World Bank: Peoples of Mideast Face Unprecedented Crises Due to Water Scarcity

A new World Bank report predicted that people across the Mideast and North Africa region would face unprecedented water scarcity.

And a report issued by the Bank called for a series of resource management reforms, including institutional reforms, to alleviate water pressures in the region.

The report, titled “The Economics of Water Scarcity in the Middle East and North Africa Region - Institutional Solutions,” indicates that, by the end of the current decade, the amount of water available per capita annually will fall below the absolute limit of water scarcity, which is 500 cubic meters per person per year.

According to estimates in the report, by 2050, an additional 25 billion cubic meters of water will be needed annually to meet the needs of the region, explaining that this is equivalent to establishing 65 other desalination plants, the size of the Ras Al-Khair plant in eastern Saudi Arabia, which is the largest in the world at the moment.