the resource-poor nations which is quite hard to make out (maybe next time the line should be in black than light pink) which illustrates that many of the nations such as Tunisia and the Palestinian Territories are already dealing with water scarcity. Gulf nations such as Oman and Bahrain and also within the water scarcity level although unlike the poorer nations they are able to buy their way out of their problems with water desalination technologies.

Iran and Israel Still Missing

What’s also useful is that an Arabic version of the original infographic on carbon emissions has been produced which makes it a great resource for locals in the region. Again Israel and Iran are not included in this infographic so it’s good that Green Prophet recently published its own guide to Israel and water although the situation in Iran still needs to be highlighted. To find out more on Carboun see their website or follow them on twitter.

:: Data for the infographic via World Bank.

For more on water in the Middle East:

Water and Israel- The Facts

Trouble In Paradise: Water Failure At Luxury Apartments In Dubai

Syria Launches Water Scarcity Park

Israel Commits Itself To More Desalination

Iraqi Sheikh Threatens To Demonstrate If Kurds Don’t Share Water

Middle East Water Security Worries The Prince Of Jordan

To coincide with World Water Day, we take a look at a wastewater project planned for Palestine’s green city

The Arab region is believed to be one of the driest in the world- 70% of the land is dry and rainfall is sparse and the effects of climate change will only exacerbate the situation. As today is World Water Day, as well as highlighting the problems the region faces, here at Green Prophet we also want to celebrate the success stories of the region.

The planners behind Palestine’s first planned and green city called Rawabi (or ‘Hills’ in Arabic) have recently given the go-ahead for a feasibility study for a new regional wastewater facility which strengthens their commitment preserving water.

Despite initial reservations about the projects lack of solid waste and wastewater management, the recent announcement has gone someway toward alleviating environmentalists’ concerns.  The feasibility study will help plan for a wastewater treatment plant for the city and will also be “instrumental in identifying permanent solutions for the treatment of wastewater in a regional context.”

Improving Water Conservation Facilities

Wastewater is complex issue in Palestine due to the Israeli-Palestine conflict which hinders effective co-operation between the two nations.  Inadequate waste water treatment plants in the Palestinian territories means that only 22.5 million cubic metres out of around 150 million cubic metres of raw sewage created every year is adequately treated to make it safe for reuse. Most of the raw sewage is contained in septic tanks- some of which are not adequately enforced which can lead to the contamination of Palestinian and Israeli ground water supplies.

Bashar Masri, Managing Director of Bayti Real Estate Investment Company behind the Rawabi project stated, “Palestine’s particular political and economic situation has weakened the already fragile environment. Rawabi’s goal is to reverse that decline by nurturing the environment through responsible management, which includes re-planting Palestine’s vanishing tree resources, using non-reclaimable materials wisely, and doing everything within our means to conserve water.”

Growing Trees and Tackling Food Security

Masri added, “Palestinian food security is a huge issue which garners too little attention. One of our objectives is to bolster the work of small farmers from the nearby towns, who will in turn supply the strong market demand for fresh baladi produce from residents of Rawabi and the surrounding areas. We know that if farmers have more water, they can plant a wider range of crops over a longer growing season.”

Rawabi has also launched a GROW for a Greener Palestine initiative which is working to plant trees and encourage young Palestinians’ to embrace nature by working with environmental experts to plant trees. The project is also teaching the youth about the value of trees due to their ability to stop soil erosion, conserve Palestine’s scarce water resources and encourage rainfall.

Together the two projects can play an important role in establishing Rawabi as an example of a green and sustainable city to be emulated in the whole of Palestine.

:: Image via Rawabi website.

For more on Palestine’s Greenest City see:

Rawabi: Palestine’s Greenest City or Greenest Wash?

Palestine’s Green City Faces New Criticism- this time about JNF Trees

Construction Underway on Rawabi, First Planned Palestinian City

Polly Higgins is a lawyer on a mission to bring serious environmental destruction to an end. Whilst this may seem ambitious, she insists that using the legal system to outlaw environmental crimes can make a real difference.

Voted by the Ecologist as one of the ‘World’s Top 10 Visionary Thinkers’, she has submitted a proposal to the United Nations to make the crime of ‘Ecocide’- or extensive environmental destruction- the 5^th Crime Against Peace alongside genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of aggression.

I spoke to Polly, who recently published her book ‘Eradicating Ecocide’, to find out more.

Arwa Aburawa: You define ecocide as ‘the extensive destruction, damage to or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished’. As such, you state that that ecocide like genocide and crimes against humanity are crimes against peace. In what ways does environmental destruction threaten the peace of the planet?

Polly Higgins: The way I see it is that we have a cycle of destruction involved here. We destroy, damage the planet and cause systems to break down- as a result of that we cause the depletion of our own resources. That damage or destruction is ‘Ecocide’ because when we deplete our resources we end up in conflict, literally at war, over what little is left and we know that’s happening already. Darfur was a war over water, Iraq was a war over oil and we know that we are looking at peak oil. Oil is now getting increasingly difficult to extract which is why we have to drill down two miles underwater to get to it- it’s no longer a matter of drilling twenty metres on land and it spurts back out. The reason we call the extraction of oil at the Athabasca oil sands unconventional is because it’s very destructive, five time more energy intensive, five time carbon intensive. So, what we have is a hermetically sealed cycle of destruction, where the destruction leads to loss (which is ecocide), the loss leads to conflict which leads to war and so we spiral out of control very quickly.

We have to break that cycle, it’s not a matter of slowing down that cycle it’s a matter of stopping it altogether. So, I see ‘ecocide’ as a crime against peace literally because we are seeing the planet as a thing that we commoditize and when you commoditize something you use and abuse it without consequence. It’s what all these climate meeting have been based on- creating markets and economies which of course, just adds to the problem and facilitate more damage and destruction. So, rather than seeing the planet as thing we need to see it a living being because once we view it as a living thing, then we recognise it’s intrinsic value and start taking responsibility.

Arwa: Some people are dubious about whether changing the law will actually translate into real change on the ground. Do you think that outlawing ecocide will really alter the way that the planet is treated?

Polly: Sure, it’s not going to stop overnight. The reason we need to make it a crime is to create what is known in the legal world as pre-emptive obligation, so you think before you act. This puts a legal duty of care on corporations who are creating ‘ascertainable ecocide’, which is where you can say that directly because of that action you are causing this damage. So, what I call corporate ecocide is the damage and destruction which is caused by corporate activity- they don’t intend to, they don’t sit around and say what are going to destroy today but it is a consequence of their actions. In fact, it caused by their drive for gain and profit at any price to the planet. And we have to close that door and the only we can do that is through the law. If we don’t use the law, then they will continue as they are and keep destroying the planet. We have to close the door to dirty energy companies who are facilitating the use of fossil fuels, who are mining, cutting down tress which is extracting resources from the planet- we have to stop these extractive businesses and they won’t stop unless the eco-legislation makes them.

Now, the beauty of ecocide is that it is obvious. You can put into google earth ‘the Amazon’ and we can see which bits have been destroyed so it’s a lot easier to police in a lot of ways compared to genocide where the killing of thousands of people can be hidden. So, it’s about closing that door so that when dirty energy companies are making their decisions they take environmental protection seriously because they could face prison sentences. It’s about making ecocide a crime because at the moment it’s not criminal- it’s the norm, it’s accepted and actually it’s sanctioned by the state. Genocide was sanctioned by the German state until it was made a crime and we’ve managed to close that door. That’s not to say that genocide doesn’t happen anymore but a heck of a lot more is stopped as a result. One of our biggest problems was that although it had become a crime we didn’t have a criminal court. After the Nuremberg Trials which only dealt with crimes during world war two, there was a sixty year hiatus where we had no international criminal court and that only changed in 2002. The first case was in 2006, so we’ve only have four years and yet we’ve already seen a massive drop in genocide rates.

Also we already have a lot of the hardware in place. We have the United Nations which deals with international law, the International Criminal Court where people can be tried and international climate negotiations where we can put these ideas forward. At the moment what we’re doing is using the wrong hardware such as the REDD+ system which is all about creating markets and profiteering from forests and ultimately we have to ask ‘whose interests are protected here?’ By putting that in place we’re protecting corporate interest, it’s not protecting indigenous people who live in these places and forests. So it’s about stopping these mechanisms which don’t solve the problem and putting in place the rights of mother earth, outlawing ecocide and setting up an environmental court.

Arwa: In the Middle East, water scarcity is a real issue. How would making environmental destruction a crime against peace help resolve issues such as water shortage?

Polly: One of the biggest causes of water scarcity is how water is used within industry, so making corporate ecocide illegal is about closing the door for industry abusing water supplies. I’ve seen water poverty maps for Africa and the Middle East and most of the water poverty that we see has evolved over the last twenty years and that’s driven purely by corporate activities. It’s also caused by using water to support a modern way of living rather than understanding that when we take water out we need to put water back in. A very interesting example where people are putting back into nature successfully is in China where the Chinese government decided to restore the green wilderness of the Loess plateau. They set themselves the task of restoring one of the most decimated areas of land on the planet into a green oasis within a period of three years and they did it! The area is the size of England and Wales put together and would take around an hour to fly over.

They basically divided higher zones, which were harder to get to into ecological zones and the lower ones into agricultural zones, and got the locals to buy into the idea by giving them tenure-ship of the land. So it was for them to take forward but they first needed them to be the green army, to go up into these areas and to plant plants and grass. So they spent a couple of years doing that and then they left it to mother nature and what it created was a huge canopy of trees and leaves. So when there was heavy rain instead of it washing away the sand, it was soaked up by the planets and supplied a steady water supply to the agricultural areas. Last year they had their worst ever drought in China and the Loess plateau was feeding other areas- so we can create green oasis, we can give back to nature.

Arwa: Having ecocide recognised as a crime against peace is about taking action on a global scale. What opportunities do you think people have on a more local scale to make a difference where they live?

Polly: Local action is really important because of course little ecocides do happen and it’s not just about massive scale destruction. It’s also about asking the very important and powerful question about whose interest we’re protecting. The current Ratcliffe trail in the UK where twenty activists were taken to court just for planning to close down Ratcliffe-on-Soar coal power station is a very interesting example of the need to ask ‘whose interest were protecting by criminalising their activity?’ What the activists were trying to do is highlight the creation of excessive carbon emissions by the power station which is threatening our lives; so whose interests are protected by the UK’s legal system? Well clearly it’s corporate interests that are protected as it’s those twenty activists who have been criminally prosecuted. So, it’s a crucial question to ask yourself whose interests are being protected in any given situation: corporate, governmental, peoples or planet. And it’s very easy to see that it’s usually corporate interest that are being served and not the people or the planet.

As for supporting ecocide, people can help by using the word and getting it out there in the language. What the indigenous people say is ‘embrace the shadow self’, which is about giving a name to the dark side. After world war two that’s what we had to do, we had to give a name to the atrocities – genocide- because we didn’t have a word for it until then and then we had to make the laws to stop it from happening again.

Arwa: You’ve talked about the fact that in a lot of situations it is corporate interests that are being served but what are the biggest obstacles you’ve faced in trying to make ecocide illegal?

Polly: Lack of political will. It’s really about us taking action and no matter how small it is it will make a difference- using a word, passing on a link, sending a letter to your local politician. There is even this guy who sang a song about ecocide on youtube whilst another made a video about ecocide which is on our own website. It about using whatever skills you have, awakening to it and saying ‘hey, we need to put this system into place’. This isn’t about hanging CEO’s up to dry, it’s about turning a problem into a solution. I want CEO’s of dirty energy companies to become clean energy companies because that’s what we need- we need the biggest green revolution to create enough green jobs. And corporations do work quite well with the law because when you shut one door it makes them go another way and then they shout for subsidies to help them make it work. For instance, fossil fuels are subsidized to the tune of $350 billion dollars- that’s huge! If that was to go into renewable energy it would make a huge difference.

Arwa: You attended the recent Cancun climate summit which was widely condemned as a failure. Do you think that something has to change for a fair and binding climate agreement to be reached?

Polly: Absolutely, something needs to change. It’s become patently obvious that these summits are not working but they do serve a purpose. Once a year, all the heads of state or their representatives meet to talk about this issue so we have a huge, golden opportunity each year for people to put forward big ideas to deal with climate change. It’s also important to encourage civil engagement because after Copenhagen a lot people gave up but to give up is actually to be complicit as it’s incumbent upon us if we care to be stand up and be counted. We need to call on our government to stand up and do something now- not in twenty years time, not in fifty years but right now.

For more visionary green activists see:
Interview: Bracing For A Warmer Future With Bill McKibben
Interivew: The ‘Moneyless Man’ Talks About The Middle East
From Rockstars To Recycling: Meet Kristiane Backer An Eco-Muslimah

Top image credit Jamie Harris

Bromberg, with his Palestinian and Jordanian colleagues won a Time Magazine environment hero award in 2008 for their work at FoEME, a regional organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian and Israeli environmentalists to promote sustainable development and advance peace efforts in the Middle East.

FoEME is running several water projects that involve the rehabilitation of the Jordan River, protection of the region’s mountain aquifer and regional water cooperation for peace.

He was the perfect to interview for our water series, being done in partnership with the Strategic Foresight Group.

From this series, we hope to gather information and answers that will influence policy makers to help develop a sustainable water culture in the Middle East. And also to lead journalists in the right way when they are investigating the true nature of this regional conflict over water. Today we ask Bromberg 5 questions, the same questions we’ve asked Israel’s Water Commission office, and before that Shimon Tal, the past water commissioner of Israel.

Here are our questions for Bromberg:

Q1. Turkey and Israel have had talks about freshwater supply and purchase in the past. The Turkish government has been positive in its overall response so far but there is some opposition to this in the Turkish political spectrum. If the Turkish government were to agree to supply 1 BCM of freshwater to Israel, is there a possibility that Israel will agree in return to share this water with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Jordan?

A1. Water allocation from shared water resources is governed between Israel and Jordan by the Peace Treaty of 1994 and between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) by the Oslo Accords. Any water importation from Turkey to Israel will not be supplied as a gift but purchased with hard currency.

Israel could be a conduit where by Turkish water could pass through Israeli territory on its way to Jordan but that would need to be paid for by Jordan. Turkey, if it were to choose to, could import water directly to Gaza and from Gaza the PA could supply water to the West Bank. Israeli involvement is not all that necessary.

The resolution of water resource issues between Israel and Palestine should involve a fairer allocation, in favour of the Palestinians, of the shared waters of the Mountain Aquifer and access and riparian rights to the Jordan River system.

Q2. Israel is counting on desalination as a major source of its future water supply. However, there are limits to the growth of Israel’s water supply based on marginal water alone. What are the other ‘regional’ solutions that Israel can examine in terms of water cooperation with other countries?

A2. Israel’s current desalination program poses serious problems to air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and marine pollution. Current levels of desalination proposed will also act as a disincentive to water conservation.

Israel’s focus on the supply side, and management only through massive expansion of desalination is not sustainable. Israel should see desalination technology as the last option rather than the first, and focus on the demand side of management as a means to meet fairer water allocation levels with the Palestinians.

On the regional level Israel, Jordan and Palestine (hopefully to be joined by Syria and Lebanon), must cooperate to rehabilitate the lower Jordan River and Dead Sea – based predominately on demand side measures and cooperate together to be world leaders in wise water use.

Q3. Lebanon’s Litani River has a particularly high quality of water, with a very low quantity of chlorates and nitrates present. Water cooperation with Lebanon would therefore serve Israeli interests but in order for this to happen, political cooperation between these two parties is required; in addition Israel-Lebanon relations are inter-linked with the Israel-Palestine conflict. Is it worth it for Israel to find political cooperation with Lebanon in order to secure its water situation or is this not a practical option?

A3. Climate models predict that due to climate change the Litani River in Lebanon will this century cease to flow into the Mediterranean with Lebanon requiring all of its water. Israeli-Lebanese water cooperation should focus on wise water use and fair allocations and sustainable use of the shared tributary to the upper Jordan River.

Q4. Technical reports suggest that over-pumping is leading to the depletion of groundwater aquifers in the West Bank, both in terms of water levels as well as water quality.  This could cause water shortages in the short-run and devastation of the eco-system in the long-run. What can be done to preserve these aquifers?

A4. The ground water is a shared aquifer called the Mountain Aquifer unfairly shared between Israel and the West Bank. Over-pumping by Israel can cease based on policy changes at the political level. Once a Palestinian State is established arrangements will have to be agreed on for shared management of the joint aquifer.

FoEME has developed a paper on what a model water accord could look like. The second issue is pollution of this ground water mostly from Palestinian urban and rural sewage with the addition of smaller qualities of Israeli settlement sewage. Donor funds are urgently needed to build sewage treatment plants for the Palestinian communities. Agreements are now firmly in place between Israel and the PA to advance these projects if the funding can be found. The Israeli government must fully enforce laws to cease settlement pollution.

Q5. Israel has experienced a severe drought period in the recent past. With environmental neglect and the effects of climate change, this can be a frequent and imminent risk in the future. What can be done to minimize the impact of such a danger in terms of national measures as well as well as regional cooperation?

A5. Demand management in the urban, industrial and agricultural sectors needs to be at the forefront of sustainable water policy in Israel. Increasing the price of water in Israel is needed to better reflect its scarcity and its importance in providing ecological services. Together with the removal of water subsidies and trade barriers on the import of fruits and vegetables, rural communities in Israel need to be supported to promote alternative incomes. Appropriate domestic water technologies need to be introduced through regulation, such as rainwater harvesting, grey water reuse and waterless toilets.

A smaller measure of desalination (300mcm) is still required to guarantee domestic water supply during long periods of drought. Regional cooperation is required to more fairly allocate shared water sources between Israel and Palestine, to learn from best practices in demand and supply side management and for the rehabilitation of water systems such as the lower Jordan River that have been devastated due to unsustainable water policies in place by all sides.

To read more about this water series, see:
Read our interview with Israel’s Water Commission
Interview with Israel’s past water commissioner, Shimon Tal
All the Water in Israel: Interviews with Government, Analysts and Researchers
The Agricultural Roots of Israel’s Water Crisis
Israel and Jordan’s Red Dead Debate
Israel’s WATEC Water Conference, Makes a Splash

Image credit: above photo of Bromberg (right) with Jordanian and Palestinian colleagues via TIME Magazine.

If you think things seem pretty dicey in the Middle East right now with Israel and Hamas fighting, according to IRIN, expect tensions to become a whole lot worse, once global warming comes into play. Rising sea levels, they say, will have severe environmental, economic and political implications for the already water-stressed Middle East.

The report they site is called “Climate Change: A New Threat to Middle East Security,” written by Friends of the Earth Middle East (FOEME), who we’ve blogged about extensively.

The report produced by FOEME details that climate change is something of a “threat multiplier,” meaning that the forecasted changing weather patterns brought on by global warming, will exacerbate water scarcity and tensions over water between nations. In particular between those in Jordan, Gaza and Egypt.

“Poor and vulnerable populations, which exist in significant numbers throughout the region, will likely face the greatest risk”, says the study.

A half metre rise in sea levels could displace 2 to 4 million Egyptians by 2050, it says.

According to IRIN: Rising sea levels would also contaminate the drinking water of 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza due to sea water intrusion contaminating their only water source, the coastal aquifer, the FOEME report says.

To counter the pressures, the director of FOEME’s Amman office, Munqeth Mehyar, has asked Jordan’s government “to assist rural communities in Jordan that are currently dependent on agriculture to diversify their income sources to rural tourism and small cottage industries.”

Positive environmentalists see the dreary future could lead to cross-border cooperation.

“Being left unprepared will affect not only economic, physical, and environmental security, but national, regional, and global security, if actions are not taken now to mitigate, and adapt to the projected impacts of climate change,” Palestinian Director of FOEME Nader Khatib concluded.

The annual UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, which started on 3 December with the participation of over 180 nations, ended on 14 December.

::IRIN (Hat tip: MIDEASTENVIRONET)

Read up more about conflict and the Middle East’s delicate balancing act with water resources:

FoEME to Hold Conference on Shared Mountain Aquifer
Jordan River Peace Park Coming Soon?
Lifesource is Looking For Water and Justice in Israel and Palestine

Thanks to a local Qatari blog, Qatar Visitor, Green Prophet recently learned about potential desert seawater greenhouse construction in Qatar.

What exactly is a desert seawater greenhouse, you might ask?  We had to look it up, too.

According to the Seawater Greenhouse Company’s website: “Seawater Greenhouse is a unique concept which combines natural processes, simple construction techniques and mathematical computer modeling to provide a low-cost solution to one of the world’s greatest needs – fresh water.  The Seawater Greenhouse is a new development that offers sustainable solutions to the problem of providing water for agriculture in arid, coastal regions.”

In layman’s terms, the seawater greenhouses use seawater to humidify the air in the greenhouse while sunlight distills the fresh water out of the seawater. This is a unique solution for desert areas where fresh water is scarce.  It is especially great for Middle Eastern countries, many of which have access to saltwater and have large areas of desert land.

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But beyond being practical, the use of desert seawater greenhouses is greener than the alternatives for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, traditional desalination projects are energy intensive and consume lots of fossil fuels. 

Once constructed, desert seawater greenhouses are solar powered.  Secondly, in enabling more desert areas to be used for agriculture, local agriculture is encouraged and fewer food products may be imported from far away (thus reducing a nation’s food carbon footprint).

According to Charlie Paton, the inventor of Seawater Greenhouse technology, “UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait are other countries in the region which are planning to turn its vast areas of arid lands into arable through the unique method.”

Read more about how Qatar’s neighbors are exploring alternative energies
Solar Technologies FZE Plans to Build Middle East’s Largest Solar Panel Plant in Dubai
Dubai’s Wind Powered Rotating Skyscraper is Building in Motion
A Green Survey of Dubai and the United Arab Emirates

Atlantium, when I covered the company for ISRAEL21c last year they seemed so hopeful about the future… has also announced layoffs recently. Fifteen people were let go.

CEO Ilan Wilf said in Globes, “The company continues to march forward and has made significant achievements, but it must adapt to the challenges of the times so that we can deal with the business environment.”

Where’s the cleantech market headed and how with this affect development in Israel and the Middle East?

Maybe it’s just time to scale-down, separate the wheat from the chaff, and invest in and push forward companies with a clear and advanced business model.

Cleantech startup hopefuls, academics, and investors may find Ernst&Young’s GreenEconomy Conference this November 20-21 at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv to be useful for understanding where business focus should be headed in this turbulent time.

According to event organizer CleanIsrael, which offers a 15% discount to members of the group (free to join), the conference will feature multi-national cleantech companies, including GE’s EcoMagination, Plug Power, BP Alternative Energy, Virgin Green Fund and the Cleantech Group as well as local cleantech investment leaders Israel Cleantech Ventures, Terra Venture Partners, AquAgro and others.

Among the organizers is the NGO umbrella group Life and Environment.

A bonus is that cleantech companies will present themselves during the sessions. For more information and to register, please visit http://www.reg.co.il/cleantech/. Bloggers interested in covering the event may be able to squeeze through the registration line with a press pass and avoid the registration fee. But it would be wise to ask in advance. The day’s agenda can be downloaded here (PDF), with the following sample seminar titles and speakers provided here on Green Prophet for your convenience:

Cleantech – enabling the business response to climate change
Introduction: Jeff Renaud (Director, Ecomagination, GE)
Panelists: Neil Auerbach (Managing Partner, Hudson Clean Energy Partners)
Nir Gilad (President & CEO, Israel Corp.)
Michael Goguen (General Partner, Sequoia Capital)
Nick Parker (Co-Founder and Chairman, Cleantech Group)

Climate change as a corporate opportunity
What’s the response of corporations? What do they need? Best practices in partnerships and joint ventures.
Panelists: Zane Gresham (Partner, Morrison Foerster)
Dr. Noam Gressel (Co-founder & Managing partner, Elysium-Carbon Trade & Investment)
Dr. Markus Thill (Managing Director, Robert Bosch Venture Capital GmbH) investment to a successful company

Emerging Cleantech companies from initial investment to a successful company
Panelists: Stephane Dupont (UBS Global Asset Management)
Prof. Emanuel Manzurola (Partner, Luzzatto & Luzzatto)
Astorre Modena (General Partner, Israel Cleantech Ventures”>Terra Venture)

::GreenEconomy Conference Website