NASWA - Early Human Settlements and Water Shortages of Today Lesson

Early Human Settlements and Water Shortages of Today

Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent

Mesopotamia, meaning "land between rivers," is located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The area has been studied throughout history due to its significance in having given rise to several early civilizations. Humans in this area urbanized as early as 5000 BCE and began developing their sense of human culture. The control of water and the ability to grow excess food contributed to their success. The human activity in this area extended around the region all the way to the Mediterranean Sea in a crescent shape, which was aptly called the Fertile Crescent.

Water from the Tigris and Euphrates 

The major source of water in the Fertile Crescent region comes from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Both rivers have their origins in Türkiye and converge at the Shatt al-Arab waterway that flows into the Persian Gulf. The Euphrates is the longest river in Southwest Asia and flows through Syria from Türkiye before entering Iraq. All three countries need water for agriculture to produce food for a growing population.

Türkiye has developed large dams on both the Tigris and Euphrates for agricultural purposes and to generate hydroelectric power. The Atatürk Dam in Türkiye is the largest dam on the Euphrates, and it has a reservoir behind the dam that is large enough to hold the total annual discharge of the river. As water is diverted for agriculture in Türkiye, there is less water flowing downstream for Syria or Iraq. Disputes over water resources continue to be a major concern in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin. In 2009, the three countries signed a memorandum of understanding to strengthen cooperation within the Tigris-Euphrates Basin. Agreements to share water have been difficult for the three countries to negotiate.

Water Conservation 

The issue of control over the water is contentious at times. Just as the control of water may have been a crucial factor in the early Mesopotamian civilizations, it remains a point of political conflict in places such as Israel and the West Bank. The lack of fresh water and the heavier demand placed on water resources have caused countries that can afford to desalinize seawater. This process is used extensively in the oil-rich states of the Arabian Peninsula.

Since Israel grows plantation crops such as bananas, which require large quantities of water, it has taken innovative steps to conserve water and use it efficiently. These steps include fertigation, the use of net houses to reduce transpiration and wind damage, and the use of gray water. Fertigation, which is drip irrigation mixed with fertilizers, is used extensively in the area. Banana groves are grown in net houses which allows sunlight to penetrate but reduces the amount of transpiration. Gray water is water extracted from sewage that has been treated to be used in agriculture.

Underground wells in the West Bank region provide water for a high percentage of people in both the Palestinian areas and Israel.

Mountain Water in Iran 

Iran is a desert climate. To redistribute the water available from the high mountains, Iranians have developed a system of qanats to collect water where it is available and channel it to the cities or urban areas for use. A qanat might include a system of shafts or wells along a mountain slope that allows water to collect into a common underground channel, which is then diverted to wherever it is needed. This system has been in use since ancient times in many arid regions of the world. Qanats are not new inventions. More than 2,700 years ago, a qanat was developed in what is present-day Iran. This qanat has a system of hundreds of wells and channels of water for more than twenty-eight miles and still provides drinking water. Over the centuries, thousands of qanats were developed in the area. Persians used cold qanat water from the mountains to keep ice cool during the summer months. Agricultural production relies heavily on water from qanats, which in turn are dependent on climate conditions and local weather patterns.

Water Shortages in Arabia 

The Arabian Peninsula, although primarily desert land, does have underground aquifers of fossil water, like those in the Sahara Desert. Saudi Arabia taps into these water resources to irrigate agricultural land to grow food. This area faces the same issue as Libya and other areas of the world that rely on underground aquifers: eventually, the water supply will be depleted. Many coastal desert countries such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain, and Qatar have resorted to the desalinization of seawater to meet their needs. Since desalinization is costly, this is viable only if the country can afford the energy cost required to operate the desalinization plants.

Yemen is a state on the Arabian Peninsula that has used the terracing of mountainous land to benefit from the little precipitation it receives. Terracing is effective because water from precipitation is trapped in terraces. As it flows down the mountainside, each terrace uses what it needs and then passes the water to the next lower terrace. More land can be farmed to produce higher yields of agricultural crops such as sorghum and cereals.

One of the main problems with Yemen's terrace system is that most of its trees are being cut down for firewood. Tree roots are essential for holding the soil together on fragile mountain slopes. Another concern is heavy rains that cause serious erosion and damage to the terrace system. Additionally, the extremely rapid growth rate of Yemen's population is outstripping its agricultural production.

Nile River Civilization

Human civilization also emerged along the Nile River valley of what is now Egypt. Spring flooding of the Nile River brought nutrients and water to the land along the Nile Valley, allowing the land to produce excess food. Once the food was plentiful, the area was able to support an urban civilization, capable of building the pyramids and the Sphinx in the Giza Plateau.

Nile Water in Egypt

For thousands of years, floods of the Nile annually covered the land with fresh silt and water. This made the land productive, but the flooding often caused severe damage to human infrastructure. The building of the Aswan High Dam in the 1970s helped control the flooding of the Nile Valley.

The river no longer flooded annually, and water had to be pumped onto the land. Over time, the constant and extensive use of this type of irrigation causes the small quantities of salt in the water to build up in the soil to serious levels, thus reducing the land's productivity. This process, called salinization, is a widespread problem in arid climates. To rid the soil of the salts, freshwater is needed to flood the fields, dissolve the salt, and then move the salty water back off the fields. High salinization in the soil and the reduction in agricultural productivity is a growing concern for Egypt. Egypt's growing population places a high demand on the availability of food and water. Most live within twelve miles of the Nile River.  

Underground Water in Libya

Most of the people in Libya live near the coast where they once depended on natural aquifers beneath the desert that were created when the region was tropical thousands of years ago. Today, these coastal aquifers have been depleted or tainted by saltwater intrusion. To provide fresh water to the people, the Great Man-Made Water project was created at a cost of over $25 billion dollars.

Since its creation, it has drawn fresh water from the desert to large cities such as Tripoli and Benghazi. The main problem with this system is that underground aquifers are not considered a renewable resource; as more countries tap into the aquifers, the available water will be depleted more quickly. As water is drawn from the aquifers for industrial irrigation, the water table goes down. Local settlements that rely on well water may in time have to dig deeper wells or move to locations where water resources are still available. One way that the use of the water has been decreased is through power outages. The frequent power outages in Libya cause the water pumping stations and wells to stop, leaving people without water for many hours each day. Once the water is depleted, there will be more conflicts over water in the region.

 

 

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