Today we practiced locating countries on the my interactive maps. Some students need a lifeline and phoned a friend for help. I showed the children how all the maps work and they should be practicing every night. Also, I checked that all links are active and have included a practice map site if you need a hard copy.
Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink. We learned the importance of water to the Middle East and North Africa. "Virtual water" became a new topic of discussion and the growing need for countries to re-appropriate how they use water today, so they can feed their population in the future.
Water in the Middle East
Water has always been scarce in the Arab world, but growing populations place ever-increasing demands on the limited resources. Competing claims over water rights can lead to disputes between countries or between consumers.
The wealthier Arab countries can meet some of their needs by desalinating seawater. Meanwhile others drill ever-deeper wells, which in time may only make the problem worse.
One new and important element in this debate is the concept of "virtual water". Growing wheat, for example, takes a lot of water. By importing wheat and concentrating on crops that require less water, a country can acquire "virtual water" and use existing resources more efficiently.
Water Usage around the World
Two parts of the world that are really dry and have many countries in them are the Middle East and southern Africa. But in terms of water resources and population the Middle East is much worse off than southern Africa.The Middle East (including North Africa) has 300 million people and an annual water supply of billion cubic meters.
On average, one million people require a billion cubic meters of water a year, which means that the Middle East can meet only two-thirds of its needs.
This raises some intriguing questions. If the Middle East has been so massively short of water for years, how has it survived? And why have governments in the region not pressed the panic button? The answer lies in "virtual water."
Most of the water that we use does not go to drinking, washing or flushing the lavatory. It is embedded in foods that may even appear perfectly dry - such as flour. We each drink about one cubic meter of water a year and use between 50 and 100 for domestic purposes. But it takes a further 1,000 cubic meters a year to meet each person's food needs.
At the national level, over 90% of all water budgets are devoted to agriculture. So, although it may help to take a bath less often, that is a drop in the ocean compared with the use of water by farmers.
Some years ago, Israeli economists looked at the export trade in oranges and found that customers were paying 10-20% of the real cost of the water used to grow them. In effect, Israel was giving away much-needed water.
Exploring this idea further, a team looked at other crops in terms of their "virtual water" content. Growing a ton of wheat, for instance, takes about 1,000 cubic meters of water. A country that imports wheat, rather than growing it locally, therefore saves 1,000 cubic meters of water for every ton it imports. This, almost without being noticed, is how the Middle East has survived. Its "virtual water" imports, in the form of grain during the mid-1990's, were equivalent to the flow of the river Nile into Egypt.
Water, for everyone in the Middle East, is a highly sensitive issue - not least because it is so closely related to the food supply. As a result politics gets in the way of devising economically and environmentally logical policies. "No politician will dare admit that his country is short of water and therefore short of food. If he did, people would say that he was not competent.Importing virtual water reduces anxiety about water. Ministers can stand up and say, 'we are not short of water' because the water coming in is both invisible and silent.
The idea that the region will have to meet its water shortage by importing vast and growing quantities of food - forever - creates feelings of deep insecurity, linked as it is to many people's livelihoods. In Saudi Arabia, for example, at enormous expense they started to grow wheat and even exported some.
But re-allocating water resources can bring huge benefits. As a field of wheat, the land would use 10,000 cubic meters of water per year, generate revenue of $3,000-$4,000 and provide half a job. As a university college, it uses the same amount of water, turns over $50 million a year, provides 1,000 jobs and educates 3,500 students. This helps to explain why many Middle Eastern governments are so enthusiastic about information technology: you can write software in the desert, and it takes less water than growing a row of beans.
WILL WATER BECOME MORE VALUABLE THAN OIL OVER THE NEXT 10 YEARS?
Global Water Supply Drying Up as Population Grows
