Arab states face water shortage
Regional, Politics, 8/6/1999

Some 15 Mediterranean states which met on Wednesday in the city of Marseilles, southeastern France, met in the course of the World Council for Water have warned that water shortage in the Arab states will be catastrophic in the short run.

Egyptian Minister of Public Works and Water Resources Muhammad Abu Zeid, who is also the chairman of the World Council for Water, an international center for research which takes Marseilles as a headquarters, said, "In the current world, the Arab region is the one which faced the greatest shortage of water."

The Arab states are meeting in Marseilles at the invitation of the World Council for Water in order to prepare "an outlook" about water in the 21st century.

A provisional report will be ratified in this respect in September in Beirut. This document will represent the Arab viewpoint during the second forum of the World Council for Water, which will be held in the Hague in the year 2000.

The task of the summit is to define "an outlook on the long run" for water, life and the environment for the whole globe.

The Arab states consume every year more than 200 billion cubic meters of water, an amount which is met during the rainy season, during which springs provide 370 billion cubic meters. But the springs do not meet fully the requirements in the dry season with its reserves of 180 billion cubic meters.

The current shortage in water will be very dangerous in a short time, as expected by the participants in the meeting who concluded their meetings on Thursday. By the year 2025 the Arab states' population will be doubled. It will increase from 220 million inhabitants in 1990 to 445 or 520 million inhabitants in 2025.

Therefore water shares per capita annually will be in the best case 830 cubic meters and in the worst cases 340 cubic meters as expected by UNESCO's consultant in Cairo, Kamal Saad.

The UN has set a ceiling of 1,000 cubic meters of annual water consumption per individual, otherwise if the figure goes down health problems will be emerging.

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