Mohammad Al-Saidi

Hamad bin Khalifa University | HBKU

In Iran, water scarcity is increasing due to the rapid growth in economy and population, but also due to waste and overuse. Marginal water resources (unutilized water of lower quality) can provide important options to augment water supply or replace freshwater use. In this way, they can reconcile the seemingly opposing views of water development an...

Seawater desalination has become an accessible option for augmenting freshwater supplies worldwide. In the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), it has been practiced fordecades as the main source for domestic water use. Sustainable desalination requires addressingenvironmental impacts including damage to ecosystems from the high volumes...

Innovation and the promotion of entrepreneurship are requirements of the transition towards knowledge-based economies. Universities are assigned a key role in advancing entrepreneurship through the restructuring of teaching, research, and governance with an emphasis on innovation and sustainability. In the Gulf region, universities are increasingly...

City planners are seeking ways to incorporate human-centric urban projects that combine smart technology, good infrastructure and people's perception as well as their participation. Smart city developments are increasingly being applied to smaller scales at which communities can co-design hard infrastructure and the resulting services. Experiences...

The neighbouring regions of the Gulf and Europe have shown a strong interest in cooperating with North Africa on energy transition. Both regions see economic opportunities here, as well as the potential to advance their own transition from fossil fuels to renewables. With renewables now more economically feasible, this type of energy is no longer s...

The water crisis in Yemen did not start with the current conflict. It is a governance crisis stemming from sustainability failures dating back to the post-independence era. Groundwater depletion has been underway for decades, threatening the food security and livelihoods of the Yemeni people who predominantly work in agriculture. From the 1970s unt...

تشهد الأنهار العابرة للحدود ضغوطًا متزايدة بفعل تنامي عدد السكان والاقتصادات، فضلًا عن عواقب التغيّر البيئي. ومع تنامي استغلال تدفّق الأنهار، كشفت النقاشات العامة عن بروز بعض المخاوف من جراء النزاعات العنيفة المحتمَلة بين الدول. ومن أجل حلّ تلك المشكلات الناشئة، تدعو الأدبيات الأكاديمية إلى آراء أكثر دقة، تقوم على أدلة متعلّقة بالنزاعات المائية الع...

This special issue focuses on academic discussions in the field of water cooperation and diplomacy, which have garnered increased attention in recent decades due to growing threats to the use of shared water resources. The contributions in this special issue aim to understand the challenges of transboundary water cooperation and its prospects in th...

The Gulf’s marine ecosystems are vital for economic activities and the security of food and other necessities for tens of millions of people. The environmental footprint arising from the use of the Gulf’s environmental resources is becoming larger. With climate change and the expansion of coastal infrastructure, mitigating the environmental challen...

Community-level interventions through technological updates and connectedness are quite popular within smart city visions. These interventions, under the collective label of smart and connected communities (SCC), promise to increase technology access, services, and the sense of entrepreneurship and organization at the community level. This paper ad...

The ecological state of the Persian or Arabian Gulf (hereafter ‘Gulf') is in sharp decline. Calls for comprehensive ecosystem-based management approaches and transboundary conservation have gone largely unanswered, despite mounting marine threats made worse by climate change. The region's long-standing political tensions add additional complexity,...

Desalination has become an attractive option for addressing water needs or solving problems of increasing water scarcity and short-term supply interruptions. However, several negative environmental impacts are associated with the resulting brine, for which a range of treatment, recovery, and disposal technologies have been suggested in the academic...

The Ukraine war has forced Europe to redefine its energy security policies towards more diversification and less reliance on Russian energy. As an energy-rich and relatively close region, the Middle East can play a potentially important role in Europe's future energy security. However, a short-term and static view on the Middle East's readiness as...

FOR CITATION: Hussein A. Amery (Ed.): (2023): "Enhancing Water Security in the Middle East”. MENA Water Security Task Force, Al-Sharq Strategic Research, Al-Sharq Forum, Istanbul, Turkey; and Colorado School of Mines, Denver, CO, USA. 269 Pages. Published on 20 March 2023. https://research.sharqforum.org/mena-water-security-task-force/ and https://...

Desalination is expected to grow across the Middle East and North Africa due to increased water scarcity. The cost of desalinated water has decreased significantly over the last decades, but it has not reflected the mounting environmental impacts of desalination. Desalination can result in significant negative impacts on the environment, such as ha...

Resources such as water, energy, and arable land represent bottlenecks with regard to achieving key sustainability paradigms such as the circular economy (CE). They exhibit vital inputs and outputs for economic development, and they are closely linked to the environmental challenges to the protection of ecosystems, emissions reduction, and sustaina...

The Ukraine war has led to a severe global food crisis due to complex supply disruptions and price increases of agricultural inputs. Countries of the Middle East have been directly affected because of their high dependence on food imports from Russia and Ukraine. Furthermore, this food crisis comes at times of high baseline vulnerability due to the...

This Special Topic invited scientists and experts to provide contributions that synthesize key lessons learned from the WEF nexus literature, expand current knowledge through innovative, cross-cutting approaches, present salient cases or provide policy-relevant reviews. The resulting set of seven highly interesting articles can be introduced in the...

The agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is a key international outcome for guiding development efforts of nation states. However, SDG targets cover vast areas of action, and they are difficult to break down and monitor for countries with different developmental situations and needs. Often, global rankings of countries’ compliance wit...

World polity theory as a part of sociological neo-institutionalism provides interesting insights into institutional change and similarities between national organizations. These organizations depend on rules and actor networks in a postulated world culture based on recipes for appropriate behavior of nation states and organizations. The field of na...

Since 2016 and guided by the National Vision 2030, the energy transition in Saudi Arabia has gained significant momentum. There have been important energy subsidy reforms and dynamic developments in the renewable energy sector. This paper provides a systematic view of the Saudi energy transition by highlighting drivers, sectors, targets and process...

The African Sahel countries are inherently fragile, environmentally insecure and economically weak. This paper underscores the compounded impacts brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic on resource supply security and, hence, the long-term development of the region. It outlines the Sahel-specific COVID-19 scenario by firstly highlighting the underly...

Environmental concerns related to the health of the marine ecosystems, the negative impacts of coastal infrastructure and the deterioration of water quality (e.g., increasing salinity and warming trends of the Gulf waters) are threatening development prospects in the Persian/Arabian Gulf region. Many of these challenges require a cooperative approa...

The water-food nexus in the Middle East and Northern African (MENA) region is characterized by resource depletion, import dependence and environmental degradation. This contribution proposes that consumption awareness and resource circularity can be seen as a pathway to alleviate environmental problems and achieve long-term supply security in the w...

Protracted armed conflicts in the Middle East and Africa are heavily impacting the infrastructure of basic services such as water, energy, healthcare, and education. People adapt to these persistent conditions through self-organization, private sector-driven services and the reliance on international aid. In rehabilitating infrastructure damaged by...

When civil war erupted in late 2014, Yemen’s already unreliable electricity grid quickly collapsed. Sana`a’s water utility struggled to pump groundwater for the 4 million people in the capital, and its residents turned to diesel generators. When the Saudi-led embargo subsequently constrained the supply of fuel, the sun became the energy source of l...

Water reuse is considered a technologically viable option to meet the increasing demands of the domestic, industrial and agricultural sectors. Alongside challenges such as environmental health, infrastructure and regulations, water reuse is often hindered by lack of acceptance and dismissive attitudes. This paper seeks to structure knowledge about...

The options and practices of PW management still represent an emerging field of enquiry with very few studies outside the USA. The challenges and technologies for reusing PW are very much site specific while data is rarely available in this regard. However, in case PW is being effectively treated and reused, it can provide an important water resou...

The Arabian Gulf is one of the most adversely affected marine environments worldwide, which results from combined pollution drivers including climate change, oil and gas activities, and coastal anthropogenic disturbances. Desalination activities are one of the major marine pollution drivers regionally and internationally. Arabian Gulf countries rep...

The circular economy concept can enhance sustainability through restructuring consumption and production patterns using innovative designs and business models. This core premise is highly relevant for the interlinked water and food supply sectors in arid regions, which are threatened by natural scarcity and resource overuse. This paper transfers th...

The COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to examine the impacts of system-wide crises on key supply sectors such as water, energy and food. These sectors are becoming increasingly interlinked in environmental policy-making and with regard to achieving supply security. There is a pressing need for a systematization of impacts and responses beyond...

Cities of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region have harboured impressive architecture conveying modernity and affluence. GCC countries are increasingly reshaping the face of their urban areas through the development of futuristic planned cities. These cities are competing for labels that show design innovations and energy-efficient technologie...

Water education relevance and courses have grown over the last couple of decades, and incorporated more interdisciplinary and integrated contents. This is due to the increasing relevance of water management issues, particularly in regions with extreme water scarcity such as the Middle East. The concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM...

Herbal medicine can improve economic diversification and sustainable livelihoods of local communities. In fact, the demand for herbal medicine is increasing globally while policymakers also value non-economic benefits, e.g. preserving traditions/heritage, enhancing communities' cohesion/trust and promoting sustainable practices towards a low-carbon...

Political instability and conflicts are contemporary problems across the Middle East. They threaten not only basic security, but also infrastructure performance. Supply infrastructure, providing basic services such as water and electricity, has been subjected to damage, capacity deterioration, and the bankruptcy of public providers. Often, in confl...

This contribution reviews current efforts in the region, and compares reuse trends in Iran and Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Agricultural production in the Gulf region is naturally constrained by water scarcity and alternative water sources are therefore highly needed. The impacts of unsustainable water use on the limited, non-renewable groun...

Energy transition in the region of the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) has recently commenced and is now being implemented through large-scale renewable projects, nuclear plants, and energy efficiency measures in the built environment. This paper highlights how alternative energies are associated with non-economic factors such as prestige, moderni...

Participatory irrigation management (PIM) has been broadly promoted by public administrators and donor organizations. The reasons for this push include performance failures of state-controlled irrigation schemes and the need to improve irrigation productivity for meeting rising food demands. A popular reform for increasing participation and ownersh...

For around 40 years, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have been developing cooperative frameworks that aim at enhancing security and economic cooperation as well as establishing joint action on common threats such as environmental degradation of the Gulf waters. Population and economic growth, alongside global issues such as climate cha...

L’article analyse les réformes en faveur de la décentralisation et de la commercialisation dans le secteur de l’eau et de l’assainissement en milieu urbain au Yémen. L’étude de cas montre que les réformes sectorielles visant à accroître la performance et l’indépendance des services d’eau dans les pays en développement peuvent s’enliser dans des pro...

Economic growth and demographic change are leading factors that impact the availability of resources such as water and arable land in countries around the globe. The case of Arab countries, where both these resources have been naturally scarce, is illustrative. This chapter outlines the contribution of growing scarcity and historic negligence of su...

Nuclear energy programs are currently under formalization in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), with the first power plants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) due to be operational in 2020, and Saudi Arabia's program under development. A political-economic narrative stresses potential benefits such as the diversification of energy sour...

إذا فتحت أي خريطة للتضاريس الأرضية حول العالم، ستجد منطقة الشرق الأوسط تفتقد اللون الأخضر في جميع الأنحاء. فالمنطقة تعاني من الجفاف الشديد، ومعظمها قاحل مع انخفاض مستوى هطول الأمطار وتدفق المياه، مع بعض الاستثناءات مثل السودان أوالمناطق الساحلية أو مجرى النهر والدلتا. في الواقع، يمثل توفير الغذاء الكافي لعدد السكان المتزايد تحديًا كبيرًا في المستقب...

Energy subsidies can account for a large share of government expenditures in some GCC countries. In light of fiscal imbalances since 2014, these countries have reiterated their intention to decrease subsidies and substitute them with more targeted support systems. This paper briefly outlines the extent of energy subsidies. The scope and the drivers...

egyptssp.ifpri.info/2020/01/28/marginal-water-use-is-a-serious-option-for-food-production-in-dry-arab-states/ If you open a map showing land topographies around the world, the Middle East is deprived of the green color throughout. The region is extremely dry, mostly hyper-arid with low levels of rainfall and water flow. There are some exceptions su...

Constitutional, economic and administrative reforms have generated debates about their unintended consequences in poor and developing countries, and the best way to steer them towards better outcomes. In-depth case study analysis helps in tailoring future reforms and enriches academic literature on countries faced with the complex and intertwined p...

he Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region and the wider Arab world are faced with multiple inter-connected dilemmas embedded in the social, economic, and environmental pillars of sustainable development. The question of how to design effective sustainability strategies that are aligned with the context of the GCC region is a relevant one. In this sp...

International, large-scale conferences on environment and sustainable development have shaped the public face of the global environmental governance. United Nations-led Earth Summits in Stockholm, Johannesburg, and Rio constituted hotbeds for global agreements on biodiversity, climate, and sustainability goals. The demand for ensuring wide particip...

The green growth paradigm has gained much attention from various governments worldwide as a guiding strategy for national and sectoral growth strategies. There is, however, little knowledge on how to integrate green growth into key natural resource sectors, such as water. This paper explains the origins and underlying concepts of green growth, and...

In vulnerable water basins, unregulated access to solar energy and groundwater can threaten water security through increased abstractions. Public and development agencies are therefore exploring options to provide farmers with additional income from solar farming while protecting groundwater resources. Solar energy farming is combined with attracti...

After decades of reluctance, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are now more engaged within the global sustainability agenda. Though they historically sought to coordinate strategies, differences in environmental diplomacy and participation modes currently exist. This article examines these differences and links diplomacy to political and...

This article analyses water, food, and energy security in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries using the water-energy-food (WEF) nexus approach. The innovative focus is on identifying past and future development-based drivers of water-energy-food integration in the region. The study presents a critical review of WEF nexus in the Gulf region...

Urban water pricing is becoming increasingly important due to the rapid rate of urbanization and the expansion of water reclamation and reuse. The mounting evidence of failures of current pricing schemes makes analyzing their performance essential for understanding the adequacy of economic and sustainability policies in water management. However, u...

Supply systems for water, energy and food in the Gulf region are becoming highly interlinked. In the last decades, interdependence was evident in the increase of coproduction plants and the cross-sectoral resource use footprints. In light of increasing integration due to growing scarcities, the construction of mega projects for coproduction, and th...

Eco-innovations are inventions or developments of new and optimised technology or processes that lead to environmental and economic benefits. Such innovations are closely interlinked with sustainability and green growth concepts. In this chapter, we present the debate on green growth and its linkages to other sub-concepts and also the role of innov...

Climate change and climate variability represent serious regional challenges for the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This highly arid region has experienced high socioeconomic growth in recent decades, mainly along the coasts. The impacts of climate change on coastal development are tangible. Vital coastal infrastructure of many of...

The study field of institutions and institutionalism is quite complex, encompassing theories, concepts, and tools that can be applied in various ways related to sustainable development. At the same time, sustainable development is not uniquely defined and can imply a range of policy, normative, or resource use issues at various scales. Therefore, i...

The Green Climate Fund (GCF) is one of the several special climate change funds that have been established under Article 11 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These funds aim to finance climate change activities in developing countries. Previously established funds did not catalyze sufficient funding nor did they...

Urban climate change policies are critical for reducing carbon emissions and increasing societal resilience to future risks. This is especially true for the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which are arid environments with largely urban and coastal settlements. Their vulnerability to climate change impacts is high and has increased i...

With changing and mounting pressures on environmental resources due to economic and demographic developments, environmental policymaking is a wide and continuously growing field. The birth hour of modern environmental policymaking is the 1950s and 1960s, with the United States (US) as a pioneer country in adopting the first instruments for resource...

Collective decision making and negotiated outcomes are promoted for the water sector in order to increase ownership, commitment and participation. Negotiation processes for the development of water basin plans are, however, complex and tedious. This paper investigates the contribution of negotiation theory in facilitating basin plan development as...

Climate change policies in countries of the Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) region are evolving from a top-down, government-led approach towards more pluralistic climate governance, which incorporates a local perspective and actors while strengthening the communities' resilience. Egypt, as a case study with high economic and natural vulnerab...

The micro-watershed level can be a promising unit for the integration and coordination of water management functions that affect sustainable water use and livelihoods of local communities such as farmer groups. Recent projects in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil have advocated interventions at this level. However, micro-watersheds are still no...

With ecological pressures increasing in many natural resource-rich countries, unchecked economic growth through the depletion of the natural resource base is seen as problematic and unsustainable. At the same time, practitioners are seeking pathways to achieve a strong and more equitable sustainability transition. In the field of ecosystem manageme...

The article analyzes decentralization and commercialization reforms in the Yemeni urban water and sanitation sector. The case study shows that sector reforms to increase the performance and independence of water utilities in developing countries can become entangled in conflicting political agendas, leading to the derailing of reforms. The reform p...

Cooperation among countries sharing a water basin is often difficult due to historic rivalries, conflict legacies, and the increased utilization of water flow. In order to improve state cooperation, academics and policymakers tend to overemphasize the allocation rules of water resources confined to the river. However, a river basin cooperation is m...

The study analyzes the regulation reform process of the Palestinian urban water sector. It introduces the holistic reform agenda and examines the water supply sector's performance and regulation challenges. The study also evaluates the perception of water service providers regarding the regulation reforms. Collected evidence indicates a dominant in...

Carbon emissions are causing climate extremes and temperature rise in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). There has been scattered scientific literature on the climate change challenge in the region, with alarming evidence of warming and increased variability. The dry, hot and dusty climate of the Gulf countries makes the effects o...

Research on water cooperation in the Eastern Nile Basin has focused on expanding policy and diplomacy tools for a better allocation of transboundary water resources confined to the river. Regional cooperation on water and related sectors such as energy and land expands the bargaining and areas for mutual gain, and thus enhances cooperation perspect...

One way to encourage agricultural self-sufficiency in arid regions is to increase the productivity of conventional freshwater agriculture. Another way is to develop and implement novel strategies and technologies that do not deplete scarce freshwater. Here we describe several options for countries in the Gulf region to increase their agricultural p...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B9780128127469000018

This report focuses on experiences with solar energy farming (SEF), and in particular the solar energy farming project in the Azraq basin in Jordan (referred to as SEF Azraq). SEF Azraq sought to encourage farmers to substitute farming with livelihoods as solar farmers. This report aims at generating relevant recommendations for the implementation...

With increasing demands and pressures on energy, food and water resources in the region of Eastern Nile Basin, development projects and also conflict potential along the Nile waters have increased. This study presents data on resource use patterns and reviews literature on cooperation potential among Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia in the sectors of wate...

For many of Egypt’s communities, climate change represent an increasing threat to development and livelihoods that remains underrepresented in terms of policies and strategies. The vulnerability of communities in agricultural land, coastal zones and urban spaces is investigated in this study using recent literature. This study aims at identifying p...

'Nexus Outlook’ is a collection of case studies which aims at providing a cross-regional picture of common nexus challenges across the world. A central theme in the report is the issue of assessing nexus interlinks and challenges in different contexts. The report allows for different authors to present nexus issues in different case studies using i...

This study examines the viability of increasing block tariffs (IBTs) to achieve the right balance between efficiency, financial requirements and equity, and compares them to alternative pricing schemes. Using numerical examples, it analyzes the IBT structure of two water utilities in Yemen. The main conclusion is that IBTs exhibit remnants of old t...

Scarce water resources of MENA countries are under multiple stressors: population growth, growing economies, land use changes, changing lifestyles or climatic variability. The vulnerability of such resources is often analysed using simple, sector-specific indicators. This study develops a holistic country-based vulnerability assessment of water res...

This study compares energy data on different countries in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) to assess energy use patterns in the water and food sectors. It first introduces an interdisciplinary energy security index for MENA countries considering available energy reserves and the energy footprint of the two sectors. Later, the study di...

This study examines institutional reforms like decentralization in the urban water supply and sanitation Sector in Yemen. Policies, actors and conflicts during the initiation and implementation process of the reforms are introduced. Later on, the motivation and type of decentralization reforms are analyzed. The study also elaborates on the effects...

This study will develop a framework to understand basin plan development as a collective decision making process. It advocates for the use of negotiation and conflict analysis tools to deliberately facilitate such processes. An overview of available tools based on game theory and complexity science will be provided. Using the case study of the basi...

Seit mehr als 15 Jahren versucht die jemenitische Regierung die städtische Wasserversorgung zu liberalisieren. Extrem ansteigende Produktionskosten aufgrund rapide absinkender Grundwasserspiegel, geringe Einnahmen und hohe Personalkosten überforderten den nationalen Wasserversorger. Kommerzialisierung, Dezentralisierung und mehr Autonomie schienen...

Spätestens seit der diesjährigen UN-Konferenz Rio plus 20 hat sich ‚Green Growth’ als neues paradigmatisches Schlagwort im internationalen Diskurs etabliert. Wirtschaftliches Wachstum soll mit Umweltschutz und Armutsbekämpfung einhergehen; gleichzeitig sollen möglichst alle Schichten und Sozialgruppen beteiligt werden. Grünes Wachstum wird somit al...