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It's a compelling, sweeping (and simplistic?) narrative. Along with other countries including China and South Korea, the Mena countries are leading the " land grab" to alleviate their water woes. Saudi Arabia has done so in Ethiopia, and Qatar in Kenya. The next solution is to cut out the middle men and buy or lease land in wetter places in order to grow food for export back to the dry Mena countries. And food prices in particular have certainly been a contributing factor to the so-called Arab spring. Water could be produced by desalination, virtually non-existent in 1970, or, more commonly, food could be bought in from wetter places, importing water in effect.īut when oil and food prices rise, the money-throwing solution becomes harder to sustain. That problem was solved by simply throwing money at it: many of the Mena states are rich in oil. That's a lot more people to feed, and to grow food you need water. Why? Because it powerfully demonstrates how the world's biggest environmental problems link together with profound effect.įirst, the Mena region has seen rapid and ongoing population growth, from 127m in 1970 to 305m in 2005. The obvious question is to what extent this severe lack of water underlies the troubles affecting these nations? The obvious response is that only a fool would wade into political and historical waters so deep and try to divine the role of a single factor, amid poverty, unemployment, repression and more.īut reassured by a middle east expert here at the Guardian that water is indeed a major underlying issue in many Mena nations, and John Vidal's article from February, I'm going to dip my toe in as far as following the chain of events that starts with scarce water.
#Why is battle for middle earth so expensive full#
(The full top 20 is in a table below, with a bit on the methodology). Syria tops the next category: high stress.
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Other crisis-hit countries, including Libya, Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia, are not far behind. Bahrain tops the list of those using far more water than they sustainably receive. Of the 16 nations suffering extreme water stress, according to risk analysts Maplecroft, every single one is in the Mena region. The Middle East and north Africa (Mena), currently in the middle of a historic wave of unrest, is by far the worst affected region. Water, it's the very stuff of life, and a high-resolution analysis of the most water-stressed places on Earth reveals anew a stark reality.