Water Projects in The Middle East
The Middle-East states are suffering from a water
crisis because they are located in arid and even desert parts of the world,
in addition to the increasing demand on water because of the
population explosion in the region. These states attempt to develop their
water resources in order to cope with the situation, by distributing their water
resources between agricultural, industrial and domestic needs. They have tried
several methods to distribute water from water-rich to water-poor areas, by
ships and balloons, and other ways.
Many suggestions and projects in the Middle-East about how to transport water are discussed in
this study, which consists of four chapters and several supplements.
Chapter
one:
This
chapter discusses a number of big water projects in the Arab parts of the Middle-East: to connect either the Mediterranean or
the Red
Sea to
the Dead
Sea,
and the Turkish so-called Pipe-line of Peace. The first project consists of
several studies, among them some Israeli studies to connect the
Mediterranean
Sea to
the Dead
Sea and
some Jordanian studies to connect the Red
Sea to
the Dead
Sea.
Besides, there are projects suggested by practically all countries around the
Dead
sea.
As
for the Turkish Pipe-line of Peace, it was suggested by
Turkey to
transport Turkish water from the rivers Sayhun and
Jayhun to the Gulf countries,
Syria,
Jordan and
Israel. It
consists of several proposals, basically amendments to
the Turkish Pipe-line of Peace in order to find a formula that can be accepted
by all the states in the region.
Chapter
Two:
This
chapter presents three projects of water transportation: A project to bring
water from the Congo
River to
the River Nile, the Great Man-made River in
Libya,
and a project to transport water from the Nile to
Israel.
The first project is about moving waters from the Congo
River to
one of the Nile
branches which is only about 50 kilometers away, to
increase the amount of water in the Nile in
order to cover the expected shortages of water share of
Sudan and
Egypt.
Libya
could probably benefit from this project as well. The amount of water
transported in this way would be about 50 billion cubic meters a
year.
The
Great Man-made Libyan River is already completed. It aims to transport water
from underground reservoirs in the Libyan
desert in
the south toward the Libyan seashore and towns in the north which suffer from
water shortage. The cost of the project is about 27 billion American dollars,
and will supply 6 million cubic meters of water a day to the northern regions of
Libya.
There
are several projects of transporting waters from the Nile to Israel.The Sadat Peace Lake was
finished in 1998 when it reached the Sinai underneath the Suez Canal. Its water
has still not reached Israel
because of the unsolved Arab-Israeli conflict. The Egyptian authorities fear a
public uprising if the water reaches Israel
before there are peace treaties between all Arab countries and
Israel, and
until Israel has
withdrawn from the Arab territories occupied in 1967 and implemented UN
resolutions 242 and 338.
Chapter
Three:
This
chapter presents four projects of transporting water across the seas by ships
and balloons from water-rich countries like
Turkey and
Pakistan to
Cyprus,
Israel and
Gulf countries. There are several projects of transporting water across the
Mediterranean to
Cyprus and
from there to Israel.
There are also projects to transport water from
Sudan to
Saudi
Arabia,
from Iraq to
Jordan and
Kuwait and
from Iran to
Kuwait and
the Arab Emirates. In other projects it is suggested to
bring water from the Yarmuk and Litani rivers to Lake
Tiberias in
Israel.
Finally
there are the project of transporting water by pipelines in
Turkey
(the Orfeh and Halfan
tunnels) and two Israeli projects: one of bringing water from the River Jordan
to the Negev
through the Israeli National Water Carrier, the other the al-Aujah – Naqb
project.
Chapter
Four:
This chapter takes up the question of a
distribution network of electricity in the Middle-East.
The author discusses the existing Arab-African, Arab-European and Arab-Arab
electrical cable connections. He mentions the advantages and disadvantages of
water transport through pipelines in the Middle East and
the obstacles which stopped such projects from being
performed. Finally, water markets in the Middle East are
discussed , the political and legal obstacles to water
projects, and the different opinions of the Middle Eastern states concerned.
The
Supplements:
In the supplement section, there are lists of the
references as well as bibliographies of Arabic and foreign literature. Also there are many graphs and tables demonstrating the water
projects in the Middle East.