Development Aspects Impressum Editors

The case of the Mediterranean region

The concern over water in the Mediterranean basin has prominently come to the fore as the region’s economies are now facing major social, economic and environ- mental challenges. With water withdrawal increasing rapidly and exceeding the internally renewable resources, water scarcity and its implications for food security have become a primary concern in most Mediterranean countries, especially those in the south and east which are the most vulnerable to water crisis.

The Mediterranean region hosts a rich mosaic of landscapes and is a hotspot for biodiversity. The countries in the region are characterized by limited water en-

1 The Mediterranean region, as considered here, includes the northern-rim economies of Albania, Bos- nia and Herzegovina, Croatia, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Monaco, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovenia and Spain; and the south-eastern countries of Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Libya, Oc- cupied Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

dowments and climate variability as well as by a significant development of (water- consuming) anthropogenic activities. The region’s water resource challenges are mainly three. First, water is unequally distributed in space and time, within both the region and its national economies. It is relatively abundant in the north, but scarce in the south and east. Second, climatic variability and erratic rainfall pat- terns exacerbate the disparities in resource availability. Future scenarios indicate an increase in temperature of 2° C by 2050, a decrease in precipitation and an increased vulnerability to extreme events such as floods and droughts (Milano and others, 2011). Third, water demand in the region has increased twofold since the second half of the twentieth century, reaching 280 km³ per year in 2000 (Plan Bleu, 2006), and is expected to continue to grow as a result of population growth, dietary changes towards a higher intake of animal-derived calories, the expansion of irrigated land and urban areas, and economic development (Plan Bleu, 2005). The bulk of the (eastern and southern) economies in the region are already experi- encing a major water deficit.2 Water extractions currently exceed the limit thresh- old of renewable resources in many southern and eastern countries, and under a “business-as-usual” scenario this proportion might reach 75 per cent by 2025 (Plan Bleu, 2006).

Industrial activities are mainly concentrated in the north of the region and they contribute significantly to increasing the pressure on the resource base, both directly and indirectly. Direct impacts involve pollution and contamination of water resources at the site level; indirect impacts relate to site-specific effects affecting industrial complexes in a number of hotspots throughout the region (Ganoulis, 2007). The regional water stress is also magnified further by the rapid increase in water demand by urban agglomerations, which requires more water to be diverted from agriculture. The region-wide overall urbanization rate amounted to 64.1 per cent in 2000 and is projected to reach 72.2 per cent by 2025; a major share of urban population growth is concentrated in the southern-rim countries (Plan Bleu, 2004). As a result, urban population is expected to reach 520–570 million in 2030, 600 million in 2050 and 700 million at the end of the twenty-first century (Plan Bleu, 2006). Additional pressure on water resources also arises from tourism, which concentrates in urban agglomerations and peaks in the summer season. High num- bers of tourists bring about significant increases in water consumption, as a result of the additional demand for water from tourism services and leisure activities. Moreover, it is in the summer months that the competition for water grows more intense, as natural water recharge and availability is at its lowest level but the de- mand from both tourism and irrigated agriculture peaks.
Agriculture is by far the most intense water user in the region. The region- wide average of agricultural water withdrawal is approximately 65 per cent, with significant variations between the northern, eastern and southern-rim economies, where agricultural water use accounts, respectively, for 45 per cent, 78 per cent and 83 per cent of total abstractions (Plan Bleu, 2007 in Plan Bleu, 2010). Accord-

2 We use the term “water deficit” here as it is commonly used in water research, namely by comparing es- timates of “sustainable” water supply with estimates of water demand, which are obtained by applying reference standards to human and industrial consumption. This contrasts with the economic approach, where both supply and demand are seen as functions of price or cost, not as single values.

ing to FAO (2000), irrigated surfaces are also likely to increase substantially – by 38 per cent in the south and 58 per cent in the east in 2030 – and if present trends persist, this will result in further pressure on the resource base. Irrigated areas are also expected to continue to expand in the future from nearly 260 million hectares in 1995 to 330 million hectares in 2025 (Shiklomanov, 1999). The region’s agri- cultural policy has affected water consumption for irrigated agriculture to a large extent. In many Mediterranean-rim countries, irrigation water is indeed provided at low or zero cost, funded by public subsidies to farmers. As a consequence, the region has experienced a continuous expansion of irrigated areas, overexploitation of both renewable and non-renewable water and suboptimal allocation of avail- able resources (Chohin-Kuper, Rieu and Montginoul, 2003). Moreover, agriculture is probably the least efficient water-consuming sector in the region: average losses in irrigation water systems account for 55 per cent of total water losses (FAO, 2000). Addressing the issue of water management in irrigated agriculture is funda- mental to avoid the impairment of the region’s water resource base and irreversible degradation of soil. Improved water management could bring about considerable water savings – about 86 km³ per year in 2025 – where the potential for water savings in agriculture accounts for 65 per cent of total water savings in the region (Plan Bleu, 2006).

The reasons why the Mediterranean’s water-related challenges are particularly urgent mainly stem from current water resources planning and management, or rather the lack thereof. The Mediterranean countries’ agricultural water policy and the failure to convey signals of the relative scarcity of the resource have resulted in highly subsidized irrigated-agricultural production and a suboptimal utilization of water resources both within and between sectors. This has generated, in turn, water resource overexploitation, salinization and land degradation. Decisions con- cerning water policy reforms and reallocation between sectors have proved to be politically challenging in the region. The tendency to procrastinate over sound policy reforms in the water sector is a common feature of the southern and east- ern countries in the Mediterranean. Large-scale (blue) water mobilization projects have been preferred to politically hazardous reforms and the “import” of virtual water has provided policymakers with a “silent, cheap, (and) politically non-stress- ful solution” to local water resource deficits (Allan and Olmsted, 2003, p. 65).
The hydraulic mission⁴, however, has shown both its economic and environ- mental costs, and this has raised the need for a new approach towards water re- sources planning and management. In the next section, it will be argued that acting on the demand side of water management is the most viable avenue for preserving (or re-establishing) the balance between limited resource supplies and burgeoning demands. The study maintains that there is much scope for aligning individual and collective interests, by (i) means of the introduction of market-mediated signals

3. 
   “Blue” water is the water existing in surface water flows and aquifers, as opposed to “green” (soil) water in the unsaturated zone.
   
4. 
   The concept of hydraulic mission refers to water resources management aimed at increasing water sup- ply through large-scale infrastructure, such as such as dams, irrigation schemes and groundwater extrac- tion projects.
   

that reflect relative water resource scarcity, and (ii) for pursuing new public and private investments towards the maximization of water resource use efficiency.

3.