The Water Issues in the Mediterranean

The Mediterranean region has a supply of renewable water resources distributed in an extremely inhomogeneous way. The shortage of water is focused in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Countries (SEMCs) of the region. In the last fifty years, the aggregate water demand has doubled resulting from demographic pressure and from the development of water intensive activities such as tourism and some manufacturing in sectors such as food, textiles and tanning. Indeed, most of the water is used in the agricultural sector, which presents high rates of inefficiency. The shortage of water has been affected by the impact of climate change (increase of temperatures, variation of precipitations...). Once again, the impacts have different effects in the region: the SEMCs are exposed to desertification, increasing soil aridity and exhaustion of water sources. Meanwhile, the northern shores of the Mediterranean (due to the lack of an efficient soil management policy) appear more vulnerable to the increase of floods and landslides, damage to infrastructures... Climatic change will also alter the marine environment, with an expected rise in sea level modifying several shores of the Mediterranean countries. The most striking effects will be the submersion of land in delta areas (the Nile, Po and Rhone rivers) in the costal zones and in the densely populated cities and suburbs close to the Mediterranean Sea. The less developed economies will be the most affected by the climate change. In order to overcome the consequences of water scarcity and climate change, the aquifers and groundwater seem to be the solution. But some of the most important water projects in the SEMCs focused on fossil water create a sort of "pumping race" between the countries that share common aquifers. These projects escape from any supervisory control by the international community and produce strong environmental and political impacts.The connection between water and security is evident in the entire world (struggle for the control of water resources, destruction of natural resources due to a conflict, environmental refugees...). In the Mediterranean, despite the numerous water sources disputed between different countries, no conflict in the area has been exclusively caused by water, although this natural resource has played a crucial role in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the disputes around the Tigris-Euphrates and the Nile basins. During the 1990s, different Euro-Mediterranean conferences were held in order to share the experience of water management between countries and to implement an efficient and common strategy for water management in order to achieve sustainable growth. The main achievements of this cooperation have been, under the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the Short and Medium-Term Action Programme (SMAP), the Euro-Mediterranean Information System on Know-How in the Water Sector (ENWIS), the long-term Strategy for Water in the Mediterranean (SWM) and recently the De-pollution Programme of the Mediterranean Sea under the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM). Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is based on the conception of water as a resource essential for socioeconomic development and as a key element to contributing to poverty eradication, peacekeeping, progress in human development, gender equity, and the safeguarding of public health within the region. The main objective is the need for a common strategy for water management to ensure sustainable development. The environmental problems troubling the Mediterranean region require a new water strategy able to identify strong links and interactions between the environment and development and to launch long-term planning and governance policies. They should be two-tier strategies, local and global at the same time. I