General summary Near East Region

Water resources

In this study, a distinction has been made between renewable and non-renewable water resources. The following indicators have been compiled or estimated for each country. Internal renewable water resources (IRWR) is that part of the water resources generated from endogenous precipitation. It is computed by adding up surface runoff and groundwater recharge occurring inside the countries' borders. Special care is taken to avoid double counting of their common part. Total renewable water resources refers to the sum of IRWR and incoming flow originating outside the countries' borders. A distinction is made between natural flow (NRWR), computed by assessing the long-term yearly average of flow without any human-induced abstraction, end actual flow (ARWR), which is the maximum theoretical amount of water actually available for a country. Actual flow takes into account abstraction in upstream countries and the volumes allocated through formal or informal agreements or treaties between countries. The IRWR figures are the only water resources figures that can be added up for regional assessment and they have been used for this purpose.

TABLE 1 - Sub-regional distribution of the renewable water resources

Note: Rainfall figures have been estimated for Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan

While the Near East covers 14% of the total area of the world and contains 10% of its population, its water resources are only about 2% of the total renewable water resources of the world. Further to this, large differences exist between the five sub-regions, as is shown in Table 1. The Maghreb, North-eastern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have very limited water resources, with less than 10 mm annually on average and suffer severe water scarcity, with values per inhabitant varying between 200 and 700 m³/year. In contrast, the Middle East and Central Asia show much higher values, mostly thanks to the abundant flows generated in the mountainous areas of Turkey and in the Himalayas.

The internal renewable water resources per inhabitant in the Near East are among the lowest in the world. The average for the region is 1 577 m³/inhabitant per year, as against over 7 000 m³/year per inhabitant for the whole world. It ranges from near 0 for Kuwait, which has practically no internal renewable water resources, to about 10 000 m³/inhabitant per year for Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. For 16 out of the 29 countries the internal renewable water resources per inhabitant are below 500 m³/year and for 11 of them even the total actual renewable water resources are below 500 m³/year (Figures 3 and 4 and Table 2).

For only four countries (Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan) the internal renewable water resources per inhabitant are above 2 000 m³/year and three of them act as 'water towers' for the region, with large amounts of water flowing to downstream countries. They are: Turkey (the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers mainly), Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan (the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya). Two countries, Syria and Sudan, are intermediate countries in that they depend to a large extent, around 80%, on upstream countries for their renewable water resources (mainly the Euphrates from Turkey and the Nile from Ethiopia)' but on the other hand they are located upstream from other countries depending on the same rivers (Iraq and Egypt respectively). Five countries depend for over 90% on other countries for their renewable water resources: Turkmenistan, Egypt and Mauritania for surface water and Kuwait and Bahrain for groundwater. To a lesser extent, but still over 50% dependent on other countries are Somalia and Iraq (Figure 5 and Table 3).

Non-renewable groundwater

Several countries, that have few renewable water resources, overlie important non-renewable (fossil) groundwater basins, partly shared with neighbouring countries. In several countries (Saudi Arabia, Libya or the United Arab Emirates) by far the largest part of the total water withdrawn is fossil water, as seen in the next section (Table 6). However, although groundwater reservoirs may allow storage of huge quantities of water accumulated during the pluvial periods of Quaternary, its development cannot be considered sustainable in the long term, as the lack of present recharge would result in the slow depletion of the aquifers. Moreover, the water level decline and the resulting increase of the cost of pumping, as well as the deterioration of the water quality in some areas may also make the abstraction of fossil water less attractive with time.

TABLE 2 - Countries with IRWR below 500 m³/inhab. per year (1995)

TABLE 3 - Countries with a renewable water resources dependency ratio above 50%

* The dependency ratio is equal to the part of the renewable water resources which originates outside the country

Water withdrawal