In a conference organized by the International Institute, the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, and multiple campus partners, experts from diverse fields discussed the water challenges facing the Middle East and Africa – and other water insecure regions of the globe.

“The whole focus on water is interdisciplinary and it has to be."

By Jack Schwada

UCLA International Institute, May 30, 2018 - At a May 7 UCLA conference – "Water in the Middle East and Africa: A Nexus of Collaboration and Conflict" – scholars and practitioners from a diverse array of fields discussed the need to work together to better understand and overcome the water quality, supply and access challenges of these water-insecure regions.

"The whole focus on water is interdisciplinary and it has to be," explained conference keynote speaker Rita Colwell, distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland and former director of the National Science Foundation.

This need for holistic approaches was persistently echoed by speakers on panels addressing food security, public health, the environment and state-to-state relations.

"One of the challenges we face is getting out of our silos," acknowledged Nagaraja Rao Harshadeep, Global Lead for the Environment at the World Bank and a speaker on the "Hydropolitics: Regional and Transnational Challenges" panel.

"We brought together experts from such diverse fields because we know that to solve many of our water challenges, we need holistic approaches and hosting this conference is one way to help foster those solutions," said Yoram Cohen, director of the Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, distinguished professor at the UCLA School of Engineering and Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, and a prime conference organizer.

Data access, data solutions

Participants offered a number of innovative policies and technologies to help address the region’s complex water problems.

Both Harshadeep and Johns Hopkins University Professor Kellogg Schwab explored technology’s role in making information more widely available and actionable as one of the key means for addressing water – and other problems – in the regions.

Nagaraja Rao Harshadeep of the World Bank presents

Harshadeep showcased the World Bank’s Spatial Agent mobile-only app, which visualizes "multi-sectoral special and temporal data" from institutions ranging from the United Nations to NASA and the World Bank itself, among others. Available data sets at the sub-national, country-wide, continental and global levels cover everything from wind patterns and rainfall to gross domestic product and exports.

Dr. Schwab described the Performance, Monitoring and Accountability 2020 (PMA2020): Water, Sanitation and Hygiene project, which relies on harvesting even more granular data than that featured in the World Bank’s mobile application.

Through his work with PMA2020, Schwab is collaborating with local universities across Africa and beyond to gather information from "people in the trenches, locally involved in these situations." Mobile devices are used to collect data on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), including whether or not there is a sink and soap in a healthcare facility.

Through this platform, Schwab and his fellow researchers are able to easily revise the data points they are requesting, ensure that the platform is adapting to the needs of the local stakeholders, and generate near real-time reports for communities, national governments, and partner universities so they can make a difference on the ground.

Speaking to the need to seek solutions by collaborating with others, Schwab explained how he has partnered with experts working on family planning, which led to his focus on menstrual hygiene management as the nexus between family planning and WASH.

"It’s imperative to push that comfort factor beyond where you need to be and bring in people who have a totally different perspective from an entirely different discipline," he told the audience. "We have to have that kind of dialogue."

Low tech and high tech

Professor Eilon Adar of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev described how both low-tech and high-tech approaches are being used in Israel to address the problems of water scarcity for food production. He focused on the role of drip irrigation in ensuring efficient water use for agricultural purposes.

The low tech plastic tubes used in drip irrigation systems promote efficient water use by supplying water only to crops’ roots system, "dramatically increasing production and dramatically decreasing water use." However, this seemingly low-tech system has been upgraded and today, sensors and computer analysis have made these irrigation systems responsive to factors related to the soil and air.

Fellow Israeli participant Professor David Katz of the University of Haifa shared an environmental perspective on Israeli water use and touted the country’s high tech desalination system and changing water policies as contributing to the preservation of natural water sources in recent decades.

Professor David Katz of the University of Haifa presents

In Israel, Professor Katz explained, water is officially a national commodity. However, until the 1990s, it was designated primarily for agricultural purposes. Changes in Israel led to a decreasing focus on agriculture and public awareness of the degradation of natural water sources during the decade.

In 2004, the environmental use of water was included in the country’s list of water priorities. Since then, according to Katz, increasing use of desalination has protected natural water sources.

"There is now more water for nature with desalination," Katz explained. "We are not using desalinated water to replenish water sources, but because of desalination, we are pumping less and allowing aquifers and streams to recover."

Policy solutions

Professor Charisma Acey of the University of California, Berkeley, looked at poor – and sometimes discriminatory – water management in Kenya and Nigeria and its impacts on health.

"Addressing the social determinants of health are key to improving health outcomes and quality of life," Acey told the audience.

The scholar of urban planning underscored the need to "reset" when it comes to thinking about water supply and health, including re-framing how experts talk about intermittent water supply and examining social constructs and "cumulative burdens" on health outcomes.

On the policy front, Acey also emphasized the imperative to address the informality and inequality of the water supply network and the "politics around what is getting repaired" in those networks.

Professor Cullen Hendrix of the University of Denver proposed big-picture policy solutions for addressing food security challenges in the regions that are "living beyond their water means." Hendrix focused on increasing urbanization and growing populations as key factors to take into consideration when seeking solutions for emerging food security challenges in Africa and the Middle East.

Professor Cullen Hendrix of the University of Denver presents

Hendrix explained that as the countries in the two regions urbanize, there is greater integration and dependence on global markets. Growing populations also require more water for non-agricultural use, further shrinking water resources available for food production.

With a prediction that food insecurity will deepen – and lead to increasing political fallout – Hendrix proposed that the "challenge of feeding the future will be met with agricultural development and massive reinvestment in food systems globally" and hypothesized that "urbanization and water over-withdrawals will integrate Africa and the Middle East more into global food markets."

Hendrix’s policy recommendations included improving systems for managing food reserves and stock in the regions, addressing export bans, and encouraging governments to transition from food subsidies to more targeted food assistance.

Global warming impacts

A common theme throughout the conference was climate change and global warming, the impacts of which are still uncertain – particularly when it comes to precipitation and agricultural production. Professor Nathan Mueller of the University of California, Irvine highlighted these themes on the food security panel.

"Global warming continues to worsen and does pose serious risks to agriculture in those regions," Mueller underscored. "But the magnitude is uncertain."

The professor of earth system science explained that while there is consistency among models on projected future temperature changes, hydrological changes are much less certain. The impact on agriculture is just as unclear.

"Water is key to increasing yields, but other factors are also important," Mueller underscored.

Keynote speaker Rita Colwell, however, was much more certain about particular correlations between global warming and outcomes in health.

Rita Colwell (center) alongside Yoram Cohen of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies (center),
and Hilary Godwin of the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health.

Dr. Colwell and her team were able to develop a model for predicting outbreaks of water-borne cholera, based on the determination that there are more human pathogens in ocean waters as temperatures warm. This allowed Colwell and her team to successfully predict the 2016 outbreak of the disease in Haiti.

Another study led by Colwell was able to directly relate global warming to rates of particular infectious disease incidences – the first study of its kind to do so, according to the global health pioneer.

A source of cooperation and conflict

While many of the speakers focused on solutions at the national or sub-national levels, the final panel of the conference turned its attention to transnational issues. As a way of introduction, the Panel Chair Professor Mekonnen Gebremichael of UCLA’s Civil & Environmental Engineering Department emphasized, "[t]ransboundary water is of strategic importance to the Middle East and Africa."

Professor Hussein Amery of the Colorado School of Mines drove this point home with his discussion of water’s role in fomenting the civil war in Syria and how water will play a role in the resettlement of millions of refugees produced by the conflict.

While Amery placed blame on the Syrian government for their mismanagement of the water supplies and years of drought, he also claimed that decisions made by one of Syria's neighbors had affected the agricultural crisis and the accompanying rural flight, high unemployment, and the political unrest that sparked the civil war.

"Because of Turkey’s dam projects on the Euphrates and its agricultural projects, Syria was left with less water and a lower quality of water," explained Amery.

Amery also offered grim predictions for the future of Syria. He hypothesized that the resettlement of refugees to pre-war conditions would worsen transboundary water problems by putting a greater strain on already depleted water sources.

Doron Markel of the Israel Water Authority (left) and Professor Hussein Amery of the Colorado School of Mines

To facilitate a more promising future, he called for reinvestment in Syrian agriculture and water infrastructure and a new approach to "drought management in proactive terms based on risk-based planning as opposed to thinking of drought as a disaster that is unforeseeable and inevitable."

Whereas the water policies of Syria's neighbors contributed to the Syrian conflict, Doron Markel of Israel’s Water Authority spoke about a new project that is bringing together Israelis, Jordanians and Palestinians to preserve the Dead Sea while also meeting water needs.

The Red Sea-Dead Sea Conveyance Feasibility Study was launched in 2008 and is led by the World Bank. In 2014, a memorandum of understanding was signed by Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority with regards to the project.

Markel, who represented Israel in the study management phase of the project, discussed how a plan developed to build a desalination plant and pipeline that would carry water from the Gulf of Eilat on the Red Sea to replenish the Dead Sea (which all sides rely on), as well as provide water to both Israeli farmers in the south of the country and to Jordan and the Palestinians through water discharges from the north of Israel.

Markel also spoke to the greater implications of the project for those involved: "There is an increasing dependence on one another with this project that will help keep the agreements together."

Making it possible

“We were very pleased to bring together such a diverse array of scholars and topics and have an extremely fruitful discussion that was informative for the many guests who attended, including the large number of students from UCLA and beyond,” said Professor Cohen.

"We’re extremely thankful to all our partners from UCLA who helped organize this great program," he added, "and to all of the other sponsors who helped make it possible."

Professor David Katz presents

Conference organizers included the UCLA International Institute’s Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies, African Studies Center, Center for Middle East Development and Center for the Study of International Migration.

Other campus partners included the Luskin Center for Innovation, the Luskin School of Public Affairs, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science, the UCLA Water Technology Research Center, the UCLA Anderson School of Management’s Center for Global Management, and the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’s Water Resources Group.

Sponsors of the program included the UCLA International Institute; Israel Institute; Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation; UCLA Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and the American Water Works Association’s California-Nevada Section. NETAFIM, Geoflow and Fluence were among the corporate sponsors.