Mining for ice, is the latest natural resource and crazy plan concocted by the United Arab Emirates to solve their drinking water shortage. A 2014 UN report dealing with climate change stated that “the worst is yet to come” to countries with chronic to acute water shortages. The report particularly noted that countries in the Arab Gulf region will be acutely affected, despite receiving partial relief from desalination. We see 4 major famines now in Africa, the worst famines since WWII.

Despite this dire message, UAE Emirates like Abu Dhabi and Dubai waste large amounts of water on indoor ski slopes and water parks. The big question is what can be done to bring more fresh water to this region? One idea is to haul icebergs from the earth’s polar regions. If brought to the heat of the UAE it is believed to last 25 years.

The ravages of global warming are now affecting the polar regions, including the continent of Antarctica where hundreds of icebergs are crumbling from Antarctica’s ice shelves every year. Even the forever seed vault is melting in “permafreeze”. So is this a good idea?

With this reality in mind, ideas of harvesting fresh water supplies from these icebergs brings up plans to actually tow some of these icebergs all the way to countries like the UAE. The idea of towing icebergs is nothing new and versions of this “zany idea” go back to the 1800s.

Once the iceberg is in place, the UAE will begin chipping off blocks of the iceberg above the water line and then crushing the pure polar ice into drinking water which would be stored in large water tanks and then filtered through a water processing plant.

Experts on the ground say it will create a mini-climate which could also help with the heat crisis, and become a tourist attraction.

Reports that the UAE is interested in doing this were recently been disclaimed, when the UAE’s Ministry of Energy dismissed reports of plans to tow icebergs to the country from Antartica for drinking water as “mere rumors”.

A plan to undertake such a feat included a  “mapped out route” by Abdullah Mohammad Sulaiman Al Shehi, managing director of Masdar City-based creative consultancy National Advisor Bureau Limited. Reports by the country’s energy ministry now say, however, that such an idea is not feasible. The logistics of such a project, as well as the high costs, make towing an iceberg from, for example, the Ross ice shelf impractical. The distance alone is more than 13,300 km or 7,980 miles.

Other ways to bring water to areas like the Arabian gulf region need to be explored. These might include devices like Israel’s Watergen device that converts water vapor in the air into potable drinking water. A partnership between Watergen and the UAE might even help promote peace in the region as well. Could it ever happen in our lifetime? Let’s ask the wild card Trump?

More Green Prophet articles on water issues:

Climate change “worst is yet to come” UN report warns today
It’s not the tide. It’s not the wind. It’s us
Global Message goes awry at UAE Water Park 

Photo of towing Arctic iceberg from Dessault Systemes 

Photo of an iceberg creation by Angela Seven

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The United Nations has warned that the Gaza Strip, the small slice of land bordering Egypt and Israel that has been the scene of so much political tension, could be “uninhabitable” as soon as 2016 if serious action isn’t taken to address a chronic water shortage, The Independent reports. If that happens, where will its 1.6 million residents go?

Up to 95 percent of the coastal aquifer that supplies the Gaza Strip’s water has been contaminated with chemicals, saltwater and sewage, according to The Independent. Already the number of children being treated for diarrhea has doubled in the past five years, a Save the Children and Medical Aid for Palestinians report shows.

The aquifer’s remaining five percent, the clean water, can really only be used for washing since it too ends up being contaminated in distribution pipes.

Desalination and public taps are an option for a small portion of the population, but the great majority of people have to pay for bottled water to satisfy their barest requirements.

“Families are paying as much as a third of their household income for water,” June Kunugi, a special representative of the UN children’s fund Unicef, told the paper.

The aquifer is unable to recover despite rainfall and runoff from the nearby Hebron Hills, since Gaza residents and Israeli farmers suck out more than double the amount of water seeping back in. As a result, seawater contaminated with sewage infiltrates the aquifer.

By 2016, the aquifer will be unusable, according to the UN, and by 2020, it could be lost for good unless action is taken now to address the problems.

Even though desalination plants are not feasible over the long term, they can produce vast quantities of potable water that will serve the local population. But these cost money to build and money to maintain and Gaza doesn’t have of that going around.

Foreign aid organizations offer the only real hope, and even Israel is scouting potential investors, a senior security official told The Independent on condition of anonymity.

“We have talked to everyone we know in the international community because 1.4 million people will be without water in a few years,” he said.

The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) has plans to build a large desalination facility that could cater to more people, but it would cost nearly $500 million. Last year Europe announced it would help to finance a new plant with a 100 million cubic meter annual production capacity, but it is unclear whether that plan is still on the shelf.

Plus, as we’ve reported in the past, desalination plants require a lot of energy to run, so unless Masdar perfects its renewably-powered desalination plants in a big hurry, there’s a chance Gaza won’t be able to afford the fuel to power this and other plants.

A host of countries in the region face a fuel and water shortage, including Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan. The Gulf countries aren’t short on fuel, though it’s not as abundant as it once was, but the majority of them have the cash flow to dig themselves out of the hole they’ve dug themselves.

Combine this with deadlocked politics and we have a potential humanitarian crisis on our hands.

:: The Independent

Image of Gaza fisherman, Shutterstock

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Now read this infographic from Energy Recovery, a company that provides technology for the fossil fuel industry, that attempts to persuade us that desalination is a panacea for chronic water shortages. Granted, more than one third of the world’s population lacks access to decent sanitation. And yes, our planet is comprised of 96.5 percent salt water.

But can we rely on a company whose bottom line depends on selling desalination technology to give us the straight scoop on the detriments of desalination?

Desalination is a necessary evil

Most experts see desalination as a necessary evil that should be used sparingly. In addition to being energy intensive, using at least three times as much energy as that required to treat freshwater, desalination processes pump brine back into its source, disrupting the marine ecosystem.

Yet Energy Recovery pitches the idea as the best thing to happen to humanity. And of course they would. This infographic – which points out that 780 million people have zero access to safe drinking water – is little more than a marketing strategy for their brand.

To their credit, they do mention the need to improve energy recovery systems and boost the efficiency of current desalination techniques, and they also point out the importance of greater environmental stewardship, but the data does not give proper weight to the downside of using desalination.

How many plankton, fish eggs and larvae are sucked into and spit out of pipes, for example, as the water is pulled in? What kind of ecosystem damage has already occurred because of unbalanced salt concentrations mixed with chemicals used to treat seawater, and how will that damage increase as more plants are brought online?

What kind of carbon emissions will be pumped into the atmosphere if by  2017 we produce 149.8 billion liters of fresh water using desalination technology as Energy Recovery so enthusiastically predicts?

Water conservation first

Before we throw our weight behind Energy Recovery’s advanced pump and turbine technology, doesn’t it make sense to first underscore the importance of water conservation, more efficient irrigation, fair distribution of water rights, and better treatment of existing water resources?

Of course it would be criminal to completely abandon desalination where nations have little to no freshwater – like the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Gulf countries. Or Jordan and Israel.

But there has to be an even more environmentally honest approach to the technology. Masdar is currently embarking on a project to test renewably-powered desalination, which could drastically reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. And better uses for the salty brine byproduct also need to be devised.

This infographic is undeniably eye-opening, as it incorporates disturbing facts about water scarcity. But desalination is not as clear cut a solution as this company makes it out to be.

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In the lead up to World Water Day which will take place next Friday, I have gathered some interesting water-based facts on the issue. The Middle East and North Africa region is famously one of the driest regions in the world and things don’t look like they are getting better. So what is there to actually celebrate? Read on for the bad news and also some rather great news…

Firstly, the bad news. According to the latest statistics gathered by IRIN, the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) is getting drier at an alarming rate. And whilst trading and importing food brings in ‘virtual water’, it also makes the region extremely vulnerable to trade disruptions caused by dwindling supplies, higher prices or lack of money to pay for the imports. As a report on the issue of climate change and the Arab Spring points out, a winter drought in China contributed to global wheat shortages and skyrocketing bread prices in Egypt, which is the world’s largest wheat importer.

The report also points out that as the region’s population continues to climb, “the water availability per capita is projected to plummet… Rapid urban expansion across the Arab world increasingly risks overburdening existing infrastructure and outpacing local capacities to expand services.” Whats more, the reliance of Gulf countries on oil sold at high prices to buy food and also remain resilience in the face of water scarcity can’t last forever.

As a the report at IRIN states, this trade has simply hidden the gravity of the water scarcity situation and made it easier to neglect the development of more sustainable solutions (that doesn’t include desalination). So is the region headed towards a perfect storm of water scarcity?

That’s not clear yet. For one, water scarcity is not new to the region. The Middle East has been slowly drying for thousands of years and people have always come up with strategies to survive. Adaptation strategies are slowly gaining more importance with Egypt investing more into its water infrastructure – the World Bank has granting Egypt US$6.7 million to improve its management of water resources. And Jordan is taking more measures to harvest rainwater. The water-scarce country is also leading the way in terms of collecting water use data, especially in the agriculture sector which is consuming a huge portion of their water. So it’s not all bad news.

Indeed another piece of good news is that predictions of bloody conflict over water have so far failed to materialise. Despite a growing population and more pressure on water resources than some predicated, people haven’t taken to their guns to secure their share of water. This is something we can all celebrate as it not only demonstrates the region’s maturity but also its willingness to tackle the issue with care and consideration.

For more on water issues in the Middle East see:

Water Scarcity Leads More To Peace Than War (INTERVIEW)

Severe Water Scarcity Could Hit Arab Region by 2015

Food Shortages Could Force World To Go Veggie

: Photo of man watering a plant in the desert via Shutterstock.

The post Why It’s Hard To Celebrate World Water Day In the Middle East appeared first on Green Prophet.

Which is how in 2002 the United Arab Emirates came to initiate a cloud-seeding program that allegedly increases precipitation by 20%.

Already concerned about water supplies a decade ago, the late President Sheikh Zayed of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) launched a study that detailed the efficacy of cloud-seeding.

This process involves sending manned planes into specific kinds of clouds as they are forming, and boosting their precipitation output by shooting into their belly flares containing calcium and potassium chloride. These salts expand when water molecules attach to them, according to The National, eventually forcing the cloud to push them out as rain.

The UAE is the only nation that has consistently produced results with their cloud-seeding program, in part because of the folks at the National Center for Meterology and Seismology (NCMS) whose job it is to monitor cloud formations.

By watching data that streams in from 50 weather stations throughout the UAE, meteorologists at the NCMS outside Abu Dhabi are able to predict the formation of very specific cloud formations. And once they do, there is a tiny window of opportunity for them to dispatch one out of four pilots to shoot flares into the cloud.

This procedure takes place more frequently during summer. Two of the planes carry ten flares while the remaining two, which are newer, carry 20 flares a piece.

“Up until now, this is the main successful way to save water,” Senior forecaster Ali Mohammed Al Musallam told The National. “But the experimentation cannot stop at this point. We cannot just rely on this. We have to do more studies. We need to follow what is happening outside in the world.”

Meanwhile, researchers in Tel Aviv found that seeding clouds doesn’t work. It may be better just to dance.

:: The National

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It’s real-life Hunger Games, and the Middle East is among the busiest land-grabbers.

In the last decade, nearly half a billion acres of land – eight times the area of Great Britain – were sold or leased in transnational deals, according to a 2012 report published by the Land Matrix project, a coalition of research centers and civil societies.

It’s a real-life Hunger Games, with investors targeting underdeveloped countries that are poorly integrated into the world economy, have a high incidence of poverty and hunger, and weak land institutions.  Is this smart business or inequitable resource grab?  And who’s looking out for the environment?

The report was produced by an international partnership involving five major European research centers and 40 international civil society and research groups. It reveals startling facts about the shadowy world of foreign-land-buying, which involves governments, investors and speculators seeking large tracts of fertile land in attempt to hedge looming shortages in property suitable for farming, ranching or energy production.

This is capitalism, baby: wealthy, food-importing countries and emerging economies are both shopping for arable land in poorer countries to buy at discount prices. According to the Land Matrix project, investors have acquired almost 5% of Africa’s agricultural land since 2000.  Asia and Latin America are also attractive targets.

And the Middle East is among the busiest shoppers.

• Saudi Arabia purchased about 5.5 million acres, the largest being 675,000 acres in the Philippines by Eastern Renewable Fuels Corporation for agriculture.
• The United Arab Emirates bought about 5.6 million acres; its main score was 4.2 million acres in Sudan by Al Ain National Wildlife for tourism.
• Israel acquired about 5.9 million acres, 4.9 million of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo by an unknown investor for agriculture.

This interactive graph shows how much land is being acquired by investors from countries (listed on the left) in target countries (listed on the right). Click on any nation and see its threads in the global pattern.

Governments eager for foreign investment often advertise immense tracts of “vacant” land which the report has identified as being occupied and locally farmed before investors arrived. Competition between powerful foreign backers and local farming communities seems “inevitable”, it said.

Reports of land in the world’s poorest countries being exploited by foreign investment have been rampant in recent years, but lack of reliable data has made it difficult to define the extent and nature of the land rush. The Land Matrix project is the first comprehensive list of international land deals, its publicly available database draws upon multiple sources including media reports, academic research and field-based investigations to add detail to this quiet global phenomenon.

The report found little evidence of job creation or other benefits to local communities among the hundreds of largely export-oriented projects. In some cases, investors secured hundreds of thousands of acres of prime farmland at little to no cost. One deal in South Sudan reportedly granted a Norwegian investor a 99-year lease for 179,000 hectares at an annual cost of just $0.07 per hectare.

To date, few large-scale projects have been established on the millions of acres acquired for agriculture. The report estimates that less than 30% of documented deals are in production, suggesting that some deals are likely to be purely speculative, or that investors have underestimated challenges associated with their projects.

The International Land Coalition, the NGO Global Witness, and the US-based Oakland Institute have denounced the “secretive culture” around large-scale land deals, and demanded governments and businesses disclose contracts and detailed information about potential risks and impacts of land-based investments.

“Far too many people are being kept in the dark about massive land deals that could destroy their homes and livelihoods,” says Megan MacInnes, senior land campaigner at Global Witness in a statement on their website. “Companies should have to prove they are doing no harm, rather than communities with little information or power having to prove that a land deal is negatively affecting them.”  This could be another tragedy of the commons, on an epic scale.

Image of tea harvest from Shutterstock

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But the great thing about this competition is that learning is an essential aspect of the entire process. Hit the jump to find out what it takes to win $5,000 while providing meaningful ideas to address the very serious problem of worldwide water shortages.

The Biomimicry Student Design competition is the only one of its kind in the world and this year they are really hoping to see more teams from the Middle East sign up.

This year’s competition is comprised of two rounds. In the initial round, university teams will address a challenge related to water access and management using biomimetic design. If these words don’t mean a lot to you, don’t fret, since video tutorials and access to professional biomimics will available to students after they register for the competition.

“The challenge you address could be related to supply, acquisition, quality, treatment, sanitation, stormwater management, drought conditions, or seasonal variation in availability,” according to the organizers.

Once this round is complete, three winners will be announced, and they will receive generous cash prizes. But then there will be an optional opportunity to take these designs to the next level, to turn concepts into reality. The winner of that round will receive $5,000.

There are two approaches to this year’s competition: teams of at least two or more students might choose to address a local issue, like efficient irrigation in delta, or how to clean up Egypt’s filthy canals.

In this case, perhaps it would be useful to understand how wetland plants filter contaminants and create a design based on those biological mechanisms.

A global issue might include learning how to capture water from the air using processes employed by insects or trees, for instance.

But the important thing is for students to learn how to adjust their inner telescope to zoom in on the tricks that already exist in nature to fix the mistakes we have made by alienating ourselves from the same.

This is a wonderful opportunity, not least for its access to groundbreaking learning materials, and it would be super to see kids from the Middle East getting involved.

Image credit: Camel drinking water in the desert, Shutterstock

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We’ve been talking about chronic water shortages in the Middle East and North Africa for a long time. But now a new and troubling trend is beginning to emerge in the region: municipal, regional and national governments are taking more drastic measures to police water consumption.

Jordan broke out the big (security) guns to prevent its citizens from “stealing” what is actually a part of the commons and most recently, Dubai has threatened to punish water thieves in various neighborhoods throughout the emirate with fines of up to $2,722.

Water belongs to everyone

The editor of All That We share: A Field Guide to the Commons, Jay Walljasper notes that water  belongs to everyone.

“Put simply, the water commons means that water is no one’s property; it rightfully belongs to all of humanity and to the earth itself. It is our duty to protect the quality and availability of water for everyone around the planet. This ethic should be the foundation of all decisions made about use of this life-giving resource. Water is not a commodity to be sold or squandered or hoarded,” he wrote.

Even so, it’s not a simple issue to address. Despite Dubai’s prolonged drought and notoriously short supplies of groundwater, more than 40 residents living in the Satwa, Al Quoz and Ras Al Khor neighborhoods of Dubai have been caught drilling for water, which is used to wash cars and for other personal use, according to Gulf News.

Perhaps accustomed to having as much water as the desalination plants could produce, Emiratis are not always conscientious of water conservation. Why should they be when their government has long subsidized water expenses (and energy.)

80,000 Groundwater wells at risk of drying up in the UAE

All of the emirates stopped exporting groundwater in February following a study conducted by the Ministry of Environment and Water that revealed that as many as 80,000 groundwater wells are at risk of drying up completely.

Accordingly, only companies that receive licenses from the Department of Economic Development and approval from the Dubai municipality are lawfully permitted to extract water.

Everyone else may have to pay up to nearly $3,000 for taking water illegally.

“The water you use should come from authorised channels,” Khalid Suletin, Director of Dubai Municipality’s Environment Emergency Office, told Gulf News.

But as shortages increase and authorized distribution channels short circuit (or favor the rich), we should expect a lot more thefts and stricter efforts to control them.

It is a sad state of affairs when human beings have to have permission for using what is the very essence of life.

Image credit: Arial view of Dubai, Shutterstock

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Even worse, 54 year-old Salman Habib left behind seven children and four other dependents, according to AFP.

Officials from Al-Islah in Dhi Qar province say that one thousand families have abandoned their land in the last two years as a result of escalating water shortages. The mayor, Ali Hussein Raddad, told AFP that Habib suffered severe psychological problems resulting from the economic struggles, which eventually led him to take his own life.

Water shortages in the region can be traced to reduced flow along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as a result of dams and other upstream developments (in Turkey and Syria) and desertification.

By 2009, the desert had already usurped 39 percent of the country’s surface and an additional 54 percent faces a similar threat, the environmental ministry reports. That amounts to 93 percent of the country overtaken by desert if nothing is done to curtail it.

Each year, Iraq loses approximately 96 square miles of arable land to environmental degradation of some kind. This is a travesty given that the agricultural sector in the last few decades has been the second largest source of jobs and the second most important contributor to the country’s gross domestic product – after fossil fuels.

The lead image depicts fresh produce being sold at a Baghdad market in 1999. More than a decade later, images like this will be harder to find and in another decade still, we have to wonder if they will be found at all.

:: Yahoo

Image credit: Iraq food market in 1999, Shutterstock

The post Iraqi Farmer Commits Suicide Over Intense Water Shortages appeared first on Green Prophet.

Last week global warming’s wrath swept through the United States and hardly anybody took notice. The worst wildfires in Colorado and Utah history  torched hundreds of homes and miles of forest. The Waldo Canyon fire alone, which is still only 45% contained, burned 350 houses right down to the ground. Some residents returned yesterday to find their cars turned to scraps.

Then the searing heat wave that exacerbated these fires marched on, joining forces with a furious hurricane-force wind storm that ripped through several states on the east coast. More than 3 million people are without power amid temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit plus and could remain that way for a week or more. At least 17 people have died. Yet the world has been mostly silent; oil drillers drill on; new deals are signed.

This is what our future looks like, but worse

These fires, these storms, these are our future, and their fury will only grow. New records are being set every year. It’s only June, as environmentalist and 350.org founder Bill McKibben pointed out in a recent Guardian article, and already there have been four named tropical storms in the United States. Normally this doesn’t happen until August.

In addition to being extraordinarily uncomfortable and even deadly, these disasters are costly. Colorado has spent $8.8 million on fighting the Waldo Canyon Fire alone. Add that to the costs of fighting fires in Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana as well, along with repairs of downed power lines in the east, new cars and houses, and nationwide clean up.

Cleaning up after ourselves: that is what we and future generations are going to be doing from now on. Cleaning up the mess our greed has made since the onset of the industrial revolution. We are going to pay the price of all those power plants and all those carbon emissions and it will become increasingly difficult to focus on anything else.

Though we may not have hurricanes in our part of the world, our wildfires will grow more intense as well. And we know – all too well – about high temperatures and drought. But lacking the west’s sophisticated information infrastructure, we are less-well equipped to track the changes, which means it is harder to put escalating disasters into perspective.

Nonetheless, here are a few examples of global-warming related issues we should watch this summer:

• Saudi Arabia has warned residents to brace themselves for extreme heat this Ramadan, which will start around the 20 July this year. “Temperatures this summer will be higher than average in most parts of the country. It will reach 50 degrees Celsius in the shade,” said Murad Hashim, assistant undersecretary for climatic affairs and applied studies at the Regional Center for Drought Monitoring and Early Warning. The highest temperature recorded at Mecca since 1980 was was 49.7 degrees Celsius on Aug. 7, 2010.
• In 2010, severe drought in Russia brought Egypt to its knees. Why so? Because Egypt is the world’s largest importer of wheat and Russia is a major supplier. So is the United States, but forecasters are expecting a 50% reduction in grain stockpiles as a result of extended drought and heat and prices have already risen. Egypt will not get through this unscathed.
• Fires in southern Lebanon destroyed 46.7 acres of grassland and fruit trees last week. Following the winter freeze that destroyed 75% of bee populations in some areas of the country earlier this year, the country’s agricultural industry is at serious risk.
• High temperatures and virtually no rainfall is a deadly combination. Add an influx of refugees fleeing from Assad’s reign of terror in Syria and Jordan is battling to keep pace with demand. Tens of thousands of Syrians are seeking refuge in Jordan, which is one of the top ten driest countries in the world. “The majority of Syrian refugees are concentrated in the northern cities of Mafraq, Irbid, Ramtha, Jerash and Ajlun. All of these areas already suffer from water shortage,” Fayez Bataineh, secretary general of the Water Authority, told AFP.
• As temperatures rise and with it power outages (some parts of Lebanon are without power 12 hours a day), the use of diesel generators will climb as well. Each gallon of diesel fuel produces, on average, about 22.2 lb of carbon emissions, further fueling the source of our climate change woes.

What can you do?

Avoid driving as much as possible. Use public transportation if you can and install a solar system at your home if you have the financial resources to do so. These problems will intensify, so the better prepared you are the better. Just think: the Lebanese goat farmer who installed a photovoltaic system at his house is able to stay cool and continue with business as normal while many of his peers are sweltering in the proverbial dark.

Image credit: Bo Insogna, 2012

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