A view on current and future water resources (Briefing 2.7)

The hydrological model TRAIN was successfully applied to reproduce the water conditions of the Jordan and Dead Seas catchments and their surrounding area. For the first time, a detailed overview of current water availability has been compiled for the Middle East. Data from three climate model combinations were fed to TRAIN to generate potential future water scenarios. Results showed that a clear precipitation decrease can be expected in the coming decades. A decrease in rainfall leads to significant reductions in water availability and reduces total river runoff while irrigation water demand increases. Climate change appears to dominate over land-use change impacts on water resources. There is, however, a potential to reduce adverse climatic effects by appropriate land-use planning