Middle East Water Loss
Published on by Claudia Casarotto, Innovations for Poverty Action - Deputy Country Director - Kenya
A NASA study reports that an amount of freshwater almost the size of the Dead Sea has been lost in parts of the Middle East, mainly Turkey, Syria, Iran, Iraq The reasons for this outcome are poor water management, increased groundwater withdrawals, and the effects of a 2007 drought http://bit.ly/XS5iNd
But what makes the picture more complicated are the competing demands on the Tigris and Euphrates Basin: Turkey controls the basin's headwaters and has large water storage infrastructure. Without coordinated water management between the three countries the region will get dryer and dryer and the current demands for water will not be satisfied.
Read the NASA report here: http://1.usa.gov/WiGP2j