Water Resource Management in GCC States: Challenges and Remedies

The present work deals with the management of water resources in the GCC countries. Indeed, besides food security, water has been one of the most pressing challenges for the bloc. The GCC depends primarily on desalination to meet its daily water requirements, which not only increases pollution by discharging the brine into the narrow Gulf-water-passage but also consumes huge amount of energy, particularly oil. As a result, the GCC countries, which predominantly depend on oil revenues, are squeezed by growing oil consumption by water plants. This monograph underlines the risks involved in the security of these large desalination setups, particularly from the possible threats posed by the extremist forces, and nuclear radiation in the Gulf waters. Majority of the GCC countries' water plants are on the Gulf coast, and strikingly most of the nuclear power plants either existing or proposed, are on the two sides of the Gulf coast. In this backdrop, the author tries to infuse some useful insights on the region's water management & security. It also delves into the issues of terrorism that may possibly target these life-saving depots just to discredit the monarchical regimes.