Middle East feels effects of 'erratic' water cycle

Climate change blamed for drying soil and rivers and extreme weather such as floods in Libya

Dry conditions in the Middle East and North Africa are believed to be worsening due to climate change. AFP

The Middle East and North Africa are sensing the effects of an "increasingly unpredictable" global water cycle as the region's rivers and soil dry up, weather forecasters have warned.

An erratic water cycle giving rise to both hot and dry conditions and extreme rainfall such as last year's deadly flooding in Libya is a sign of what is to come due to climate change, the World Meteorological Organisation said in an annual report published on Monday.

It said reservoirs in the Middle East were taking in abnormally small amounts of water, while the region's soil moisture was "much below normal" and North Africa had a "significant rainfall deficit". Jordan was singled out as lacking groundwater due to long-term overexploitation.

The flooding in Libya last September was made more deadly than that on Europe's Mediterranean shores by a lack of early warning systems and preparedness, said WMO expert Stefan Uhlenbrook. He said high ocean temperatures had fuelled the flooding at a time of year when "normally it should never rain at all in Libya".

"It's both extremes that hurt society," Mr Uhlenbrook said, referring to floods and droughts, "particularly where the capacity is low to deal with these challenges, like in many parts of Africa [and] the Middle East." He described Jordan as "one of the most water-scarce countries" due to its high population density.

The WMO, whose president is UAE meteorologist Dr Abdulla Al Mandous, estimates that 3.6 billion people around the world do not have enough access to water for at least one month a year. That number is forecast to rise to more than five billion by 2050.

It is estimated that as many as 250 million people in the Middle East and North Africa lack safe drinking water, according to a separate August study which suggests the scale of the health and poverty problem worldwide could be twice as bad as feared.

“Water is the canary in the coal mine of climate change," said the WMO's secretary general, Celeste Saulo. "We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies.

“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture which is conducive to heavy rainfall. More rapid evaporation and drying of soils worsen drought conditions."

The world's water problems in 2023 were fuelled by the hottest global temperatures on record and the worst glacier melting in 50 years, according to scientific data. Switzerland's Alpine glaciers have lost about 10 per cent of their remaining volume over the past two years, it is believed.

Around the world only 40 per cent of reservoirs took in a "normal" amount of water. About 43 per cent were short of water, including those in the Middle East and Central Asia, according to the WMO. About one in six were fuller than usual, including in Scandinavia and South Africa.

For parts of the year water evaporation was "much above normal" in the Arabian peninsula and some of Eastern Europe. North Africa and the Middle East endured "much below normal" soil moisture levels during the summer months.