ABSTRACT
The Mediterranean Basin is characterised by such extreme variations in the availability of freshwater and in the pattern of water requirement that generalisation is difficult. None the less, there is an underlying seasonal or annual scarcity of rainfall which, set against rapidly increasing demand – typically in the driest part of the Mediterranean Basin – requires careful and imaginative water harvesting, storage, distribution and recycling. Even with careful management, however, it seems inevitable that the scarcity and hence the value of freshwater are set to increase (see Fig. 15.1) and that this will significantly influence patterns of economic and social change. In particular, water shortage increases the scope for conflict where there is competition for resources. This may occur within countries where regional autonomy has stimulated environmental protectionism but also, more importantly, between nation-states where rivers flow across and groundwater basins straddle international borders. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that freshwater is increasingly seen as a constraint upon, rather than as an enabler of Mediterranean development (Grenon and Batisse 1989). The Mediterranean Basin, showing the main rivers draining into the Mediterranean Sea https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315832524/aaa1ae65-e324-4e25-8f13-0a5dd4f6d743/content/fig15_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Source: After Milliman et al. (1992) and Ajuntament de Calvià (1995)
