World Water Day is observed annually on March 22 by the UN with the goal of tracking global progress toward ensuring that everyone has access to clean, affordable water.
One in four of the world’s population, or 2.3 billion people, live in water-stressed nations, according to UN-Water.
Water stress is the ratio of used freshwater to available, renewable freshwater sources. When water withdrawals exceed available supplies, a nation is either producing a lot of desalinated water or its aquifers are being used up faster than they can be refilled.
- Water stress in the Middle East
The Middle East and North Africa are home to seven of the ten countries with the worst water shortages. The yearly water consumption is eight times greater than the water supply from renewable resources in those nations, where the average water stress level is 820 percent.
The climate in the Middle East is primarily dry and desert, with little rainfall and high temperatures. Several nations in the area, especially those in the Gulf, rely on desalination, a technique that eliminates salt from seawater, to supply their citizens with enough water.
The nations with the highest levels of water stress as of 2017 were Egypt (6,420%), Bahrain (3,878%), and the United Arab Emirates. (1,708 percent).
- Water stress doubles over past 30 years
Water stress levels in the Middle East and North Africa more than doubled from 8,411 to 16,422 percent between 1987 and 2017.
Water stress levels in Egypt have risen from 4,897% in 1977 to 6,420% in 2017.
The waters of the Nile River, which originate outside of the country’s boundaries, are greatly reliant on by the nation with a population of more than 100 million. Egypt may run out of water by 2025, according to a UNICEF research from 2021, which estimates that the country has an annual water deficit of around 7 billion cubic meters (247 billion cubic feet).
- Disappearing lakes
Several lakes in the Middle East have shrunk as a result of rising temperatures, an increase in water demand, and the building of dams. Lake Urmia in Iran and Lake Sawa in neighboring Iraq are two famous lakes that have vanished.
- Lake Urmia, Iran
Previously, Lake Urmia was the sixth-biggest saltwater lake in the world and the largest lake in the Middle East. It is situated in northwest Iran, and it is almost completely dried out to become a salt plain at this point.
The lake has disappeared significantly since the 1980s, as shown in the time-lapse video below.
- Lake Sawa, Iraq
After two years of extreme drought, Lake Sawa has now totally dried up. Extreme droughts have affected 43 million people in the country as a result of rising temperatures and a sharp decline in the water levels of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
The lake’s pace of evaporation since 2011 can be seen in the time-lapse video down below.
Source -Aljazeera
