November 8, 2011— The Middle East and North Africa region faces an increasingly dire water scarcity issue as populations grow, urbanization continues and domestic and industrial use of water increases. Due to climate change, experts predict an increasingly dry future; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that rainfall in many parts of the region will decrease by over 20% during the next century. Furthermore, as water resources dry up, competition for it will intensify, making cooperation in tackling some of the area’s water issues problematic, but essential.

A recently approved project financed by the World Bank’s Global Environmental Facility (GEF), is the first in a series of investments under the Arab World Initiative addressing this issue. Working in partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), it strives towards a regional cooperation in the Arab world’s water resource management through satellite data. This will encourage regional leaders to work together through shared goals and information.

“This project will make available the data needed to answer important questions that Arab farmers, urban planners and ministers, among others, think of every day: ‘How much of the water I used on my fields am I losing to evapotranspiration?’¹ ‘How is this impacting my crops?’ ‘Which cities are prone to extreme floods?’” says Claire Kfouri, Senior Water Supply Specialist at the World Bank. “By providing the tools and data to help answer these questions, it will become possible to make more informed decisions on the way that water and agriculture are managed every day.” 

Shahid Habib of NASA agrees, “It is an exciting opportunity and presents a forum for the multiple nations to work together and share their experiences and findings".

Mapping Water by Satellite

Across and within Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco and Lebanon, water levels in reservoirs and rivers, rainfall patterns and soil moisture will be mapped by satellites. This new overhead view of water systems will allow leaders to monitor local and regional drought and flood conditions, track evaporation from lakes and reservoirs, and even estimate future water supplies and crop yields. In the past, information on water has derived primarily from people and equipment on the ground. However, collecting data in the field is often expensive and difficult to gather and verify. Satellite images can provide a near-instant and unique view of water levels across the region’s mountains and borders.

Ancient Land, 21st Century Tools

A major space agency such as NASA has a vast array of Earth-observing satellites, many of which have been circling the globe for decades. Since much of the data collected in space have been archived, scientists and water experts can create a history of basic water information. Such data will provide a record of precipitation patterns and other environmental factors, which could provide insight into the future. The information can be used in different ways for various purposes. Claire Kfouri explains, “For example, Lebanon may use information on temperature change to measure the impact on snow-melt. Jordan, on the other hand, will use the same information on temperature change to calculate the impact on irrigation.”

The first step in resources management is an assessment of what is out there. For centuries, people have collected information on water from the ground level - this kind of assessment is often expensive and unreliable. Reports and data collected on the ground simply do not exist in many regions of the world, making satellite data that much more invaluable. “These observations provide a wealth of information in mapping and adjusting the model outputs. This also fills the gaps where no observations are available,” says Shahid Habib.

“This project will enable participating countries to work from a common database, creating an environment for enhanced cooperation. It is precisely the type of program that the Arab World Initiative was created to catalyze,” says Jonathan Walters, the Director of Regional Strategy and Programs for the Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank.

Refining Goals and Interests

Between October 19 and 21, the GEF Project Technical Stakeholder Meeting took place, gathering over 20 representatives from remote sensing centers and water ministries across the Middle East and North Africa as well as specialists from the World Bank, NASA, the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and USAID. During the meeting, each participating country further refined their area of interest, ranging from drought and flood prediction to groundwater recharge estimates. The meeting also covered topics such as NASA’s tools and methods for the project (i.e. climate change monitoring and flood and drought mapping), experiences and lessons learned, methodologies and project designs and regional cooperation and project schedule.

As the project progresses, various countries in the Middle East and North Africa region will gain additional knowledge and tools to manage their water scarcity issues:

Jordan: Monitoring across Jordan will focus on identifying areas that are prone to drought. Detailed analysis will also help experts forecast rainfall in areas prone to droughts, and so enable communities to better prepare and protect themselves and their crops and animals.

Lebanon: Lebanon will use the satellite data to track the impact of increased temperatures and reduced rainfall on changes in local snow cover. Early predictions of changes in snow cover are an important indicator of the change in water available to springs, rivers and aquifers. This new approach will also help predict droughts and will be able to predict naturally occurring forest fires by measuring pictures of thermal heat on the ground.

Morocco: For the past 40 years, Morocco has seen higher than average temperatures and lower than average rainfalls because of climate change. Scientists fear that unless these patterns change, Morocco faces major droughts. The new satellite imaging will map those potential changes and their impact. Satellite pictures can also track the environmental conditions ideal for locusts, and help farmers in breeding areas prepare for the insects, which can ravage crops. .

Tunisia: In Tunisia, satellites that can measure changes in the amount of water in large aquifers will be used to chart the impact of agriculture on ground water.

Egypt: When Egypt joins the project, new mapping software will keep track of changes in annual rainfall and temperatures over time. The new software will project the impact of climate change on water sources and irrigation in the fertile Nile delta. The models will identify which regions within the country are the most susceptible to the effect of climate change, and which are more likely to suffer from floods and droughts.

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¹ Water lost to the atmosphere from the ground surface