Received: 23 February 2020
Revised: 12 March 2020
Accepted: 13 March 2020
DOI: 10.1002/wat2.1437
ADVANCED REVIEW
The water-energy nexus in the Middle East: Infrastructure,
development, and conflict
Erika Weinthal1
|
Jeannie Sowers2
1
Nicholas School of the Environment,
Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Abstract
2
Water and energy are closely linked in the Middle East and North Africa
Department of Political Science,
University of New Hampshire, Durham,
New Hampshire
Correspondence
Erika Weinthal, Nicholas School of the
Environment, Duke University, Box
90328, Durham, NC 27708.
Email: weinthal@duke.edu
Funding information
Council of American Overseas Research
Centers; Gerda Henkel Foundation
(MENA) through coupled networks of infrastructure. This review explores the
water-energy nexus of infrastructure to explicate different patterns of development and de-development in the MENA. First, the review highlights why
states, donors, and firms have long built large-scale coupled water-energy
infrastructures to provide urban services, expand irrigated agriculture, and foster development. Yet, too often the adverse social and environmental impacts
from the construction of dams, water conveyance structures, groundwater
mining, and desalination plants have been overlooked. We then examine the
water-energy nexus through infrastructure for the most important users of
water and energy in the MENA region: urban populations and the agricultural
sector. Third, the review illustrates that while investments in water and energy
infrastructure generated significant gains in human development for much for
of the region, the post-2011 wars reversed many of these development gains in
conflict-affected countries through the destruction and deterioration of waterenergy infrastructures. The unprecedented displacement of populations within
and across borders has also created new challenges for host communities,
where infrastructures for providing water and energy services were already
overstretched. The review further highlights the growing role of humanitarian
assistance in providing water and energy services to refugees, internally displaced populations, and host communities. Overall, this review examines how
the nexus of water and energy infrastructure shapes human security, livelihoods, and political economies in the MENA region.
This article is categorized under:
Human Water > Water Governance
Engineering Water > Planning Water
KEYWORDS
conflict, energy, infrastructure, Middle East, water
WIREs Water. 2020;7:e1437.
https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1437
wires.wiley.com/water
© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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WEINTHAL AND SOWERS
1 | INTRODUCTION
Infrastructure is the connective tissue that links water and energy resources throughout the Middle East and North
Africa (MENA). Great variation across the region exists in infrastructural systems owing to differences in natural
resource endowments, economies, and political contexts. These factors have influenced development pathways and the
specific contours of the water-energy nexus in different countries.
This review explores the interconnections between water and energy infrastructures, given the importance that
infrastructure has played in regional patterns of development and de-development. By infrastructure, we mean the personnel, structures, and systems that produce, circulate, and distribute flows of water and energy. Our notion of infrastructure includes the formal and informal actors and institutions that shape resource production, allocation, and
consumption.
In contrast, governments and firms often portray infrastructure as discrete national projects disconnected from
broader questions of political economy and governance. While state elites depict water and energy infrastructure projects as embodying national aspirations and as solutions to problems of development, water and energy infrastructures
also reflect local, regional, and global relationships. Both wealthy and poor states in the MENA rely on multinational
firms, international donors, and private lenders for financing and construction of hard infrastructure. National infrastructure projects can also generate conflict, internally with affected communities or externally with neighboring states,
as has been the case with dam construction along the Euphrates, Tigris, and Nile rivers. In the recent wars in the
MENA, water and energy systems have been targeted, exposing the vulnerabilities of tightly integrated infrastructure.
Climate change poses additional risks for water-energy infrastructures in the region alongside imposing broader socioeconomic impacts on vulnerable communities (Sowers, Vengosh, & Weinthal, 2011). Since the early 2000s, the MENA
has experienced increased warming and periods of extended, intense droughts (Hochman, Harpaz, Saaroni, &
Alpert, 2018; Kaniewski, Van Campo, & Weiss, 2012).
This review explores how water and energy are linked vis-à-vis infrastructure in the MENA. We first consider the
conventional ways in which water and energy have been studied via the water-energy nexus in the MENA. We then discuss how governments and donors have built large-scale coupled water-energy infrastructures to provide urban services
and foster development, often neglecting adverse social and environmental impacts. These include dams, water conveyance structures, irrigation systems, and desalination plants, all of which connect and rely upon flows of water and
energy. Moving from the conventional supply side of water and energy to the demand side, we analyze the two most
important users of water and energy in the MENA region: urban populations and the agricultural sector. The review
then evaluates the negative impacts on water and energy infrastructures from the post-2011 wars, which have reversed
some of the development gains previously achieved. We then briefly examine new challenges for water-energy infrastructure investments in host communities, as humanitarian actors and governments seek to provide access to water
and energy services for refugees and displaced persons. Together, this review provides insights into how the nexus of
water and energy infrastructure shapes human security, livelihoods, and political economies in the MENA.
2 | T H E WA T E R - E N ER G Y N E XU S A N D IN F R A S T R U C T U R E
The conventional approach to studying the water-energy nexus and infrastructure has sought to demonstrate how
water and energy infrastructure are tightly linked. Water infrastructure cannot be grasped without understanding
energy inputs and conversely, one cannot understand energy infrastructure without taking into account water inputs
and availability (Keulertz, Sowers, Woertz, & Mohtar, 2018; Weinthal, Vengosh, & Neville, 2018). Infrastructure for
water production, purification, and delivery depends upon energy inputs. Water is also necessary throughout the energy
exploration and production cycle, as in oil and gas exploration, coal mining, cooling coal plants, hydraulic fracking,
and cooling processes in nuclear power plants. Water also provides a source of renewable energy (RE), especially for
the creation of hydroelectricity. The water-energy infrastructure nexus has broader impacts for other sectors such as
food; increasingly, research has sought to illuminate the broader nexus (e.g., Borgomeo et al., 2018; Keulertz
et al., 2018).
The large asymmetries in water and energy availability in the MENA combine with financial resources and vested
political–economic interests to structure countries' choice of infrastructure. Compared with other regions of the world,
the MENA has a higher percentage of the world's population affected by high water stress: according to the Food and
Agricultural Organization (FAO), more than 60% of the population in the MENA is located in places affected by “high
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or very high surface water stress,” whereas the global average is closer to 35% (World Bank, 2018, p. 10). The Persian/
Arabian Gulf countries, with an abundance of oil and gas resources alongside scarcity of freshwater, have used fossil
fuels to power large desalination plants for generating drinking water.
Other MENA countries are rich in surface water resources. According to the World Bank, approximately 60% of surface water in the MENA flows across state boundaries; in addition, all countries within the MENA share at least one
aquifer with a neighboring country (World Bank, 2018). For example, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria rely heavily upon surface
water resources that flow from outside their national boundaries. Eleven countries share the Nile River, while Turkey,
Syria, Iraq, and Iran are part of the Tigris and Euphrates watershed. The Yarmouk River is shared between Syria and
Jordan, while the Jordan River crosses Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine, and Israel. Most countries in the region also
depend extensively on increasingly limited groundwater (e.g., see Voss et al., 2013). Some of these aquifers are nonrenewable and extend across national borders, such as the Disi (Saq) aquifer underlying Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and
the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System underlying Libya, Egypt, Chad, and Sudan.
To understand these interactions among water and energy, scholars have evaluated the amount of energy needed to
produce water and conversely the amount of water needed to produce energy across different types of water and energy
infrastructure (Gleick, 1994; Kondash, Patino-Echeverri, & Vengosh, 2019; Mekonnen, Gerbens-Leenes, &
Hoekstra, 2015; Siddiqi & Anadon, 2011). Siddiqi and Anadon (2011) show through a country-level quantitative assessment of the water-energy nexus that water infrastructure in many parts of the MENA depends heavily on energy, in
contrast to a relatively weak dependence of energy systems on fresh water. The most significant dependence on energy
for water is found in the Gulf countries, which use 5–12% of their total electricity consumption for producing freshwater
via desalination (Siddiqi & Anadon, 2011, p. 4529).
Combined with increasing population rates and rising consumption, the MENA region is experiencing rising energy
demands, coupled with decreasing freshwater supplies due to overuse of diminishing water resources and increased
severity of droughts associated with climate change. When it comes to the water footprint for energy consumption in
the MENA, many countries depend upon natural gas and oil to generate electricity (Mekonnen et al., 2015). After coal
and nuclear, oil and natural gas have the next highest lifecycle water withdrawal intensity of electricity generation,
while wind and solar power have lower water footprints (Kondash et al., 2019).
In addition to hydropower, renewables such as wind and solar are also taking hold in the MENA. Morocco has
increased its share of electricity produced by wind and solar from 2% in 2009 to 12% in 2015, including investment in a
large concentrated solar plant (Rabinowitz, forthcoming, p. 66; Sowers, 2017). Jordan—a country that imports approximately 97% of its energy—has taken steps to expand solar with plans to convert 20% of its power consumption to
renewables by 2020. The UAE has begun investing in RE to help meet its electricity needs. Saudi Arabia, in contrast,
has put on hold its solar energy initiative (Mills, 2018). Indeed, for many oil-rich countries in the MENA, the presence
of heavily subsidized fuel and the importance of it as a tool for placating social unrest are likely to hamper the widespread introduction of solar energy in the absence of broader energy pricing reform. For countries like Jordan, growth
in the RE market may also be hindered by government commitments to existing fossil fuel contracts (Gamba, 2015).
3 | WATER-ENERGY I NFRASTRUCTURE, DEVELOPMENT, AND
VULNERABI LI TY
3.1 | Dams and reservoirs
Large and small dams dot the landscape throughout the MENA region to provide hydropower, capture floods and regulate variable river flow, and provide flows for year-round irrigation. Large dam construction is one of the most widespread yet controversial water-energy infrastructures globally (Khagram, 2004). Dams have been promoted as a
mechanism to foster economic development and provide hydroelectric power. They also help regulate seasonal water
flows, prevent flooding, and provide storage for utilization during dry seasons. Yet, dam construction often results in
displacement of peoples and cultural heritage sites, destroys ecosystems through flooding for reservoirs and changing
the course of natural river flow, increases evaporation and water loss, reduces sediments transport to downstream
deltas, and affects transboundary relations between upstream and downstream users (Conca, 2005). Dams have also
proven to be important sites of contestation in the post-2011 wars.
The Aswan High Dam (AHD) in Egypt, completed in 1970 after 11 years of construction, exemplifies these tensions.
The dam produces hydropower, ensures a steady flow of water for irrigation and cities in the Nile Delta, and avoids
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destructive flooding by storing the Nile flood in Lake Aswan. The dam's negative side effects include removing silt from
the Nile waters and depleting the Delta of soil replenishment (Abu Zeid, 1989). Changing interests and capacities
among the upstream riparian states have led to significant tension over the allocation of Nile waters. The 1959 treaty
between Egypt and Sudan replicated shares allocated by the 1929 British colonial treaty, which gave 80% of the Nile
flow to Egypt and the remaining 20% to Sudan, excluding upstream states from consideration. For most of the 20th century, upstream riparians, including Ethiopia, did not have the financial and technical resources to significantly access
the waters of the Nile. In 2011, however, Ethiopia began construction on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
(GERD) to produce hydropower, and as part of asserting upstream rights to use the river, tensions increased with Egypt.
While earlier international assessments of hydropower potential in Ethiopia called for a series of smaller dams, this
mega-dam will be the largest in Africa, capable of capturing the entire flow of the Blue Nile. The dam will able to operate at peak capacity only during the few months of rainy season (ICG, 2019). Egypt is gravely concerned about the timetable for filling the GERD reservoir, as this will result in lower downstream flows while the reservoir is filled. Egypt is
also adamant on ensuring that it receives agreed-upon annual allocations of water if and when an agreement with Ethiopia is signed. Egypt and Ethiopia also need to coordinate operation of the GERD and AHD to reduce evaporation in
the dam reservoirs.
With temperatures rising across the Nile Basin from climate change, leading to increased frequency and duration of
hot and dry years (Coffel et al., 2019), environmental uncertainties will require ongoing coordination and monitoring
mechanisms. Thus, dams have the potential to produce conflict between countries but also may increase incentives to
coordinate dam management. Since 1991, the states of the Nile Basin have engaged in a multilateral effort with the support of the World Bank, the Nile Basin Initiative, to explore mechanisms for promoting a cooperative framework agreement over the river's waters (see Whittington, Waterbury, & Jeuland, 2014; Whittington, Wu, & Sadoff, 2005). The
challenges of effective coordination along the Nile River system, given competing national priorities and state capacities, have long been well documented (Waterbury, 2002).
Turkey has also been at the forefront of dam-building, constructing 22 dams and hydroelectric infrastructures to
control and store water from the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in south-eastern Turkey. Promoted as a means to promote
agricultural development and hydroelectric generation, the South-East Anatolia Project (GAP) has been controversial
internally and externally. The project caused friction with downstream Syria and Iraq, as Turkey has periodically
restricted the flow of the rivers to fill the cascade of dams (Zawahri, 2006). The GAP project further took little account
of negative effects on livelihoods or ecosystem requirements downstream, such as flows needed for the extensive southern marshes of Iraq. The Turkish government claims that economic and agricultural development in south-eastern Turkey will dampen Kurdish demands for cultural and political autonomy, a position staunchly rejected by many Kurdish
parties and activists. Social conflict and protest have coalesced around several dam-building sites, particularly the Ilisu
Dam on the Tigris in eastern Turkey, which will produce significant population displacement and cultural heritage
destruction, including the ancient city of Hasankeyf. The filling of the Ilisu dam will further reduce the flow of the river
into Syria. Over the last four decades, dam construction along the Euphrates has reduced the water flow into Syria by
nearly 40% (Marvar, 2019).
Dams have proven to be important nodes in the post-2011 wars in the MENA. Through attacking or gaining control
of a dam, armed groups are able to affect agricultural production by restricting water supply, making too much available, or providing water of an insufficient quality (Jaafar & Woertz, 2016; von Lossow, 2016). In 2013 and 2014, ISIS
captured water-energy infrastructure along the Euphrates in Syria and northern Iraq, including the Tabqa Dam in Syria
(Saad & Gladstone, 2013). The Mosul dam in Iraq, built in the early 1980s to capture the flow of the Tigris River, has
long been assessed as at risk for collapse and proved an important point of conflict in Iraq's civil war. Different armed
groups, including ISIS, sought to seize control of the dam, as it would offer them ways to interrupt the country's water
and electricity supply.
3.2 | Water conveyance structures
Because of the huge temporal and spatial variation in water distribution in the MENA, governments have invested in
large-scale water conveyance projects to transfer water from water-rich areas to heavily populated, water-poor areas.
Moving water for agriculture use and drinking water supply has required large and expensive energy inputs.
Egypt has long erected an array of water diversion structures. The first canal to supply the city of Alexandria with
Nile water was built under the Hellenistic ruler and companion of Alexander the Great, Ptolomy I (367–282 BC). The
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modern Mahmoudiyya Canal that supplies Alexandria was originally dug during Mohamed Ali's reign in the early
1800s. Other grandiose water diversion projects with less clear objectives included Egypt's construction of a major canal
to irrigate portions of Egypt's southwestern desert depression of Toshka. Begun in the Mubarak era, the project failed to
attract significant private investment or population outside of the Nile Valley, despite a concerted campaign to portray
it as a national imperative (Sowers, 2011).
The Israel National Water Carrier, which was completed in 1964 and a source of armed hostility from the Arab
League, particularly Syria, during its construction, channels water from the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias/Kinneret)
though a system of pipes, tunnels, canals, and reservoirs to central Israel and the Negev in the south (for an overview,
see Wolf, 1995). While Israeli farmers benefited, diverting water from the Sea of Galilee brought environmental costs
and eliminated flow for the southern stretches of the Jordan River because of the Degania Dam located on the southern
part of the Sea of Galilee (Rinat, 2014). Jordan's King Abdullah Canal is one of the important water sources for agriculture in Jordan and takes water from the Yarmouk River for irrigation and household use in the eastern Jordan Valley.
Libya under Colonel Gaddafi undertook a huge engineering scheme to bring fossil underground water from the
southern interior to the northern coastal cities. The Great Man-Made River (GMR) consists of a large network of pipelines to tap water from the Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System for both drinking water and irrigation. Large conveyance
systems such as GMR in Libya proved vulnerable to being targeted in conflict. For example, in 2019 gunmen forced
employees to shut off GMR pipes supplying water to Tripoli (Elumami, 2019).
Many states have focused on supply-side solutions for water rather than the potential long-term gains that would
ensue from promoting demand-side management. Water supply infrastructure projects can marginalize weaker
populations, whether in dams or water conveyance schemes. Jordan and Israel, for example, pushed the Red Sea and
Dead Sea Water Conveyance Project as a means to save the Dead Sea, augment Jordan's drinking water supply, and foster regional cooperation by discharging brines from desalination in Aqaba to the Dead Sea. While donors and the international community have supported this project owing to the potential peacebuilding benefits from water/energy
cooperation, the 2013 World Bank feasibility study ultimately privileged Jordanian and Israeli national interests over
those of the Palestinian people (Zawahri & Weinthal, 2014). Since then, in spite of the 2017 U.S.-brokered deal to provide additional water to the Palestinian Authority as part of the Red-Dead water project (Heller, 2017), Israel has
become increasingly recalcitrant on implementing the project due to its high costs (Coren, 2019). Jordan has continued
to promote the Red-Dead conveyance system and desalination projects to meet growing water demands (Salameh &
Shteiwi, 2019).
3.3 | Desalination and wastewater reuse
Over the last half century, expensive desalination technologies have offered many water-poor but energy-rich countries
in the MENA a way to produce and supply new water for their populations, largely for drinking water purposes. Half of
the world's desalination capacity is within the MENA (Borgomeo et al., 2018, p. 35); desalination provides the Gulf
Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with a large share of their drinking water needs, ranging from 27% in Oman to
87% in Qatar (IRENA, 2016). Some estimates suggest between 10 and 30% of energy consumption in the GCC countries
and Israel goes toward desalination (Borgomeo et al., 2018, p. 29). While solar desalination systems exist, the oil and
gas rich Gulf states have used domestic subsidies for cheap fossil fuels to power their desalination plants (Siddiqi &
Anadon, 2011). Siddiqi and Anadon (2011, p. 4532) found that desalination and long-distance conveyance are some of
the most “energy intensive (per unit volume) processes” for supplying water. In addition to the significant energy
required for desalination, negative environmental impacts on marine ecosystems include the discharge of hypersaline
brines and warmer water discharged from desalination plants (Shemer & Semiat, 2017).
Israel has compensated for its scarcity of naturally occurring freshwater by building extensive reverse osmosis desalination plants along the Mediterranean coast (Feitelson & Rosenthal, 2012; Tal, 2016). Desalination provides nearly
two thirds of its annual domestic water consumption. Advancements in technologies have allowed Israel to reduce the
cost of desalination through the integration of its reverse osmosis operation with the national electricity system. The
recent discovery of massive gas reserves in the Mediterranean shelf marks a new stage of substituting imported coal
with domestic natural gas for the electricity sector in Israel (Paraschos, 2013).
Israel, Jordan, Tunisia, and to some extent Egypt also rely upon recycling wastewater for agricultural use
(Borgomeo et al., 2018), which is less costly than using desalinated water. While the treatment of wastewater uses
energy, Israel has experimented with ways to reduce the costs of energy needed to run its largest treatment plant, the
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Shafdan, by trapping the methane generated in the sludge and then using the gas to power the plant. Desalinated potable water in Israel, furthermore, generates domestic wastewater with less salts than recycled wastewater originating
from naturally occurring groundwater (Feitelson & Rosenthal, 2012). Morocco is also moving forward with a desalination plant that would be used both for drinking water and agriculture in the Chtouka area.
3.4 | The water-energy nexus and fossil fuels
The exploration and production of unconventional oil and gas, including hydraulic fracking technologies, have
reshaped energy markets globally at start of the 21st century. In the MENA, only Algeria and Libya have significant
technically recoverable shale gas and oil reserves, respectively. Given the amount of freshwater water needed in the
“fracking” process, water will be a significant limiting factor for water-scarce Algeria and Libya. Water used for hydraulic fracturing would have to be diverted from other uses.
Given the outsized role of the MENA region in global oil and gas production, the fact that energy demand is
outstripping supply in some countries is not often recognized. Egypt is a good example, as escalating electricity consumption and shortages of natural gas for domestic consumption prompted post-Mubarak governments to turn to
importing coal for cement plants (Zayed & Sowers, 2014). Despite opposition from environmental activists and technocrats concerned about pollution impacts, air quality, and locking in a carbon-intensive fuel, the Mursi and later Al-Sisi
governments continued to import coal for the politically influential cement industry.
Several MENA countries are investing in coal-fired plants to diversify their energy supplies, including Oman, Iran,
Turkey, Jordan, and the UAE. Of these, only Turkey and Iran have significant coal deposits; the use of domestic coal is
perceived as reducing dependence upon imported gas and oil (Mills, 2017). For the rest, the decision to use coal reflects
a variety of factors: entrenched subsidies in pricing fossil fuels well below world prices, a desire to reserve oil and gas
for export markets, the discounting of air pollution and carbon emissions, emerging shortages in domestic production
of electricity, and relatively cheap bids from Chinese energy firms looking for new markets for coal as China moves
away from coal (Mills, 2017). In the UAE, the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai often promote their solar energy projects, but their investments in coal plants are less advertised.
3.5 | Groundwater, rural livelihoods and the water-energy nexus
Water-scarce countries in the MENA rely upon the extraction of groundwater from both renewable and nonrenewable
(“fossil”) aquifers for municipal, agricultural, and industrial use. Iran, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia extract significant
amounts of nonrenewable groundwater annually (respectively about 25 billion m3, 20 billion m3, and 17 billion m3 in
2010) (Borgomeo et al., 2018, p. 3) Tapping nonrenewable groundwater has provided Saudi Arabia with 68% of its water
supply in 2005, a form of one-off mining of natural resources (Rabinowitz, forthcoming, p. 38). Siddiqi and
Anadon (2011) found that in Saudi Arabia “up to 9 percent of total annual electrical consumption may be attributed to
groundwater pumping and desalination.” Other countries in the MENA that depend upon groundwater for more than
50% of total withdrawals include Bahrain, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Oman, Tunisia, UAE, and Yemen (Siddiqi &
Anadon, 2011). As with desalination, pumping and transporting groundwater requires considerable energy inputs. A
recent World Bank and FAO study found that the amount of energy used for pumping and drainage to support the agricultural sector is about 6% of total electricity and diesel consumed (Borgomeo et al., 2018, p. 5).
Approximately 75% of MENA farmed land is rainfed rather than irrigated, and thus soil moisture or “green water”
is a critical part of agricultural production (Antonelli & Tamea, 2016, p. 27). Rainfed agricultural production is highly
variable and strongly correlated with climatic conditions, particularly drought, over both short and long-time scales
(Coffel et al., 2019). Thus, increased pumping of groundwater to supplement rainfed agriculture has been essential in
extending cultivation in semi-arid and arid parts of the MENA marked by little and erratic rainfall. As elsewhere in the
world, post-colonial MENA states subsidized energy prices to promote social welfare, facilitating the rapid uptake of
motorized pump technology and tube wells to cheaply access groundwater for crop cultivation (Borgomeo et al., 2018).
By 2002, water withdrawals for agriculture accounted for roughly 95% of total water withdrawals in Yemen and Syria,
with Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar between 85 and 90%.
Reliance on heavily subsidized energy has contributed to extensive groundwater depletion and contamination in the
MENA even as it enabled the expansion of agriculture on an unprecedented scale. The result has been sea-water intrusion
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on renewable coastal aquifers and over-extraction of both fossil and renewable groundwater resources. The use of groundwater pumping to extend cultivation of wheat and barley in Syria's northeastern steppe as part of government-sponsored
development programs from the 1960s on produced soil salinization, erosion by wind, and a decline in the groundwater
table and water quality (Kaniewski et al., 2012). When extreme drought struck much of northeastern Syria, Iran, and northern Iraq from 2007 to 2010, rural livelihoods for many thousands of Syrians collapsed (Daoudy, 2020). Lack of effective government response to the collapse of the agricultural sector contributed to extensive rural to urban migration and internal
displacement (de Chatel, 2014). As such, many scholars have argued that the conflict in Syria was not a direct function of
climate change, but a result of a multiplicity of factors, including the degradation of Syria's water resources, deepening rural
poverty, the collapse of Syria's agricultural sector, and rentier model of state-building (Daoudy, 2020; Selby, 2019; Selby,
Dahi, Fröhlich, & Hulme, 2017; Sowers, Waterbury, & Woertz, 2013).
Agriculture is also a mainstay of rural livelihoods in Yemen. Agricultural production has greatly suffered in the recent
conflict in Yemen, particularly once Saudi Arabia and the UAE directly entered the war in 2015. In 2017, the World Bank
reported that 35% of the labor force still worked in agriculture, while the FAO (2019) noted that over half of rural women
work in agriculture and over 80% work in livestock husbandry. Subsidized energy has facilitated extensive pumping of the
groundwater for irrigation by wealthier farmers, even as outmigration from rural areas led to a reduction in traditional terracing and rainfed agricultural production. Groundwater pumping for agriculture has consumed 28% of the country's total
electricity and diesel consumption (World Bank, 2018, p. 106). In turn, groundwater resources throughout the country have
been over-extracted, causing significant conflict between cities and rural hinterlands (Ward, 2015) and leaving cities like
Sana'a increasingly water-scarce and dependent on privately trucked water supplies taken from rural aquifers
(Whitehead, 2015). As a result of the conflict, shortages of agricultural inputs and the conflict targeting of agricultural infrastructures, agricultural production has decreased by almost 30% (FAO, 2019). As Yemenis have exhausted coping strategies,
hunger and malnutrition have spread, particularly in rural areas (Mundy, 2018).
For the MENA region as a whole, the World Bank and FAO have cautioned that if pumping of groundwater
resources in the MENA continues “under a ‘business as usual’ scenario,” nonrenewable groundwater reserves are likely
to disappear by 2050, affecting agricultural production and food security throughout the region (Borgomeo et al., 2018,
p. 2). Increasing water scarcity and degradation of water quality will limit the types of crops that can be grown, and staples such as rice production in the northern part of Iran will diminish (Borgomeo et al., 2018, p. 25). Already, Saudi
Arabia has begun phasing out energy and water subsidies for wheat cultivation because of groundwater over-extraction
(Woertz, 2013).
Over time, many MENA countries have seen urban users claim water from rural uses (as in Yemen), and increasingly industry and municipal consumption will directly compete with water for agriculture. While agriculture still
remains the largest consumer of water in the MENA, all MENA countries rely on imports of food and other commodities to meet the needs of their growing populations. Conflicted-affected Yemen depends almost entirely upon the import
of staple food commodities; yet, increasingly the population lacks the financial resources to afford these imports, escalating the humanitarian crisis (World Bank, 2017b).
Importing “virtual water” embedded in cereals and other foods is a form of importing the water and energy
required to grow crops, particularly in industrialized agriculture (Allan, 2011). Food imports are essential for countries like Egypt, which in 2018 had to find foreign exhange sufficient to import 12.5 million metric tons of wheat and
9.3 million metric tons of corn denominated in U.S. dollars. The countries with the largest reliance on imports of virtual water are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Algeria, with large populations and the ability to pay for imports. Only in
Turkey is the water footprint of agricultural production larger than the water footprint of national food consumption,
meaning it does not rely on virutal water imports (Mekonnen & Hoekstra, 2011). For other MENA countries, food
imports will only grow, representing embedded or virtual imports of both water and energy. One of the principal
challenges for many MENA economies thus remains finding nonenergy exports and other means, such as tourism,
for generating foreign exchange.
3.6 | Cities and the water-energy nexus
The MENA is highly urbanized with approximately 66% living in urban areas in 2018. In the GCC states, urbanization
rates are even higher: 84% in Saudi Arabia, 87% in the UAE, and nearly 99% in Qatar, for example. Similarly, 91% of
the population in Jordan lives in urban areas and 89% of the population in Lebanon reside in urban centers. Cairo
remains the most populated city within the MENA, a mega-city with nearly 21 million people.
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The intensive growth of MENA cities is driven by several factors, including rural-to-urban migration, population
increase, and conflict-driven population displacement. Rapid urbanization in the oil-exporting states was driven by the
recycling of oil rents and the large inflows of expatriate labor in all sectors, including construction, banking, education,
and services. Rapid urbanization has placed increasing stress on water and energy resources. As a result, many decisions to invest in large-scale water-energy infrastructure (e.g., conveyance systems or desalination plants) have been
taken to supply urban environments with municipal water for drinking and daily use. The water-energy nexus is particularly evident in the GCC states. Water consumption per capita is relatively high, while municipal networks have high
rates of leakage and limited water recycling or reuse. Energy subsidies for desalination dampen incentives for conservation, recycling, and treatment, while water tariffs are kept artificially low. The reliance on desalination plants makes
the GCC countries particularly vulnerable to climate impacts, natural disasters, and sabotage. As part of diversifying
energy and thus water supply, some GCC states have announced significant investments in solar plants. Dubai is
investing heavily in building a large solar park, the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, with the stated
goal of generating 25% of its energy from clean sources by 2030 and 75% by 2050.
Cities in the MENA have been at the forefront of introducing energy transition strategies in the face of increasing
demand for energy and population growth. Discoveries of new gas deposits have allowed cities such as Istanbul
(Turkey), Cairo (Egypt), and Sfax (Tunisia) to invest in urban natural gas networks; whereas Cairo and Sfax have gas
reserves off their Mediterranean coasts, Turkey instead has positioned itself as an energy hub with a number of gas
pipelines from Central Asia and the Caucuses transiting across the country (Verdeil, Arik, Bolzon, & Markoum, 2015).
Cities in Syria, Yemen, and Libya have borne the brunt of much of the fighting in MENA conflicts over the last
decade. Syrian cities, in particular, have experienced some of the most widespread destruction of water-energy infrastructure (e.g., see Oliphant, 2016). For example, in 2016 government forces targeted water pumping stations in eastern
Aleppo, leaving some 250,000 people without access to water. Militants then retaliated by turning off a pumping station
that supplied water to western Aleppo, leaving about 1.5 million people without water.
4 | WAR A ND THE WATER-ENERGY N EXUS
Before the post-2011 wars, much of the MENA was heralded for making significant improvements in extending water
and energy infrastructures, especially in urban environments. Because many MENA states were middle-income economies, they were at the forefront of making progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This was particularly the case for extending access to improved water and sanitation, despite persistent problems with equity and
water quality (Zawahri, Sowers, & Weinthal, 2011). Yet the protracted wars that engulfed the MENA over the last
decade reversed many development gains in water and energy (FAO/WB, 2018; UNDP, 2013). The effects of war in the
MENA are similar to the costs for human development elsewhere; globally, of the 34 countries furthest from reaching
the MDGs, 22 were in or emerging from conflict.
Prior to the outbreak of war in Syria, the country was ranked as one of the highest MDG performers in the region
for extending access to water and sanitation (UNDP, 2013). The Joint Monitoring Programme of the WHO/UNICEF,
for example, found access to improved water and sanitation was at approximately 90 and 95%, respectively (JMP, 2010).
The ongoing conflict in Syria has decreased access to safe water by 50% (Vidal, 2016). The impacts upon children are
striking; according to the FAO/WB (2018, p. 5), “the mortality rate of children under five due to diarrhoea has increased
threefold since the start of the conflict.” UNDP (2013) found that the conflict in Syria “wiped out a decade of progress”
in eradicating poverty; in 1997, extreme poverty characterized 7.9%, of the population, falling to 0.3% in 2007, but rising
to 7.2% in 2012–2013. The conflict has pushed more than 3 million people into poverty by 2015 (FAO/WB, 2018, p. 5).
The direct and indirect targeting of infrastructure at the water and energy nexus has become a central feature of the
MENA conflicts (Sowers, Weinthal, & Zawahri, 2017; Weinthal & Sowers, 2019). The parties to the conflicts target
infrastructure for various reasons: to displace ethnic and minority populations, punish civilians perceived as supporting
opposing parties, and gain access to essential infrastructures that control daily life and the economy (Sowers
et al., 2017). While targeting infrastructure is not new in the history of warfare (Gleick, 2019a, 2019b), the post-2011
wars in the MENA painfully illustrate the effects of conflict when water and energy infrastructures are tightly linked,
as long-term “reverberating effects” damage human health, productivity, and ecosystems (Zeitoun & Talhami, 2016).
Some parties to these conflicts have sought to weaponize water and energy infrastructure, causing heavy suffering
to civilians. The Turkish incursion into northern Syria, for example, in October/November 2019 has exposed the vulnerability of water-energy nexus infrastructure. Infrastructure essential for water supply, including electricity lines to water
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stations, came under direct attack by Turkish forces, resulting in the shutdown of the Alouk pumping station serving
more than 400,000 persons in and around the city of al-Hasakeh.
The bombing of power plants or sabotaging transmission lines effectively shuts down water pumping stations, water
treatment plants, and sewage treatment plants. When the Israeli Defense Forces bombed the Gaza power plant in conflicts with Hamas in both 2006 and 2014, power supplies in Gaza were cut, affecting water and sewage treatment
(Weinthal & Sowers, 2019). Insufficient electricity supply over long periods of time further compounds de-development
and human insecurity in Gaza. Gaza residents received 5.7 hr of electricity on average per day in 2017, which had
increased to 12 hr per day by 2019. Lack of adequate electricity and targeting of wastewater treatment plants means that
untreated sewage from Gaza infiltrate into the aquifer and flows directly in the Mediterranean; as prevailing currents
push sewage up the coastline, Israel's desalination plants (e.g., in Ashkelon) are ultimately affected, as raw sewage clogs
plant intake filters (Rinat, 2019).
Destruction of water and sanitation systems in Yemen has, moreover, erased tangible but limited gains in providing
water and energy, leaving 14.5 million people without access to safe water. The longstanding blockade imposed upon
Yemen has prevented imports of fuel and chlorine necessary to operate water treatment and sewage treatment plants
and intensified food insecurity, with over 10 million people considered food insecure (FAO/WB, 2018, p. 5). Outbreaks
of cholera, including an outbreak in 2017 that accounted for 84% of all cases worldwide that year, have affected more
than a million people in Yemen. The spread of cholera is directly a product of the collapse of water and sewage systems
and the contamination of water sources.
The agricultural sector is also dependent on electricity and fuel, for pumping stations for irrigation, transportation,
inputs, and market access. Attacks on water/energy infrastructure directly impacts agricultural livelihoods. In Syria,
damage to pumping stations for surface and groundwater irrigation has forced some farmers to abandon their fields or
to cultivate “less nutritious and remunerative crops” (FAO/WB, 2018, p. 26). Using satellite imagery to construct vegetation indices in the Syrian part of Orontes river basin showed that irrigated agricultural output decreased between
15 and 30%, particularly in areas of acute conflict including Idlib, Homs, Hama, Daraa, and Aleppo (Jaafar, Zurayk,
King, Ahmad, & Al-Outa, 2016).
In sum, where large, coupled water-energy infrastructures were built to cope with water scarcity and foster development, recent wars have revealed the precariousness of these systems. Hastening this de-development is the parallel collapse in institutional capacity necessary to manage and maintain infrastructure during and after conflict. Protracted
conflict furthermore precludes rebuilding and reconstruction, especially given the deterioration, age, and designs of
much existing infrastructure (ICRC, 2015). International humanitarian organizations seek to keep essential water and
energy systems functioning through short-term interventions and repairs, but their mandates for emergency relief are
not intended to replace public and private sector service providers.
4.1 | Rethinking water-energy infrastructure in host communities
The wars in the MENA have precipitated unforeseen movements of populations within and across borders to escape
the offensives carried out by regimes and armed groups. In 2016, approximately 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide, a quarter of which were in the MENA region (World Bank, 2017a, p. 4). In 2015, nearly 2.2 million
Yemenis or 8% of the population sought refuge outside of the country. As of 2018, displacements across the MENA continued to grow, including in Libya, where the number of new displacements doubled from the previous year.
About 80–90% of displaced persons in the MENA live in towns and cities, much higher than the global average of
60% (World Bank, 2017a, p. 4). In Jordan, at the end of 2016, 80% of the total refugees were in urban areas and not in
camps; in Lebanon, 100% of the population is in urban areas owing to government policies that forbid refugee camps,
while in Turkey, about 92% of the refugee population was in urban areas (World Bank, 2017a, p. 4).
Thus, cities in neighboring states have had to absorb large numbers of refugee populations from the various conflicts. The rapid growth in host cities has produced additional needs for shelter, water and energy services, and waste
collection. Amman, Jordan, saw its population increase by about 87% over a decade (Obeidat, 2016). Of the roughly 1.3
million Syrians residing in Jordan, nearly half of them live in Amman (Obeidat, 2016). Jordan's water infrastructure
was not designed to meet the rapid influx of refugees, heightening tensions between the refugee population and host
communities (ICRC, 2015; Sweis, 2012). To meet growing demands for electricity and to cope with disruptions of electricity in the summer months in Amman, Jordan has sought to diversify its energy strategy by not only switching from
oil to natural gas, but also by considering renewable and nuclear energy sources (Verdeil, 2014).
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Humanitarian agencies working in the MENA have long recognized that refugees may not be able to return to their
home countries for long periods of time, if ever, and that temporary camps may well morph into permanent settlements. This has been the case, for instance, for Palestinian refugees displaced to Jordan, the West Bank, and Gaza in
1948 and 1967. The Za'atari and Azraq refugee camps in Jordan established for Syrian refugees have already taken on
“urban characteristics such as aspects of urban economies or spatial layouts” (World Bank, 2017a, p. 11). Humanitarian
organizations have thus begun to rethink their approaches to providing access to basic water and energy services in refugee settings, to provide services to host communities as well as refugees, and to provide services using RE sources.
UNHCR, for example, invested in a solar plant to provide electricity for Azraq camp. If and when the camp is
decommissioned, undergirding the camp will be the grid of an urban settlement fueled by solar power.
5 | C ON C L U S I ON
While investments in large-scale infrastructure at the water-energy nexus contributed to fostering development in the
MENA throughout the 20th century, recent conflicts and resource scarcities have also exposed numerous vulnerabilities. Conflict and long-term over-exploitation of water resources and climate change impacts call for rethinking
approaches to infrastructure and the water-energy nexus. Conflict-related targeting of infrastructure in parts of Syria,
Iraq, Yemen, and Gaza has limited development prospects and undermined livelihoods. For MENA countries in conflict, water and energy infrastructure and institutions have become part of the collateral damage of warfare (Troell &
Weinthal, 2014). Reconstruction of these water-energy infrastructures must contend with existing overstrained service
delivery systems that suffer from inadequate repair, maintenance, and investment (World Bank, 2017a, p. 4). Countries
emerging from conflict will need to prioritize the provision of basic services, including access to safe drinking water,
adequate sanitation, and energy.
The challenges of reconstruction vary in terms of how water and energy infrastructures are embedded in broader
political economies. For example, Libya's economy, like that of Iraq, is heavily dependent on revenue from its national
oil and gas industry, which will remain contested by a variety of armed nonstate actors in the absence of a political settlement. Recovery for Syria, as in Iraq, is likely to take decades and will require an intersectoral approach given
coupled, interdependent water and energy systems. Thus, how the conflict-affected countries in the MENA choose to
rebuild their water and energy infrastructure will greatly impact human security and development trajectories. It is
likely that the line between humanitarian action and development assistance will become even more blurred, as the
goal of ensuring basic services will also require addressing water-energy infrastructure needs to support for livelihoods
over the short and medium term (Center on International Cooperation, 2019).
The effects of climate change appear evident across the region. The MENA is facing a hotter, drier future in
which further burning of its oil and gas reserves only worsen global climate impacts. Considering climate resilient
infrastructure will be vital for all MENA countries to cope with increasing water scarcity, including sustainable
forms of water harvesting, and the need for more renewable sources of energy (Verner, 2012). In particular, the dramatic recent declines in costs of solar and wind technologies suggest that most MENA states face political rather
than technical barriers in dramatically increasing their use of RE sources to meet both energy and water needs. In
2015, RE sources accounted for only 6% of total installed power generation across the region, but several countries,
particularly Morocco, but also Saudi Arabia and the UAE, have invested in large solar plants. Tunisia and Morocco
have also begun to make systematic investments in small-scale, decentralized solar systems. With states and big
institutional investors focused on large-scale water/energy infrastructures, the possibilities of rapid dissemination of
localized RE systems for water heating, desalination, and electricity generation need far more support, particularly
for rural, displaced, and informal urban areas where typical levels of urban services have not been provided.
Lastly, the technical expertise needed for conservation measures in both water and energy sectors, as well as reuse
of various forms of wastewater and waste, is not the primary challenge to more efficient resource generation and use in
the MENA. As elsewhere, building the political will to enact significant policy change regarding the water-energy nexus
is the more challenging obstacle. Most notably, governments will need to reassess long-standing policies that encouraged large-scale investments in water and energy infrastructures that primarily supported water-intensive agriculture.
Across the region, consideration of restoring essential ecosystem services and reducing pollution loads will also need to
figure more prominently in decisions regarding infrastructural investments in water and energy.
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A C K N O WL E D G M E N T S
The authors would like to thank Avner Vengosh and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.
A U T H O R C ON T R I B U T I O NS
Erika Weinthal: Conceptualization; data curation; funding acquisition; investigation; methodology; writing-original
draft; writing-review and editing. Jeannie Sowers: Conceptualization; data curation; funding acquisition; investigation; methodology; writing-original draft; writing-review and editing.
ORCID
Erika Weinthal
Jeannie Sowers
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4117-6048
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0940-375X
E N D N O T ES
1
Iran is only a riparian to the Tigris. Jordan and Saudi Arabia are also smaller riparians to the Euphrates basin
(FAO, 2009).
2
https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/18/jordan-s-switch-to-renewable-energy-with-solar-power
3
One of the first dams built prior to the GAP project was the Keban Dam, with construction beginning in 1966 (Adamo,
Al-Ansari, & Sissakian, 2020).
4
Also known as the al-Thawra dam, the filling of the dam in 1973–1975 escalated tensions between Iraq and Syria
(Ward & Ruckstuhl, 2017, p. 57).
5
http://www.water.gov.il/Hebrew/ProfessionalInfoAndData/Allocation-Consumption-and-production/20183/Intro.pdf
6
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/06/21/415795367/israel-bets-on-recycled-water-to-meet-its-growing-thirst
7
https://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/news_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/news+and+events/news/ifc
+helps+deliver+vital+infrastructure+in+morocco
8
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=14431
9
https://www.eia.gov/international/content/analysis/countries_long/Algeria/Algeria_background.pdf
10
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=36172
11
https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTMENA/Resources/App-all-Scarcity.pdf (p. 148).
12
World Bank Development Indicators 2017, https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.AGR.EMPL.ZS?locations=YE
13
https://apps.fas.usda.gov/newgainapi/api/report/downloadreportbyfilename?filename=Grain%20and%20Feed%
20Annual_Cairo_Egypt_3-14-2019.pdf
14
https://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTMENA/Resources/App-all-Scarcity.pdf (p. 144).
15
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS
16
http://wstagcc.org/WSTA-12th-Gulf-Water-Conference/waleed_zubari.pdf
17
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/mbr-solar-park-dubai-desert-intl/index.html
18
See the special issue of the International Review of the Red Cross No. 901 (April 2017) on “War in Cities.” https://
international-review.icrc.org/reviews/irrc-no-901-war-cities
19
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/statement-attributable-hanaa-singer-unicef-representative-syria-attacks-and
20
UNDP (2010). “Armed Violence Threatens Progress on Millennium Development Goals.” Available from http://www.
undp.org/content/undp/en/home/presscenter/pressreleases/2010/05/11/armed-violence-threatens-progress-onmillennium-development-goals.html
21
https://www.icrc.org/en/document/syria-fears-civilian-population-key-water-plant-remains-out-action
22
https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/10/1049761/ and https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Statement
%20Alouk-EN_.pdf
23
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/gaza-strip-early-warning-indicators-october-2019
24
https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/yemen-water-conflict-and-cholera
20491948, 2020, 4, Downloaded from https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wat2.1437 by Boston College, Wiley Online Library on [11/04/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
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25
https://www.icrc.org/en/document/yemen-border-closure-shuts-down-water-sewage-systems-raising-cholera-risk
https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/274654/WER9338.pdf
27
https://www.internal-displacement.org/globalreport2016/pdf/2016-global-report-internal-displacement-IDMC.pdf
28
https://www.internal-displacement.org/sites/default/files/publications/documents/2019-IDMC-GRID.pdf
29
See regarding Azraq, https://ikeafoundation.org/story/renewable-energy-boost-for-azraq-refugee-camp/ and https://
www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/press/2017/5/591c079e4/azraq-worlds-first-refugee-camp-powered-renewable-energy.html
30
www.irena.org/mena
26
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How to cite this article: Weinthal E, Sowers J. The water-energy nexus in the Middle East: Infrastructure,
development, and conflict. WIREs Water. 2020;7:e1437. https://doi.org/10.1002/wat2.1437
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