A general view of the Saline Water Conversion Corporation is pictured in this undated handout photo, in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. (Saline Water Conversion Corporation/Handout via REUTERS)
Recent record-breaking heat waves, which have caused devastation in the United States, Europe, and China, have exposed another critical problem that is particularly acute in the Middle East and North Africa. Water, already a scarce commodity in the region and even more so in the desert states of the Gulf, is one casualty of an overheating planet. The situation is likely to get worse without accelerated mitigation and adaptation measures.
Desalination Challenges
The Gulf Arab states are heavily reliant on desalinated water, and demand for it is growing. Desalination is also an energy-intensive process, though the amount of energy required varies depending on the technology used. Population growth, demand from agriculture, climate change, and geopolitical risks are driving growth in demand for desalinated water. As agriculture accounts for some 70% of water usage, water scarcity also endangers food supplies. Several North African countries are feeling the impact of drought on the agriculture sector, which accounts for around 11% of the gross domestic products of Morocco and Algeria.
Around 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 40% of the world’s population is affected by water scarcity, the United Nations reported at the conclusion of its 2023 Water Conference in March. Due to rising demand, pressure on freshwater supplies is projected to increase by more than 40% by 2050, the U.N. stated. Moreover, only 0.5% of the water on Earth is usable for human consumption, and climate change threatens this scarce supply.
Water scarcity is a particular challenge for the arid Gulf Arab states, where desalination is the main option for meeting water needs. A 2022 French Institute of International Relations report noted that desalinated water makes up 90% of Kuwait’s water supply, 86% of Oman’s, 70% of Saudi Arabia’s, and 42% of the United Arab Emirates’. In 2022, more than 21,000 desalination plants were in operation worldwide, nearly twice as many as a decade ago.
Desalination capacity in the Middle East is expected to almost double by 2030.
Given that energy-intensive desalination plants run on electricity produced primarily from natural gas or liquid fuels, growing desalination capacity will make it even more challenging to control carbon dioxide emissions. Moreover, the release of salt-loaded waste into the sea during the desalination process raises salinity in coastal areas and affects marine life. There is also the problem of losses of desalinated water in transmission, which the French Institute of International Relations estimates are higher than 50% in some Gulf countries.
The Gulf states have woken up to the challenge and are gradually working to switch to solar energy to power desalination plants. However, this could prove difficult in countries such as Kuwait, where total renewable energy capacity in 2022 was a paltry 106 megawatts. As the Middle East accounts for just 1% of total global renewable generation capacity, the region’s challenge, for desalination and more broadly, is scaling up solar and other clean energy technologies from a very low base.
Moreover, as a 2019 Houthi rocket attack that nearly struck Saudi Arabia’s Shuqaiq desalination plant highlighted, critical infrastructure projects are vulnerable to attacks or sabotage. Given Riyadh’s acute dependence on desalination plants to meet its growing population’s need for potable water and the fine balance between available capacity and demand, damage to a sizable plant such as Shuqaiq would have serious implications.
Nonetheless, the biggest threat to water security is climate change.
Water Solutions
The Middle East’s oil exporting states have been blessed with an abundance of oil and gas but not water, which has prompted efforts to develop different solutions to meet water needs. Libya under Muammar al-Qaddafi opted for the headline-grabbing “Great Man-Made River” irrigation project, which was costly to build but quite affordable to operate once completed, rather than desalination. Neom, the megacity under construction in Saudi Arabia planned to run solely on renewable energy, is also being touted by its developers as an incubator for water solutions. The UAE is considering using condensation from air conditioning units to produce recycled water.
Water-Energy Dynamics in Iran Illustrate Broader Regional Challenges
Receding water levels are also affecting agriculture and hydropower capacity in Iran, which has the highest hydropower capacity in the Middle East, prompting protests in the southern province of Sistan and Baluchistan in recent months. The region has been hit by drought and increasing dust storms as well as power cuts – in a country with the world’s second-largest conventional gas reserves. On August 2, as soaring temperatures strained Iran’s power grid, authorities ordered a two-day emergency shutdown. The situation is not expected to improve as Iran is suffering from the extreme heat that has gripped much of the Northern Hemisphere.
The water crisis in Iran has been exacerbated by poorly designed water and dam-building policies. While Iran’s hydropower generation has given it the energy mix with the highest share of renewable energy in the Middle East, its hydropower production has declined sharply in recent years. Iran’s hydropower output fell from 32.158 gigawatt hours in 2019 to 15.084 gigawatt hours in 2021, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Iran has made some progress in boosting gas production, but its infrastructure is in bad repair, and rising demand has strained power generation capacity during peak demand periods. Iran relies on natural gas and oil for nearly all its primary energy consumption, and sanctions have prevented it from expanding its crude oil production capacity, a large portion of which is shut in. These technical issues are indicative of the growing strain that Iran’s energy sector has faced due to the reimposition of international sanctions in 2018.
Importantly, water and energy go together. According to the International Energy Agency, water is “essential for almost every aspect of energy supply,” and the global energy system used “roughly 10% of total global freshwater withdrawals” in 2021. Water is needed to cool thermal power plants and, in Iran’s case, the Bushehr nuclear power plant. Large volumes of natural gas are reinjected into aging oil fields and cannot easily be replaced by water for enhanced oil recovery.
Despite efforts by some Middle Eastern countries to reduce water stress, such as switching to combined cycle power plants or using air for cooling, the only durable solution is to transition to clean energy. “If global greenhouse gas emissions are not mitigated, and fossil-fuelled thermal power plants in the region continue to operate, around 32% of coal power plants, 15% of gas power plants and 9% of oil power plants may face a ‘significantly’ drier climate, which would have even greater impacts on cooling water availability,” IEA analysts stated.
IEA analysts wrote recently that from 1980-2022, temperatures across the Middle East and North Africa increased by 0.46 degrees Celsius per decade, well above the world average of 0.18 C. “Precipitation patterns have also changed significantly, aggravating existing water scarcity in some” countries in the region, “with droughts in Morocco in 2022 and Tunisia in 2023, while causing intense floods in 2022 in the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Yemen,” they added.
Some southern and eastern Mediterranean countries most affected by drought have taken measures to adapt to the new climate reality. Morocco is gradually replacing coal-fired power plants with natural gas combined cycle plants that require less cooling, while Egypt has adopted more water-efficient options, using an air cooling system for one power plant and seawater for another.
Food, agriculture, and water are among the themes included in the agenda for the U.N. Climate Change Conference, COP28, in the UAE in November. Food and water security are inextricably linked, and the impact of global warming on these vital sectors poses a threat to human, animal, and marine life. Tackling climate change requires not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also preserving the Earth’s ecosystem because, without water, there can be no life.
The views represented herein are the author's or speaker's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of AGSI, its staff, or its board of directors.
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