Water Resources and water security in the Middle East and Mediterranean Region

Under the Patronage

of His Excellency the prime Minister of Jordan

The Euro-Arab Organization for Environment, Water and Desert Researches and the University of Jordan are proud to hold the its Annual International Conference:

Water Resources and water security in the Middle East and Mediterranean Region

In the building of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at the University of Jordan

During the period of 13-17-May-2012 

The General Secretariat of the The Euro-Arab Organization for Environment, Water and Desert Researches are honored to   invite you to participate in its annual International Conference on Water, which will be held in the University of Jordan, in cooperation with the innovation, Karlsruhe Institute of Tehnology (former Karlsruhe  University), and the University of Aachen in Germany during the period of 13-17-5 -2012, under the slogan: -
“Resources of water and water security in the Middle East and the Mediterranean”
Where he will attended by a group of scientists, researchers, and many universities and specialized research centers, in addition to a number of Arab and international organizations, and the conference will feature many of the scientific events, field visits and entertainment.
We will also be publishing all accepted scientific research electronically, “and the conference will  issue a special book, and amongst the participating papers, outstanding works will be honored at the level of countries and research centers, scientists and young researchers.

The term “water security” reflects the fear and anxiety by planners and water specialists not to be able to meet the future demands with regard to water quantity and quality for increased agricultural, industrial and urban activities.

There is also no doubt that water security is mainly related to allocation of available water resources. This means that water security can be achieved through effective and sustainable water management that takes into account the water availability and demand.
The expert’s estimate that the minimum water requirements necessary per capita and day for personal use such as drinking, cooking, and body hygiene is about 50 liters which is an important factor with regard to water security.
According to the World Bank (2002/2001) water security means also adequate amount of potable water necessary to satisfy the requirements of vital and health for use in household and usually is about 20 liters per person per day.
Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations announced the Year (2002) as the World Water Day. He informed that “a billion and one hundred million people living with us in this world, suffering from the lack of drinking water”. He emphasized that the number of people who die annually from diseases caused by lack of potable water and corruption is around five million. This number is equal to about ten times the victims of war. He expected that in the next quarter of a century from now two-thirds of the world’s population will live in countries experiencing shortages and influential significant scarcity of water resources, especially residents of arid and semi-arid regions in Asia and Africa. Their number will exceed 2700 million people suffering from scarcity of potable water.
Many countries of the Arab world will suffer of water scarcity due to quantitative or qualitative degradation of water resources. The Arab world has only 1% of the water in the world although the population amounts to 5% of the world’s population living on estimated 10% of the world’s area.

The Arab countries such as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Libya, and Yemen are the scarcest countries in the word with regard to water resources.
Hence, the problems of water shortage and water security in the Arab World should be addressed and the relevant factors which influence the water resources identified. Most studies agree that there will be a water crisis in the Arab World around 2025, unless effective steering mechanisms for sustainable water management and measures to reduce the agricultural consumption of water are applied.
Water without Borders
The increasing deterioration of water quality and the growing demand for water due to population growth may poke conflicts between riparian states or states that share water basins, especially if the river water or groundwater is of good quality. To avoid conflicts, successful cooperation concepts are need.
There are 263 international basins that cross political boundaries of two or more countries. These basins which are home to almost 40% of the world’s population, nearly half the land area and account for an estimated 60% of the flow of freshwater in the world.
There are a total of 145 nations include territories within international basins, and 121 countries are located entirely within international basins. .

Water security / cross-border Rivers
Despite the complexity of the problems, records show that water disputes can be handled diplomatically. In the last 50 years disputes with violence occurred only 37 times, compared to over 150 cases that ended with the signature of a treaty. Such agreements give states the value of security as they make international relations over water more stable and predictable.
In fact, international treaties on water go back to the year 2500 BC, as the two countries Alsomretin ,Lkash and Uma drafted an agreement that ended a water dispute along the Tigris River – which is often referred to as the first treaty ever. Since then, a lot of water treaties were signed. As reported by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), since 805 AD more than 3600 treaty on international water resources was formulated. The majority of these deal with navigation and the demarcation of the border. And shift the focus of the negotiations and the treaty-making in the last century for navigation to the use of water resources, development and protection and conservation.

The Euro-arabiyha Organization for Research on Environment, Water and the desert organizes this conference to bring scientist from all over the word together to discuss and maybe find solutions to the above mentioned issues and mainly to the future of water security in the Middle East and the Mediterranean basin in the water scarcest area in the world.