Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990                   TAG: 9003112543
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: DAMASCUS, SYRIA                                 LENGTH: Medium

GROWING FEAR FOR OIL-RICH COUNTRIES: DYING OF THIRST

From the Euphrates to the Nile - and especially in the volatile Jordan River basin, where the intertwined water resources of Jordan, Israel and the occupied West Bank add a complex dimension to peace efforts - governments face growing water demands from swelling populations, increasing urbanization and rising farm and industrial needs.

To satisfy these, officials are racing to draw on rivers shared with neighbors who have competing demands, and on underground water supplies that are rapidly being depleted at alarming rates.

Signs of the crisis are many. In Egypt, which imports half of its food, the biggest agricultural constraint is water. In the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip, drinking water is salty because sea water has tainted the underground water source, or aquifer.

In Jordan, the government recently installed an irrigation system for 6,000 acres, but has no water for it. In Damascus, residential faucets go dry every day from 2 p.m. until 6 the next morning.

Experts foresee critical water shortages in several countries of the Middle East, which averages 3 percent population growth annually.

"If that rate [of growth] continues undiminished," said Philadelphia-based water expert Thomas Naff, "then within 30 years, for the entire region, all the advances they are making in water conservation will be wiped out. There will not be enough water supplies to support a population of that magnitude."

A Worldwatch Institute study issued in December by Sandra Postel said that if current consumption patterns continue, "water demands in Israel, Jordan and the occupied West Bank will exceed all renewable supplies within six years."

In this rain-poor region, which is armed to the teeth and infused with political, religious and national rivalries, some water experts and political analysts warn of possible military conflict over water rights.

"Before the 21st century, the struggle over limited and threatened water resources could sunder already fragile ties among regional states and lead to unprecedented upheaval," according to a report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

A "water war" is not the only threat posed by looming shortages. "The worst-case scenario is that we have a problem in pollution or a shortage where we cannot . . . provide the service," said Jordan's irrigation minister, Daoud Khalaf.

Water experts from 11 Arab states meeting in Amman last April declared that "water security in the Arab world is as essential as national and military security." Yet Middle East leaders have given scant attention to future water needs.

"There is a shortage in information" about resources, the Arabs' report said, a "deficiency in qualified specialists," and "very little concern about water research and studies on the academic and national levels."

"We don't have a strategy or policy for water," Jordan University hydrologist Elias Salameh said. "We just have projects."

Even if countries adopted national long-range policies, their mutual dependence on shared sources requires far-reaching political cooperation in a region where, in the words of the center's report, "neighborly good will has seldom existed in the past and may become even more elusive in the future."