CAIRO (Middle East Eye) – The world is confronting an unparalleled water crisis, with some of the most water-stressed countries being Bahrain, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, and Qatar, a new report by the World Resources Institute published this week shows.
The United Arab Emirates; Saudi Arabia; the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories; Egypt; Yemen; Iran; Jordan; Tunisia; Iraq; India; Syria; Morocco; Eritrea; and Algeria are among the top 30 countries with high water stress.
“Our data shows that 25 countries are currently exposed to extremely high water stress annually, meaning they use over 80 percent of their renewable water supply for irrigation, livestock, industry, and domestic needs,” the report says.
“Even a short-term drought puts these places in danger of running out of water and sometimes prompts governments to shut off the taps.”
Turkey has the 39th highest water stress in the world, the report shows. On Wednesday, residents of Istanbul were asked to reduce their water consumption, as major cities across the country grapple with a drought crisis amid high temperatures.
Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu urged the city’s 16 million residents to save “every precious water drop flowing from the tap”.
His call came days after the Istanbul Water and Sewerage Administration (ISKI) published data showing that the city’s dams were only around 33 percent full as of mid-August, the lowest rate in nine years.
ISKI general manager Safak Basa launched a water-saving campaign last week to offset the “catastrophic drought” they are experiencing.
“We are going through a very drought period. While making all these investments, we are experiencing a catastrophic drought in which temperature records were indeed broken,” he was quoted by local news agencies.
According to the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, by 2050, an additional 1 billion people are expected to live with extremely high water stress.
The report projects that global water demand will increase by 20 to 25 percent by 2050, while the number of watersheds facing high year-to-year variability, or less predictable water supplies, is expected to increase by 19 percent.
This means that in the Middle East and North Africa, 100 percent of the population will live with extremely high water stress by 2050.
“That’s a problem not just for consumers and water-reliant industries, but for political stability,” the report says.
The report notes that water scarcity in these nations is primarily attributed to limited supply, coupled with the needs of household, agricultural, and industrial sectors.
Water scarcity can result in disruptions to industries, energy blackouts, and declines in agricultural yield, the report notes.