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Developing countries have experienced significant challenges in meeting their needs for food, energy, and water security. This paper presents a country-level review of the current issues associated with Food-Energy-Water (FEW) security in the Middle East. In this study, sixteen countries in the Middle East are studied, namely Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Turkey, and the Arabian Peninsula (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Yemen). Here, we conduct a comprehensive assessment to study and evaluate the emerging drivers of FEW systems in the region. The investigated drivers include water security, extreme events, economic growth, urbanization, population growth, poverty, and political stability. The results suggest that most of the studied countries are facing FEW resource insecurity or weak planning/management strategies. Our evaluation further revealed the current status of each country with respect to each factor, and suggested that climatic and socioeconomic factors have contributed to the subsequent stress on FEW resources, specifically on the water sector. In general, and with respect to the water-energy security, it was found that energy production in the Middle East is highly constrained by water deficiency, drought, and/or economic growth. The water-food security in the region is mainly affected by drought, water scarcity, population growth, urbanization, and/or political unrest.

Drought is an extreme climate phenomenon that happens slowly and periodically threatens the environmental and socio-economic sectors. Iraq is one of the countries in the Middle East that has been dealing with serious drought-related issues in the 21st century. Here, we investigate meteorological drought across Iraq from 1948 to 2009 at 0.25 • spatial resolution. The Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) has been utilized as a multi-scalar drought index accounting for the effects of temperature variability on drought. Four of the main characteristics of drought including extent, intensity, frequency and duration are studied and the associated spatiotemporal patterns are investigated for each case. Results revealed a significant drought exacerbation over Iraq during the period of 1998-2009. Two significant drought periods of 1998-1999 and 2007-2008 are identified during which severe to extreme droughts covered about 87% and 82% of Iraq, respectively. Analyzing the trends of drought intensity reveals that the central and southwestern parts of Iraq have experienced aggravated intensifying patterns among other regions. In general, droughts are found to be more frequent but shorter at the western, central and southeastern parts of Iraq.

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Drought is an extreme climate phenomenon that happens slowly and periodically threatens the environmental and socio-economic sectors. Developing countries have experienced crucial conditions in meeting the needs for food, energy, and water security.Natural disasters contribute as risky sources of food insecurity and vulnerability in the Middle East. This dissertation presents a country-level review and quantitative assessment of the current issues associated with the Food-Energy-Water-Security (FEWS) Nexus in the Middle East. In this study, sixteen countries in the Middle East are chosen, namely, Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Turkey. The most recent datasets are used to study and analyze the factors that have increased the demand to understand and manage the linkage of FEW systems in the region. Water scarcity, extreme events, population growth, urbanization, economic growth, poverty, and political stability are found to be the key drivers of the current challenges in the Middle East. The results suggest that these factors have created a subsequent stress on FEW resources specifically on the water sector in the region. Therefore, more attention is required to sustain the FEW resources and cope with the socio-economic development.Moreover, this study presented a comprehensive assessment of drought and food-waterenergy-security nexus across the Middle East using rigorous frameworks. Meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts are analyzed using different drought indices at multiple timescales over the region for seven decades for the period of 1948-2017. The study further analyzes food insecurity in the Middle East through the exploration of ii drought (as a water stress factor), energy, and other socio-economic factors in the region.A Bayesian approach is conducted to link all the factors that best predict food insecurity in Middle East pooled from 16 countries in the region. Results reveal that the intensity of agricultural drought are the most aggravated over the region in all cases. Moreover, the results demonstrated the significant impacts of drought (as a water stress factor), agricultural land availability, population growth, livestock, and cereal production on food insecurity in the Middle East. iii Dedication …………………………………………… To the soul of my beloved mother, …………………………………………… To my lovely father, …………………………………………… To my amazing sisters, …………………………………………… To the most wonderful husband in the world, …………………………………………… To my little son who made me feel so blessed and lucky to have him as my child, Thanks all for being there for me whenever I needed support … I love you. iv