Safe drinking water is scarce in the dry Middle East, which is why conflicts arise between all kinds of countries and population groups. Turkey is building dams in the rivers Euphrates and Tigris for energy production and irrigation, much to the annoyance of Iraq and Syria. Israel, Jordan and Lebanon dispute the water of the river Jordan.
Egypt depends on the Nile for 95% of its water because rainfall is negligible and the ground water supply is very limited. However, the upstream part of the river flows through the territories of nine other countries. Through treaties dating from the colonial period, Egypt has imposed on neighbouring countries that they may not build any water works in the Nile to tap water from the river. Up to now, Egypt has adhered to this, if need be under threat of armed intervention.
Elsewhere in the world there can also be conflicts about the water supply. Water consumption doubles every twenty years, twice as fast as the population growth. Intensive agriculture accounts for 65%, industry for 25% and households for 10% of use. Top consumers are the rich countries. Just like other natural resources, the supply of fresh water on earth is not inexhaustible. Although three-quarters of the earth’s surface is covered by water, only half a percent of this is available as drinking water. And this quantity is decreasing, not only through intensive consumption, but also through pollution and dehydration. Moreover, access to clean drinking water is unequally distributed. 900 million people, especially in developing countries, lack access to safe drinking water. Drinking contaminated water plus the presence of polluted surface water are largely responsible for the transfer of germs in these countries.
Sustainable extraction and equal distribution of water are therefore urgently called for. In this respect, water does not differ from other natural resources such as gas and oil, reserves of which are not inexhaustible either. In the Netherlands, there is often concern about the possible depletion of the gas deposit in Groningen, which has been exploited since 1959. When the gas field is empty, the Netherlands will be dependent on imports. In this way the energy supply becomes an international issue. Because of the danger of energy sources becoming depleted, but even more because of the climate, increasing attention is paid to sustainable alternatives such as wind and solar energy. Another option is burning biomass (which now accounts for half the sustainable energy in the Netherlands), though it has recently become clear that this has negative consequences for the world’s food supply.
