It is my pleasure to welcome you to this conference being held under the patronage of His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces and President of the ECSSR.

This event is particularly timely, not only because it comes a few days after World Water Day, but more importantly because water and food security are strategic issues of top priority in the GCC that have direct impacts on the region's development.

Environmental and climatic conditions across the GCC countries are very similar, and except for certain areas in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Sultanate of Oman, the GCC represents an arid part of the world with scarce natural water resources, lack of rainfall, high evaporation rates and poor soil. These characteristics are clearly reflected in the lack of renewable water resources and the limited amount of arable land in the region.

According to an assessment of the GCC water sector conducted by the World Bank in 2005, total water demand in the region increased from around six billion cubic meters (bcm) in 1980 to around 27 bcm in 2000, while annual renewable water resources per capital declined rapidly from 678 cubic meters (m3) in 1970 to 176 m3 in 2000. Hence, one can only imagine the decline in per capita renewable water resources given the pace of development in the GCC during the last decade, and under the added pressure of climate change.

With a rapidly growing world population, rising food prices and increasing scarcity of water resources, food and water security have emerged as among the most serious challenges facing today's governments, including those of the GCC.

Arabian Gulf countries do not have sufficient natural water resources, and mainly rely on sea water desalination to satisfy their requirements. Natural food supplies in these countries are scare and face increasing degradation. Therefore the states of the region depend on food imported from abroad, which renders them vulnerable to social and economic instability stemming from fluctuations in world food production, basic commodity prices, and changes in commercial policies.

In keeping with the ECSSR's mission to examine vital global and regional issues, and its recognition of the need to develop solutions and strategies to maintain water and food security, the Center convened its 17th Annual Conference under the title: Water and Food Security in the Arabian Gulf on March 26–27, 2012 in Abu Dhabi, hosting a group of distinguished experts from various academic and professional backgrounds.

This book comprises a valuable collection of the papers presented at the conference. They address strategic dimensions of water security in the Arabian Gulf region through an examination of the current state of water resources, geopolitical dimensions of water scarcity, the future water supply–demand balance and the impact of population growth on water resources, and both national and regional water security policies.

Water is vital to life, and access to water is considered by the United Nations to be a basic human right. The services derived from it represent the cornerstone around which development is shaped. Water is essential in agricultural and industrial production, and is critical for human health as well as the health of ecosystems. If water is limited, then development becomes restricted and the health of both humans and the environment is strained. Changes in climate, land use, and increasing demand have put major stress on freshwater resources. According to recent studies, worldwide demand for water in 2030 will be 40 percent greater than that of today. This increasing demand will be fueled mostly by population growth. World population has reached the seven billion mark and if the current growth rate is maintained as much as 60 percent of the global population may suffer water scarcity by 2025. This situation will become worse as population increases, with the most water scarce countries dipping to below 100 m3 per person per day (as shown in Table 6.1). This is well below the severe water scarcity level of 500 m3/p/d defined by the UNESCO–IHE Institute for Water Education, at which water availability is considered a primary constraint to life.

According to Bouwer, most of the population growth will be in third world countries, and more specifically in cities resulting from internal migration from rural areas and immigration across boundaries from one country to another.

“Water security,” as a term, emerged in the Arab world roughly four decades ago, when there was much talk regarding river water resource sharing, and the dependence of some downstream countries – such as Syria, Iraq and Egypt – on water from these rivers to meet their development plans.

Water security often occupied the headlines, creating a polarized atmosphere leading to political tension in the region; indeed, water began to be used as a political bargaining chip, and as a potential motivation for armed conflict. A deterioration of water quantity and quality was experienced in the downstream Arab countries, owing to growing demand along the length of these water sources as a direct result of social, agricultural, economic, and industrial development. The water crisis in the downstream countries continues to grow, with expanding demand greatly outweighing supply.

Generally, the concept of water security is encompasses two different areas: the first is purely political, and is linked to concerns arising from the fact that a large proportion (over 60 percent) of Arab water (including form the Nile, Tigris and Euphrates, and Senegal rivers) comes from neighboring countries, rendering the Arab countries that rely on this water (e.g., Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Syria, and Mauritania) vulnerable to the upstream countries; One example being the occupation of the Zionist entity, depriving the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese of their legitimate right to use their water.

The severe scarcity of freshwater in the Arabian Peninsula has forced the GCC countries to turn to the sea for a solution, rather than to other countries, near or far. They have chosen to desalinate seawater and ground water in order to ensure their supply, largely as a result of their geo-climatic and geopolitical settings. The hydrological reasons are self-evident, but the geopolitical considerations are the focus of this chapter. It will investigate the geopolitics of water scarcity in the Middle East, with a particular focus on what it means for the Gulf states. It will also discuss the political and security risks of reliance on desalination plants and on water imports.

Conceptually, the approach is one of geopolitics and security. Geopolitics is concerned with developing a spatial or geocentric understanding of the whole by studying specific components and mechanisms such as relative location and asymmetric endowments of countries, which in turn affect relative power and relations among states. For Klare, geopolitics is about competition between current and aspiring great powers “for control over territory, resources, and important geographical positions, such as ports and harbors, canals, river systems, oases, and other sources of wealth and influence.” Geopolitics can be illustrated in numerous ways, including as a strategic map showing the “flows of vital resources linking regions and exposing their vulnerability and interdependence.”

The Arab world is located in a generally arid region, and conditions have been getting worse for the people there.

This conference is concerned with water and food security in the Arabian Gulf countries. The connection between water and food has become a source of great global concern as the world's population grows and its wealth increases. It is of special concern in the Arabian Gulf region, where population growth has been extremely rapid and diets have become more associated with foods which are very water intense in their production, such as animal products.

The current water situation in the GCC countries and approaches to deal with the issues of sustainable supplies in the future were the focus of three insightful papers by Al-Zubari, Dawoud and Abdelrrahman, and Al-Rukaibi. Since two of the authors are making presentations in this conference we can leave it to them to outline the current situation of water and food in this region and instead should focus on how to plan water resources to achieve better water and food security.

The Arabian Gulf region has very low rainfall, and many of its areas have large unpredictable rainfall variations from year to year, leading to major droughts and floods. It is the most water scarce region of the world. Also, it has had some of the most rapid rates of population and income growth worldwide. Water demands have been met primarily by investments to increase the supply available to cities and agriculture by pumping underground water, desalination, small surface dams to control runoff, and other applications of technology.

Scarcity of renewable water resources is a global challenge facing many countries, especially those located in the world's arid and hyper-arid zones. Statistics indicate that global water resources total around 1,386 billion cubic meters (bcm). Freshwater constitutes just a small percentage of this (around three percent), while the overwhelming proportion is salt water in the seas and oceans. Sixty-nine percent of that fresh water is in ice form, which only leaves 31 percent of the total fresh water that is readily accessible. Of this, 30 percent is non-renewable groundwater and only two percent is renewable, as shown in Figure 9.1. Thus, more than one billion inhabitants in developing countries suffer from a lack of drinking water and sanitation.

Water resource preservation has therefore become one of the world's major contemporary challenges, particularly in arid countries like the United Arab Emirates and the other GCC states. Studies indicate that the GCC states are experiencing a water deficit that reached 15 bcm in 2008, a figure which is expected to increase to 35 bcm by 2030. Hence, since the establishment of the federation in 1971, the UAE government has not only realized the importance of water and its role in economic, agricultural and demographic development, but also invested in the water sector, resulting in the establishment of the necessary infrastructure to develop these resources sustainably, including wells, dams to store rainwater, desalination plants, distribution networks and wastewater treatment plants. This required substantial capital investment, as well as significant operational costs that were borne by the state.

The issue of water resources has acquired increasing importance during the course of the twenty-first century, with talk of impending water crises – particularly in light of the changes occurring in the Earth's climate – that represent major environmental threats to human security.

Water is essential for survival and economic progress. Fresh water availability is a significant concern in many places around the world, particularly with a global population that grows by a quarter of a million people daily. As a result, the share of water supply per capita on the planet fell from 33,300 cubic meters (m3) per year in 1850 to 8,500 m3 per year in 1993. Roughly 40 percent of the world's population – mostly situated in developing countries – already faces severe water shortages, and ever more countries will join this list. It is conceivable that by the middle of next century about 65 percent of the world will face water stress or scarcity.

Contemporary analyses of fresh water crises show that demand for water during the twentieth century increased ten-fold; meanwhile, the world's population has quadrupled over the past hundred years. With increasing wealth, demand for water resources has increased. Global fresh water resources per capita will continue to fall if the current rates of increasing consumption endure—by 2025, there will be more than 3 billion people living in water stressed countries.

The global economic development that has occurred over the past 50 years has substantially improved human well being, but it has also created unprecedented social, economic and environmental problems. Furthermore, interdependencies among nations and economies have created new risks and vulnerabilities, as demonstrated by the recent food and financial crises.

Today's world is undergoing a major transformation characterized by increased globalization, fundamental shifts in economic and political power, growing global environmental problems, and potentially explosive social conflicts. The past decade alone has reversed a 100-year decline in resource prices as demand for commodities has surged. The volatility of resource prices today is at an all-time high; the era of cheap food is over. Indeed, the price and volatility of different resources have developed increasingly tight links over the past ten years. Shortages and price changes in one resource can rapidly impact other resources. In this context the correlation between food prices and energy prices is now higher than at any point in the past century because of biofuels, fertilizer and transport costs.

The world has also experienced several, sometimes unexpected shocks. These include the rise in energy prices in 2008 and 2010, and concerns about energy security; related food and commodity price rises; worries about water and food security and how to feed 9 billion people by 2050; declining ecosystem services and the global economic recession.