Transboundary governance of joint water resources is a challenge. In the case of the Dead Sea, however, conflicting interests appear to pitch governments against environmentalists rather than the three riparians against each other. This, at least, was the impression left behind from the workshop on "Transboundary Natural Resources Governance in Regions of Extreme Conditions". It was sponsored by the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme and took place on November 19-21 close to the Dead Sea in Ein Gedi, Israel - a location that mirrored the workshop’s title in various ways: it suffers from extreme conditions of water scarcity and long history of conflict. Both make the transboundary governance of the regional water resources particularly challenging.
While economic and legal approaches and lessons learned from other cases were also presented during the workshop, the drying Dead Sea was the main subject of interest. One initiative that is meant to alleviate the above mentioned stress factors in the region intends to build a canal to convey water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. The governments of Jordan, Palestinian Territories and Israel have already agreed on the terms of reference for a 15 million dollar feasibility study funded by the World Bank. Does the Dead Sea need a drip from the Red Sea? Various presentations challenged the plan and called for alternative solutions. Main concerns were expressed about the high costs of the project and the negative effects that mixing the two waters might have on the Dead Sea characteristics.
The three governments benefit in different ways from the canal: for Israel the main benefit is supposedly the additional water flow into the Dead Sea; Jordan and Palestine are supposed to get 850 million cubic meter annually of desalinated water for drinking - just about as much as the total renewable water resources available to Jordan today. The Palestinians, who do not have access to the Dead Sea's coast and water see another benefit from cooperating on the issue in their own recognition as a riparian state.
Governmental representatives also stressed the symbolic importance of having agreed on the terms as an act of cooperation. The intricacies of water cooperation became once more evident from the repeated calls to better exchange data and information on the water resources as well as from the different views on water rights versus water needs that were presented during the workshop. (Annika Kramer)

More information about the workshop can be found here http://www.natodeadsea.org/

Friends of the Earth Middle East http://www.foeme.org/projects.php?ind=51 have studied environmental and socio-economic aspects of the Red Sea Dead Sea project.

Published in: ECC-Newsletter, December 2007