The Middle East is likely to plunge into serious humanitarian crisis due to depletion of water resources, unless remedial measures are introduced urgently, said a report.

The Blue Peace: Rethinking Middle East Water, prepared by Mumbai-based Strategic Foresight Group, also said that water crisis can be converted into an opportunity for regional peace.

The study was done with support from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and input from nearly 100 leaders and experts from Israel, the Palestine Territories, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey.

The river flows in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan have depleted by 50 to 90 per cent from 1960 to 2010, the report pointed out.

The annual flow of the Yarmouk River declined from 600 million cu m to about 250-300 million cu m, while the Jordan River from 1300 million cu m to 100 million cu m. The water level in Barada River Basin in Syria has dropped from 50 meters below ground in 1990 to 200 meters at present, the report said.

The renewable freshwater resources in the Mountain Aquifer, shared by Israel and the Palestinian Territories, have been reduced by 7 per cent since Oslo Accords in 1993 and in the Western Galilee Aquifer by 15-20 per cent, according to the report.

The water level in the Dead Sea dropped from 390 metres below sea level in the 1960s down to 420 metres below sea level at present and will be 450 metres below sea level by 2040.

The water surface area has shrunk by a third, from 950 sq km to 637 sq km. If the surface water level in the Dead Sea continues to erode, it will be reduced to a lake in 50 years, and will eventually disappear altogether, the report said.

The Strategic Foresight Group recommends a cooperation council for sustainable water management in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq, building on cooperation between these countries in trade, transit, and energy.

The cooperation council will enable the countries to have common standards for measuring water flows and quality, develop regional models for combating climate change, spread new technologies, and facilitate basin level integrated water management.

The report also proposes confidence building initiatives between Israel and the Palestine authority to agree on the status of water resources and method of functioning of the joint water committee.

It recommends decentralised waste water treatment plants for the Palestine territories. In the long run, it recommends that the threatened water bodies to be managed as regional commons and export of the waters from the Turkish national rivers via the Mediterranean to the Jordan Valley countries.

The Blue Peace report suggests that such cooperative measures can lead to broader and sustainable peace between countries in the Middle East. – TradeArabia News Service