Why no Middle East Water Wars: Global Solutions to Local Deficits?

Abstract

The purpose of the chapter will be to show how processes in theinternational political economy have so ameliorated the water resourcescarcity of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) that there have beennone of the predicted water wars. The chapter provides a narrative onMENA water policy and analytical frameworks for understanding thechanging approaches to the valuation, the allocation and the managementof water resources in the water scarce Middle East and North Africa(MENA). The study will mainly address the experience of the pasthalf-century. The useful role of the concept of sustainability will bedemonstrated. It will be shown how the discursive allocative politics ofthose contending different versions of sustainability helps anunderstanding of water policy-making and conflict avoiding processes.Discursive hydro-politics are shown to mediate the contested claims onthe fresh-water resources required by society, the economy and of theenvironment. The main insight provided by the analysis is that the MENAregion solves its serious water deficit problems by resorting to a`virtual water' remedy. This economically invisible and politicallysilent economic process, enabled by international trade in waterintensive commodities such as wheat, addresses the big water problem{[}90 per cent of needs] of not being able to produce the region's foodneeds. It will also be shown that the recent fall in the costs ofmanufacturing desalinated water makes the future challenge of providingfreshwater for the small water problem {[}10 per cent of needs] ofproviding freshwater for domestic and industrial water, easilyaddressable for the majority of the region's population living near thecoast or major rivers.The political economy of the virtual water solution will be shown tohave important consequences for water policy making. Its existencede-emphasises the problem and as a result delays the introduction ofmeasures to improve water use efficiency and the recognition of theenvironmental services provided by water in the environment. It will beargued throughout that a hydro-centric approach to the analysis of waterpolicy-making is unsafe, as is the simplistic linking of singledisciplines, such as economics, sociology, politics, internationalrelations and law, to hydrology.