20 February 2009
BEIRUT: Climate change, high population density and overexploitation of groundwater resources has lead to massive saltwater intrusion in the greater Beirut area, a leading hydrogeologist said on Thursday. "Seawater intrusion will be aggravated by climate change and exacerbated by us," Dr. Mark Saadeh, said at the American University of Beirut. Saadeh, a lecturer at the University Saint-Espirit de Kaslik and consultant for the Litani River Authority, was speaking as part of a series on climate change in the Middle East organized by public policy think tank, the Issam Fares Institute.
Decreasing precipitation levels, hotter weather and annual rises of more than 3 mm in the Mediterranean were the main climatological causes of groundwater overexploitation, Saadeh said. The fact that roughly one third of Lebanon's population (estimated at 4.5-5 million) lived in Beirut also "placed a tremendous burden on the country's water resources," he added. Exacerbating all this was a wasteful water management system, through which up to 65 per cent of Beirut's water supplies was lost.
Results of salinity samples in private wells across Beirut were "mind boggling," Saadeh said, adding that they showed levels much higher than the "2 percent critical mixing limit that renders water totally useless" for consumption. The highest water salinity levels were found in the Dahiyeh suburbs, which by no small coincidence also has the highest population density in Beirut.
Water salinity not only affected drinking and agricultural water, but also the safety of many of Beirut's buildings, Saadeh said. "Water mixed into concrete has to be as good as drinking water, which is rarely the case in Lebanon," the hydrogeologist said. Many of the apartment blocks in Beirut were built with concrete mixed with highly salinated water that corrodes building foundations. If even the slightest earthquake were to rattle Beirut, a large number of structures would come tumbling down.
So what can be done to ensure the better use and quality of Beirut's water supplies? One step would be to create a national coastal monitoring system, according to Saadeh. "We need to start taking measurements of everything and pool in all this data to come up with a much clearer picture." More immediate counter measures include creating a coastal buffer zone where welling would be prohibited, and better water management.
Many were "still under the impression that they can just pump fresh water to flush out the salinity," Saadeh said. But salination was so bad in Beirut, "it would require repeated flushing, huge amounts of water and many decades to rectify - luxuries we simply don't have."
In a region already rife with political and tribal conflict, growing water scarcity has the potential to spark new wars. Reinforcing that possibility, Saadeh repeated a remark by former UN Secretary-General Butros Butros Ghali in 1985: "The next war in the Middle East will be fought over water, not politics." The sense of urgency was repeated by a policy adviser present in the audience: "Salinity is much more dramatic than people think. The very future of this country is at stake."
With around 827mm of rain a year, Lebanon has the highest annual rainfall in the Middle East. However, the combined factors of mismanagement, illegal welling and climate change threatens to leave the country with a water deficit by next year, Lebanon's Ministry of Energy and Water has said.
It's not just water feeling the heat of climate change. Lebanon's iconic cedars, which rely heavily on snow and frost, were recently added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's "Red List" as a "heavily threatened" species.
Copyright The Daily Star 2009.
