Water Management in the Mediterranean Region: Concepts and Policies

Abstract

The Mediterranean Region exhibits significant contrasts in its demographic and hydrologic features that have shaped the water management policies of the Mediterranean countries. Although awareness is raising with respect to sustainable water management, the extent to which it is applied in practice is debatable. Use conflicts and non-renewable water extraction in water scarce part of the region like the Southern and Eastern rim countries are exposed as overriding management issues. Furthermore climatic variations are superimposed on natural hydro-stress and water dependency on external resources in most of the cases. Decision-making process needs measurable, comparable and reliable tools in order to be able to make trade-offs when facing conflicting issues. Indicators are valuable tools for understanding the trends and challenges encountered in water resources management. The Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention adopted, in November 2005, the Mediterranean Strategy for Sustainable Development (MSSD). Integrated water resources and demand management constitute the first priority among the range of actions of the adopted strategy. Increasing efficiency by reducing losses and wasteful use is expected to help stabilise water demand in the Southern and Eastern part of the Mediterranean countries. In this paper, an assessment of the existing water management concepts and policies in Mediterranean countries will be presented based on sustainable development indicators related to water management.Keywords Mediterranean region . Renewable water resource . Relative Water Stress Index (RWSI) . Sustainable water use management . Water demand . Water shortage indicator Water Resour Manage

A Semiempirical Method to Estimate Actual Evapotranspiration in Mediterranean Environments

“…is assumption is theoretically justified by the mentioned complexity and variability of the actual relationships between ET A and RSWC [13] and is practically necessary to minimize the number of parameters to be identified. As is schematized in Figure 1, in fact, a linear equation relating relative ET A (RET A ) to SWC can be defined identifying the two extreme points, i.e., the SWC corresponding to full and null evapotranspiration, which can be assumed to correspond to 2 Advances in Meteorology field capacity (SWC fc ) and permanent wilting point (SWC wp ), respectively [8]. e identification of SWC wp and SWC fc allows the computation of the soil water stress coefficient on day i, Ks i , from the respective SWC, SWC i , through the following equation:…”

“…is is particularly the case for Mediterranean environments, which are characterized by prolonged summer aridity and are very vulnerable to ongoing climatic change [1]. Consequently, numerous initiatives have been promoted for achieving more efficient and sustainable uses of water resources in Mediterranean countries [2].…”

Wastewater Treatment Costs: A Research Overview through Bibliometric Analysis

“…Given the importance of water resources, appropriate water management is needed as well as more sustainable exploitation of this resource [1][2][3][4]. At a global level, water scarcity is an economic, sanitation and even security issue [5].…”

Water Scarcity and Water Trade: Turkish Attempts to Supply a Drying Region

“…The structure of this paper is also determined by this duality. While many books and studies have been published on the hydrological conditions of the region (Ghiotti 2012;Burak, Margat 2016;Strategic Foresight Group 2018), water policy defines relatively new research directions that attempt to find answers in the challenge-conflict-cooperation triangle (Wolf 1997;Mason 2003). We believe that political cooperation is almost necessary on water issues -frontier rivers and lakes, transboundary surface and groundwater resources -but at the same time the ways in which conflicts are resolved are very varied.…”