En otras ocasiones he comentado algunas claves para la gestión sostenible del agua, un recurso natural no vivo pero renovable. Las evidencias muestran que el agua no debería ser considerado globalmente un recurso escaso, pero sufre un uso poco eficiente que genera escasez local. Las soluciones pasan por combinar mecanismos de mercado (haciendo visible su coste real e incluyendo sus servicios ecológicos no extractivos) y comprender su naturaleza renovable.
Tyler Cowen se pregunta, en Marginal Revolution, "Will the Middle East run out of water?". Comenta las causas de los usos ineficientes del agua para actividades agrícolas en el Medio Este. A partir de la obra de Fredrik Segerfeldt Water for Sale: How Business and the Market Can Resolve the World's Water Crisis (publicada por el think-tank liberal Cato Institute), muestra como parte del problema de la gestión del agua se debe a su uso "incorrecto" en los lugares "equivocados". La causa está en que los agricultores no perciben el precio real del recurso y por tanto no ajustan su actividad (tipo de plantas cultivadas) a los costes reales (dependientes de la abundancia local y/o de los costes de transporte):
Farmers, who account for 70 percent of the world's water consumption, are often hugely uneconomical about it. For example, in growing water-intensive crops they derive a less-than-optimal nutrition content from a given quantity of water. Agriculture, in fact, is one of the real villains in the global water drama...Half the water used by the world's farmers generates no food...A 10 percent improvement in the distribution of water to agriculture would double the world's potable water supply.
Middle Eastern countries could solve many of their water problems with free trade, economic diversification, and better agricultural incentives, and yes that means don't grow bananas in the desert. Yemen needs to stop growing qat; this addictive drug accounts for over seventy percent of their water use.
Ideally the relatively water-rich Syria, Lebanon, and Turkey could be selling water to the rest of the region but for political reasons don't expect much of that anytime soon. Sometimes the easiest way to trade water is inside a tomato.
As for desalination, the costs have fallen dramatically over the last decade, and may continue to fall. The real problem is not producing the water but rather transporting it uphill. Desalination won't solve your problems if you live in the mountains.