Document(s) 2 of 12

Introduction

Current trends indicate an approaching water crisis in several regions, most notably the Middle East and North Africa, but also in an increasingly large number of countries worldwide. In the near future, the main constraint to agricultural development of arid and semi-arid land in the Mediterranean will be the availability of water, rather than land. Most countries in the region with erratic rainfall patterns have already developed or are developing many of their economically usable available water sources. Without efficient control and proper water management, most of those countries will find that self-sufficiency in food and energy remains a mirage.
          Although the physical availability of water to each country remains constant, the demand for it will increase steadily for the foreseeable future. The major challenge facing water planners and managers at the end of 20th century will be to balance demand and supply of water under these difficult conditions.
          An efficient and environmentally sound management of the available water resources in each country is really the only solution. The region needs feasible and realistic water management strategies to deal with the following issues:
 

	Safeguarding water to meet basic needs for various uses;
	Minimizing water losses;
	Allocating scarce water for socioeconomic development; and
	Protecting the environment from degradation and loss of productive capacity.

At the moment, the policies, institutions and planning procedures in place to manage water are not well suited to these tasks. A flurry of international activity in recent years has called attention to the problem of water scarcity and the need for action to solve it. Agenda 21, the global action plan that emerged from the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, and the World Bank’s 1993 water-resources policy paper put forth helpful guiding principles and spawned a variety of national studies.
          The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development requested a global freshwater assessment, which is now under way, and the study team reported to the United Nations General Assembly in 1997. Most nations have not realistically assessed how limited water supplies will affect their food production and economic prospects. They need to set priorities and make trade-offs.
          One of the lessons learned over the past decade is that technical solutions alone cannot provide the increasing population of the region with safe water supply and proper environmental sanitation. The region needs to integrate the technical, institutional, managerial, social, and economic aspects of water-resources management. The new approach for sustainable water supply and sanitation depends on local involvement, solutions, and knowledge within an overall framework of water and natural resources planning.
The future requires new mechanisms to protect the region’s water resources and allocate diminishing supplies for increasing and competing uses. Anticipatory and preventive approaches would help in managing the quality and quantity of water in arid regions while acknowledging its social, economic, and environmental aspects.
          The Mediterranean needs a new ethic, one that promotes efficiency and protection of the water system in everything people do. Efficiency must be the option of first choice. Part of that ethic would be to accept the obligations accompanying the right to water, obligations to protect its many ecological functions, get as much as possible out of each litre we take of it from its natural course, and help others to receive its benefits.

The Mediterranean water crisis

This section reviews the most important of the many interrelated factors contributing to the Mediterranean water crisis.

Limited information on water resources

A basic problem in the Mediterranean and in many regions of the world is inadequate knowledge of both the resources and the demand for water. It is thus essential to know not only the average values but also the spatial and temporal distributions of stochastic variables controlling the supply of water in the region.
          Collection, processing, and analysis of good-quality data on the quantity and quality of surface water and groundwater resources are vital in planning to meet water demands. The quantities of water available to communities in dry lands and the safe output from the aquifers are key factors in long-term sustainable development and the war on desertification. Equally important is information on water, particularly data on water abstraction and consumption for various purposes, as well as data on wastewater discharge. Researchers must intensify their efforts to gather, organize appropriately, and disseminate fundamental water data.
          Data management is a main issue and the essential one in reliably predicting water supplies and formulating allocation strategies.

Population trends and explosive urban growth

The total population of Mediterranean countries is around 360 million (Figure 1), but will reach between 520 and 570 million in 2025. The difference between the two numbers is equivalent to the current combined population of Egypt and Turkey. Countries north of the Mediterranean basin, from Spain to Greece, will account for only about one-third of the total population in 2025, compared with two-thirds in 1950 and about one-half today. In contrast, the countries south and east of the basin, from Morocco to Turkey, will comprise nearly two-thirds of the total basin population in 2025, that is, twice their current number and nearly five times that in 1950. 

Figure 1. Population growth in the southern Mediterranean countries, 1990–2050. Source: UN–PD (1994).           The rate of this high population growth is an average of 3% yearly in southern countries, and this alone can be expected to increase the total water requirements. However, past experience indicates that per capita water requirements also increases with standards of living.           Rapid population growth is always linked to fast urbanization (Figure 2). Urban growth will be explosive in the southern and eastern countries, where it has been, on average, five times faster than in 19th-century Europe. Growth rate is not the only factor to consider. Urban populations will be very large: 200 million more inhabitants in 2025 in the areas south and east of the basin, that is, as much as the total urban population of the Mediterranean region at present. The urban population of the Mediterranean basin could, in fact, number between 380 and 440 million, compared with a little more than 200 million today. Although the annual growth rate of urbanization is high in the Mediterranean region in general, it is much higher in the south of the region (4.5%) than in the north (2.8%).

Figure 2. Urbanization growth in the Mediterranean, 1985–2025. Source: Grenon and Batisse (1989).           Under such conditions, southern and eastern Mediterranean countries will find it difficult to be self-sufficient in meeting their needs for agricultural, domestic, and industrial water. One of the most critical challenges will be to supply drinking water to urban areas. Water scarcity Water scarcity will be the main problem for future generations and have effects in many parts of the world. Water scarcity is a great threat to the global sustainability of the water supply and potentially to world peace and development. The scarcity will affect mostly the poor (especially women and children) and will undermine the economic, social, and environmental foundations of many developing countries. Water scarcity leads to the deterioration of water quality. And usable freshwater resources are finite, adding to the fragility of the global system.           In the southern arid and semi-arid countries of the Mediterranean, water is scarce, often of poor quality, and vulnerable to pollution, sometimes a nonrenewable resource, and harmful to the soil. Flooding can have devastating effects in these countries.           Countries in the Mediterranean as a whole use 72% of their water resources for irrigation, 10% for drinking, and 16% for industry. But northern Mediterranean countries make completely different uses of water than in the south (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Water use in Mediterranean countries.  Source: Elaboration on LAMBED World Resource Institute data, 1985 (WRI–IIED 1985). Other pressures on demand further complicate the overall picture. Summer tourism on the coast can double or triple water use and lead to crisis situations. Another important factor is the presence of industries that are large consumers of water (for example, power stations and pulp factories). The development of urban centres around the basin means that the water supply can break down when drought persists. Per capita availability of water (Figure 4) is the true measure of water scarcity in the region.

Figure 4. Available fresh water per capita in southern Mediterranean countries, 1990–2050. Note: 1700 m3 = periodic water stress; 1000 m3 = chronic watere stress; 500 m3 = absolute water stress. Source: UN–PD (1994).  Mismanagement of water resources Despite differences between the arid and semi-arid Mediterranean countries in their societies, political systems, cultures, and economies, they are similar in many ways, such as the following:   Poor management practices, inefficient water use, and failure to place a high economic value on water, which result in resource degradation from water logging, soil and water salinization, and pollution of aquifers; Few incentives for water conservation in agriculture and numerous disincentives;   Irrigation developing faster than water-source mobilization (population growth and increasing demand for water for other uses are leading to rapid mining of aquifers, water shortages, competition, and conflict); and Questionable outlook for developing new water supplies to meet increasing demands, given limited financial resources, escalating construction costs, and rising environmental opposition. Average losses of irrigation water in the Mediterranean are extremely high (55%), and they are distributed among farm distribution (15%), field application (25%), and irrigation-system losses (15%). Only about 45% of water diverted or extracted for irrigation actually reaches the crops. Losses vary widely, with those from the conveyance system varying between 5 and 50%.           Such low efficiencies in agricultural water use and the unsatisfactory features of irrigated agriculture in the region’s developing countries are undoubtedly the result of the mismanagement of the water resource. Water-policy overlaps A major institutional constraint in all developed and developing countries is the sectorial approach to water development. This has an important bearing on the projects sustainability. Water-resources management is typically divided among a number of governmental sectors. This means that water policies are not the exclusive domain of a water-resources sector but overlap with other sectorial policies, as illustrated in Figure 5. In addition, national macroeconomic policies on finance, budgets, and trade can have important impacts on water-resources management.

Figure 5. Water-policy overlaps. Source: Hamdy and Lacirignola (1999).           To formulate and set up an overall national water policy, countries in the region will need to analyze the links between water and other economic sectors, including agriculture, industry, transport, energy, and health, and this will entail having policies on   Water-resources sector as a whole; Specific water-resources subsectors, such as potable water and irrigation; and Other sectors affecting water resources, such as energy. Structural imbalance Strongly evident over the next few decades will be the structural imbalance between a constantly increasing demand for water and the naturally available water resources (Figure6).

Figure 6. Water-resources dilemma in the Mediterranean region. Source: Hamdy and Lacirignola (1999).           Over the last few decades, the imbalance only affected a few countries, and the gradual additional harnessing of natural resources wrongly thought of as being infinite, met the requirements. The room to manoeuvre is progressively contracting, and fewer and fewer of these resources will be available in the future.           In several Mediterranean countries, an imbalance will have started to appear around 2000. The water demands of southern Mediterranean countries will have fast approached resource limits, and the majority of these countries may have entered into a period of chronic shortage during the 1990s. These countries will be facing several similar problems, outlined as follows: Declining water resources per inhabitant, both in terms of availability and withdrawals (available water per capita will fall by nearly 50%); Exploitation of water at a fairly high rate, with the risk of water-quality deterioration; Excessive reduction in water withdrawals per capita will significantly impact water use, creating notable competition and conflict between users in various sectors, especially in the irrigation and domestic sectors (countries will give priority to satisfying the demand for drinking water over that for irrigation and see less irrigated land and more land degradation, as a result); and Progressive degradation in the quality of available water resources, owing to increasing discharge of waste into water bodies and the atmosphere. This context of structural imbalance suggests the question of whether we need a new management approach to overcome conflicts between water users and attain sustainable sectorial water use? One can easily answer this question through an analysis of the management approaches in the developing countries of the region.           Those approaches are physically, economically, or environmentally unsuitable:   Water misallocation occurs, with low-value uses consuming a significant share of the resource and high-value uses suffering shortages; Water quality is left unmonitored, leading to inappropriate use of low-quality water; Water and sewage services are inadequate, especially for the poor; and Costs of new water development are mounting. The region cannot resolve these issues using the current fragmented approach. The dilemma to sustainably produce more with less water, points to the need for water-demand management. This should review water uses and the various tools to promote more desirable levels and patterns of use. It should incorporate aspects of conservation and efficient use, essential to achieving a reasonable balance between demand and supply.           Countries in the region should concentrate water-demand management on the agricultural sector, as irrigation takes the highest share (80%) of water use, and the agricultural sector could supply most of the water savings needed to meet the growing water demand in the municipal and industrial sectors. Water-demand management of irrigated agriculture would be the bedrock of sustainable water use in the region. Issues in water-demand management Water problems and management The problem of water resources and efficient management is at the heart of the common concerns of the Mediterranean countries, today.           Chapter XVIII of Agenda MED 21, the Mediterranean version of Agenda 21 adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, emphasizes that all Mediterranean countries should have prospective studies, “to anticipate medium and long-term development in countries already facing sharp water shortages and recommended solutions likely to reduce their effects” (United Nations 1992, p. 170). Mediterranean Action Plan phase II, by broadening its objectives within the framework of the revised Barcelona Convention, adopted in 1995, included among its priorities the management of water resources for sustainable use.           The creation of the Mediterranean Commission on Sustainable Development (MCSD), in 1996, underlined the political determination of the region’s governments, the European Union, and various public and private partners to develop regional and subregional cooperation. These actors are the most appropriate to promote the incorporation of environmental concerns into development policies.           Water management becomes the core of sustainable development after water extraction reaches about the same level as resources, and MCSD rightly included water-demand management as one of its short-term priorities for 1997.           Attenuation or adaptation of water demand can help supply meet demand to a large extent. The awareness of this fact makes water-demand management a very topical issue, and the following therefore briefly summarizes the objectives, methods, and means of adoption of water-demand management. Objectives Water-demand management has four major goals:   Conserving rare or costly resources;                                                         Minimizing the cost and effort of providing water; Limiting disputes over use; and Making the best use of water. Water-demand management thus seeks to reduce both nonuse of available water and its misuse, such as through system defects (loss, leaks, lack of efficiency), unnecessary or superfluous use, excessive use of high-quality water where lower quality water would suffice, badly chosen use and reuse, defects downstream of use. Objectives of water-demand management are therefore as follows:   To reduce demand or, at least, slow down its increase; To safeguard future generations’ right to water; To ensure equitable water distribution; To alter factors governing water requirements and adapt the sectoral structure of water use to promote the most effective use; To maximize the socioeconomic output of the unit volume of water and thereby increase water-use efficiency; and To coordinate and maximize multiple uses of the same water. Methods To achieve these objectives, the region must take action on three levels:   Water conservation (which is the responsibility of agents, distributors, and users); Organization of collective water use to promote, in particular, sequential use (reuse); and Allocation of resources among sectors (according to socioeconomic and political criteria). The demand-oriented measures include an array of instruments, technical (water conservation, cropping), economic (subsidies, tax and price policy, water tariffs), administrative (licences, regulations, policing, capacity-building), legal (water law, water rights, fines), operational, and political. They will be different for each country, depending on its physical characteristics, administrative system, and cultural environment.           Although these instruments will all have the same purpose, strategies will vary greatly, according to each country’s situation and expected future development. The choice of solution and implementation of management tools will depend to a large extent on the major types of defect, level of imbalance between supply and demand, and the socioeconomic situation of each country. Why water-demand management for irrigated agriculture? Countries of the region that irrigated agriculture will first and disproportionably be affected by increasing water scarcity and growing demand from other sectors. Agriculture will indeed have to compete with higher value uses if market mechanisms have free play. The World Bank concluded that the high opportunity cost of water and the lack of economic opportunities to increase supply on a large scale will result in agriculture releasing freshwater resources to other sectors over the long term. Most of the water savings needed to meet growing municipal and industrial water demand would have to come from the agricultural sector, not only because irrigation takes the highest share of total water but also because it has considerable potential for efficiency improvement. In typical traditional irrigation schemes, as little as 30% of applied water may be used for crop evapotranspiration. Modern schemes — and there are examples of this within the region — can achieve project efficiencies of about 65%. Assuming a typical situation, where 80% of total water use goes to agriculture, a 10% increase in the efficiency of irrigation would provide 50% more water for municipal and industrial use. This is a good illustration of the potential for water savings in agriculture and helps to explain the need to press for it.           Contrary to much of what is said in the popular literature, agriculture will not necessarily die if it receives less water. Microirrigation, for instance, can save about 30–50% of water on the farm and, together with better agronomic and culture practices, can double or treble yields per unit of water. Modernizing agriculture can stimulate an array of associated economic activities, such as agroprocessing and manufacturing of irrigation pipes and equipment. Much of this activity would occur in the private sector, which often has the needed access to international expertise and technology. Guiding principles of agricultural water-demand management Agricultural water-demand management relies on more efficient use of water, changes in agricultural production practices, and reduction of waste.           Adequate water-demand management in the agriculture sector requires structural incentives, regulations, and restrictions to help, guide, influence, and coordinate farmers’ efforts in making efficient use of water and encourage their adoption of innovative water-saving technologies.           Agricultural water-demand management should have the achievement of the following as its guiding principles: Interaction of the quantitative, qualitative, and biological aspects of both ground- and surface water; Sustainability of irrigation and drainage schemes; Better water savings and reduced irrigation losses; Environmental sustainability; Improved economic return on irrigation; Institutional and human-resources capacity-building for the execution of management tasks; and Certain aspects of implementation, such as financing, monitoring, and control; farmer’s participation; consideration of social and cultural issues; and technical facets of water use. To achieve efficiency and equity, a program of agricultural water-demand management would require development particularly in the following aspects:   Economic incentives; and  Irrigation efficiencies and water conservation. Economic incentives for improving irrigation water-demand management WATER PRICING AND COST RECOVERY — Economic incentives based on cost recovery of irrigation water supply may play a major role in encouraging farmers to save irrigation water. In the southern Mediterranean countries, irrigation water is either free or costs less than the full cost of providing irrigation services. Most irrigation projects are subsidized to support agricultural production. But recent budget constraints and increasing water scarcity and demand have led some countries to reduce such subsidies to make irrigation schemes responsible for generating enough revenue for their operation and maintenance (O&M), reduce the burden on the government budget, and create incentives for farmers to invest in water-saving irrigation technologies and move away from crops with high water requirements.           Irrigation charges are a very important prerequisite to good management because current irrigation management practices allow widespread misuse of water in agriculture, despite water shortages. This has been mainly due to a failure to recognize the economic value of water and the real cost of water services. Therefore, many economists now believe that managing water as an economic good is important to achieving efficient and equitable use of water, as well as to encouraging the conservation and protection of scarce water resources. Yet, many states in the region find it difficult to reconcile this concept of water with the traditional idea of it as a basic necessity to which everyone should have the right of free access. WATER-PRICING CONCEPT AND CRITERIA — Water pricing is a sensitive issue, but could be an effective instrument, if properly understood and applied. Principle 4 of the Dublin Conference states that “Water has an economic value in all its competing uses and should be recognized as an economic good” (ICWE 1992, p. 4).           The true economic value of water comprises two components, namely, the value of the resource per se, as a utility or input to production, and the cost of service, meaning the cost of development and supply. Water-pricing policy analysis should take these components into consideration. However, the price to the consumer need not include the full cost, depending on social, political, and cultural considerations.           The fundamental role of water pricing is to help determine the allocation of a limited resource between competing uses and users, implying both efficiency and equity objectives. In practice, market forces seldom set prices for agricultural or rural water supply, which is usually the task of a public utility or regulated private water company. Whether based on a flat rate, marginal costs, average costs, or the ability to pay, each charging system has implications for allocative efficiency, equity, and fairness in apportioning costs. The following considerations for arid and semi-arid countries of the Mediterranean are the most obvious reasons for thinking irrigation-water pricing an important issue and could affect our understanding of it (Biswas 1991):   Water allocation between competing uses; Water conservation; Generation of additional revenue to operate systems and repay investment costs; Cropping patterns; Income distribution; Efficiency of water management; and Overall environmental impacts. Although water pricing will unquestionably be an important policy instrument in the 21st century, the criteria for setting prices are still a major issue. Should the beneficiaries pay the O&M costs of the water system? Or are they expected to pay total investment costs as well? Should such pricing include external costs, such as environmental and social damages? If so, how should these costs be calculated? We will have to find answers to these difficult issues.           Local governments are under pressure to implement cost-sharing schemes to expand irrigation. Conflicts are already occurring between government and private sector in agriculture. Decisions based on insufficient information and background may produce negative impacts, the opposite of those needed to increase water efficiency and productivity. Policy- and decision-makers must improve their understanding of the characteristics and motivations of the human components of the irrigation system.           A number of factors should influence the selection of pricing mechanisms for the various countries of the region, such as sectorial use, levels of subsidies, irrigation-water conservation, ability to pay, and rural social welfare. The dual objectives of generating income and encouraging efficient use of irrigation water through cost recovery would inevitably require innovative approaches and strong farmer participation. Irrigation efficiencies and water conservation Water conservation and efficient water use have not received the attention they deserve in many parts of the Mediterranean. However, as agriculture is by far the largest water user, efficient irrigation management will undoubtedly be a major conservation option in the future.           At present, it is fairly common to find that more than half of the water drawn from a resource never reaches the field. In general, only about 25–30% of the water diverted into large canal systems in developing countries actually becomes available to the crop, an efficiency of less than 40%.           One of the factors contributing to such inefficient water use is the emphasis on constructing new supply facilities, rather than improving the efficiency of existing ones. Countries in the region may pursue opportunities to improve irrigation water-demand management through better farm water management systems, which should include reducing distribution losses, changing cropping patterns, improving scheduling, and adopting more efficient technologies.           The major causes of the current low irrigation efficiencies are factors such as leakage, percolation, and evaporation. Very often these factors are due to deterioration resulting from inadequate maintenance of the irrigation network. In such cases, rehabilitation might be the most technically and economically feasible alternative. O&M of facilities should be made adequate in irrigation projects.           The region needs to find appropriate means to achieve greater efficiency and equity in irrigation systems, as this would help not only to achieve greater levels of agricultural production with less water but also to solve some of the Mediterranean region’s major environmental problems: water logging and salinity, declining groundwater tables, and shrinking lakes and seas. But finding such methods would require developing, testing, and implementing a wider range of alternative approaches, such as small-scale irrigation and conjunctive use and reuse of unconventional water resources (Chambers 1988). This would require much greater imagination and flexibility from irrigation policymakers, managers, and planners and require technological, managerial, and policy innovation and adaptation. In particular, it would require technologies, management practices, and policies that give greater control to end users to achieve the required increases in agriculture productivity. Improvement of irrigation systems In developing countries of the Mediterranean, the major physical and technical problems and constraints in irrigation systems are as follows:   Inefficient water use;  Shortage of water supply at the source; Poor canal regulation; Waterlogging and salinity; Poor O&M; Small-scale programs; and Scarce water resources. Such problems and constraints require a set of common supporting actions:   Development of adequate databases;  Adaptive research; Institution-strengthening; Human-resource development; Improvements in socioeconomic analysis; Environmental protection; Technology transfer; and Infrastructure development.           In many cases, problems with technologies have been accumulating for a long time and their adverse impacts on system performance have increased because of nonexisting or ineffective solutions and neglect of maintenance.           O&M is one of the most underestimated aspects of irrigation projects in developing countries. As a result, the efficiency of projects continues to decline; in crisis situations, problems become too complex for technical resolution, and it turns out regular maintenance would have cost less than solving these problems. Use of efficient irrigation technologies In the majority of southern Mediterranean countries, any action aimed at economy in the use of water will have an important impact on preventing the destruction of basic development structures.           More effort should be made to introduce modern irrigation techniques into the region, which still makes very limited use of these techniques. Egypt uses modern farm irrigation methods (sprinkler and drip) on more than 27% of its irrigated land; Morocco, some 16%; and Tunisia and Syria, only 11 and 1%.           The major constraints to the expansion of such technologies are mainly the high operating costs, particularly the energy costs. Another major constraint is the lack of appropriate maintenance services for modern irrigation equipment. So far, few countries have reached a reasonable level of self-sufficiency in production of modern irrigation equipment. Locally made irrigation components are sometimes of poor quality, owing to a lack of expertise, low-quality materials, and lack of coordination between research institutions and industries. Irrigation equipment manufacturing in some Arab countries is too weak to provide adequate supplies for the development of modern irrigation systems.           Countries in the region need to carefully select and adapt modern irrigation techniques to local physical, agronomic, and socioeconomic conditions and the technical and managerial skills of local farmers. Upgrading existing irrigation schemes should, in most cases, follow pilot schemes to test alternative design concepts. Costly improved technologies are only justifiable if farmers can fully exploit the agronomic and economic potential of these technologies. Water optimization: crop water requirements and irrigation scheduling Research to optimize water application to various crops on diverse soil types, irrigation systems, and climatic conditions should continue to provide better knowledge on soil–water–plant relationships, and the concept of an optimal water supply. A priority in research should be to develop the management of irrigated crops to cope with droughts. In addition, researchers should consider the link between crop water requirements and the reliability of irrigation schemes. Reallocation of irrigation water supply to crops with higher value and lower water consumption Crop rotation is essential to irrigation water-demand management. Farmers should use crops with higher value and lower water consumption.           In most Mediterranean countries, national policies to achieve food self-sufficiency influence allocations of irrigation water heavily. As a result, the current cropping patterns contribute to the consumption of large amounts of water at a time when countries seek greater water savings and are economizing on the use of irrigation water to avoid the foreseeable conflicts between users.           For instance, cereals — especially rice and sugar cane — dominate agricultural production in Egypt and receive 25–30% of its irrigation water. Free water supplied in Egypt makes these crops profitable to farmers. Wheat is also a major crop in the region, accounting for 35% of Morocco’s total agricultural production. Where cropping patterns lead to greater use of irrigation water, consideration should be given measuring the cost of water allocated to crop production.           The Mediterranean region needs new strategies to change cropping patterns to suit future water allocation. Such strategies should take the availability of water supply into consideration and use economic reforms and structural adjustments, including private-sector development, privatization, and trade and price liberalization. Countries in the region should also focus on lifting controls on agricultural crop patterns and shifting production to more profitable crops. Irrigated water-use perspectives Over the next 25 years, the region will have to divert sustainable quantities of freshwater from agriculture to industry and households. Irrigated agriculture will face two challenges, those of water shortage and dwindling financial resources. Despite these challenges, irrigated agriculture will have to supply not only the water demands of the other sectors but also 70–75% of additional food-grain requirements of developing countries in the region. This will be impossible without water-demand management in all sectors and the agricultural sector in particular. The region will need to find appropriate ways to achieve greater efficiency, better savings in water losses, and an equitable distribution of irrigation water. This will require developing, testing, and implementing a wider range of alternative approaches and greater imagination and flexibility from irrigation policymakers, managers, and planners. They will need to improve procedures and practices for assessing irrigation performance at all levels with better systems to manage the conveyance, allocation, and distribution of water. Means of adoption As an integral part of water management, the adoption of water-demand management involves the following steps: Formulating and evaluating demand reduction approaches and strategies as complements to, or substitutes for, supply augmentation projects; Using water pricing as a tool for demand management, including volumetric pricing of supply or waste water, on the basis of marginal supply or disposal costs, along with increasing block rates; Using efficient technical means to reduce urban water use and conveyances losses in the supply system, including changes in plumbing codes to require water-saving plumbing fixtures, programs of leak detection and control, and sustained maintenance; Recycling and other technical means to reduce withdrawal rates of water for industry, especially for cooling purposes; Using technical means to reduce the use of irrigation water, including drip and sprinkler irrigation, land-leveling and canal-lining, along with institutional means such as modifying water-rights systems to encourage efficient use; and Use of lower grade water for certain domestic, commercial, industrial, and agricultural purposes, which often involves installing dual-water supply systems. Water-demand perspectives Figure 7 shows water demand in the region for 1990, 2010, and 2025. Water demand will clearly increase progressively over the next 25 years. Globally, for the whole Mediterranean region, water demand will increase nearly 50% in 2025 over actual demand in 1990.

Figure 7. Actual (1990) and foreseen water demand (2010 and 2025). Source: Hamdy and Lacirignola (1999).           The question emerging nowadays is how to meet this ample water demand at a time when pressures on resources are increasing and it is becoming increasingly expensive to mobilize these resources. Before answering this question, one should first wonder about the efficiency of current water use. Sectorial water losses Overall, the majority of Mediterranean countries appear to make poor or little use of much of their water. Even where water is scarce, the efficiency of the use of drinking and irrigation water is far from satisfactory.           The following is an outline of the major water losses and inefficiencies in the various sectors (also see Figure 8): Drinking water sector — At least one-third of the drinking water for towns and villages leaks out through the network or wasteful misuse, thus wasting billions of dollars each year. Industry sector — Many industries use and lower the quality of water far in excess of their needs. Here again, one sees defects in recycling, leakage, loss, and inefficient production processes. Irrigation sector — Almost half of the water supplied for irrigation never actually gets to the field. This is due to leakage, badly adjusted modes of supply, low efficiency, and excessive consumer orientation of crops.

Figure 8. Actual losses of water per sector. Source: Hamdy and Lacirignola (1999).           Relevant to the specific situation of the Mediterranean is the general statement of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in its annual report on world nutrition and agriculture (FAO 1993), that waste accounts for up to 60% of water drawn and pumped for irrigation.           Actual water losses, that is, inefficiencies per sector for the Mediterranean (Figure 8), occur mainly in the irrigation sector, where actual water losses approach 115 km3/year, or nearly 88% of the total water losses. Water-demand management and sectorial water savings The way to water savings and reuse, whenever possible, is still open. Mediterranean countries could save and use a high proportion of the major water losses in the various water sectors through the use of technologies and methods available today.           However, water conservation efforts almost show decreasing profitability and increasing cost. Planners need to estimate exactly how much unused water the region could save and how much this would cost. They need to quantify the gains expected from reducing losses in the production and distribution system, as well as consumers’ waste, and from modifying the exploitation system, especially in the agricultural sector.           The majority of the Mediterranean countries have great opportunities to save and reuse significant volumes of water through better use of the technical and economic tools and the institutional and human-resource capacities they already have. Countries in the region could reduce losses and leaks to save at least 50% of drinking water; and through recycling, industry could reduce its water consumption by nearly 50%. Although both the drinking and industrial sectors could thus save water, the greatest savings would be in the irrigation sector (Figure 9).

Figure 9. Possible water savings by sector with reference to the current water demand. Source: Hamdy and Lacirignola (1999).           Southern Mediterranean countries, which allocate more than 80% of their water resources to agriculture, should strive to increase the efficiency of irrigation, as the opportunity to save water is notably higher there than in other sectors.           For instance, reducing transport losses by 50% and improving irrigation efficiency from 40–50% to 80% could provide savings of nearly 52 km3/year, or more than 40% of total actual water losses in the region, and thus provide an additional supply of nearly 20% of the actual demand. Possible savings in irrigation constitute more than 70% of total water savings.           Although the drinking-water sector’s contribution to total water savings would be the lowest among all the sectors (Figure 9) it would be of greatest value, owing to the higher cost of producing and distributing drinking water.           These figures are only indicative, but they help to quantify the potential gains in each water sector. Water sectorial use should be the subject of feasibility studies in each country in the region, according to its socioeconomic and political situation.           Particularly in the arid and semi-arid regions, the whole water-resources situation in the Mediterranean — nowadays dramatic and complex — could change completely, showing a new, more promising picture, with more available water, less water loss and misuse, and smaller foreseen demand (Figure 10). However, to bring its water demand into line with its natural renewable water resources, the Mediterranean region must integrate the technical, social, and economic aspects of its water resources into an overall demand management strategy.

Figure 10. Summary of the situation (assuming the possible savings), 1990. Source: Hamdy and Lacirignola (1999).           We must go beyond the symptoms to the causes of the problems and take new approaches to meet changing realities. We need new mechanisms to protect the resource and allocate diminishing water supplies to increasing and competing uses. Anticipatory and preventive approaches are therefore needed that fully consider the social, economic, and environmental aspects of the water resource. References Biswas, A.K. 1991. Water for sustainable development in the 21st century: a global perspective. Water International, 16, 219–224. Chambers, R. 1988. Managing canal irrigation: practical analysis from South Asia. Oxford University Press; NISH Publishing Company Private Ltd, New Delhi, India. FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations). 1994. Water for life. FAO, Rome. Grenon, M.; Batisse, M., ed. 1989. The blue plan. Future for the Mediterranean basin. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. Hamdy, A.; Lacirignola, C. 1999. Mediterranean water resources: major challenges towards the 21st century. Centre International de Hautes Études Agronomiques Méditerranéennes; Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Bari, Bari, Italy. ICWE (International Conference on Water and Environment). 1992. The Dublin statement and report on the conference, 26–31 January 1992, Dublin, Ireland. International Conference on Water and Environment, Dublin, Ireland. UN–PD (United Nations, Population Division). 1994. World population prospects. The 1994 revision. United Nations, New York, NY, USA. WRI–IIIED (World Resources Institute; International Institute for Environment and Development). 1985. World resources. Basic Books, New York, NY, USA.

Document(s) 2 of 12