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Water Resources of Lebanon pp 1–12Cite as

Introduction

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Part of the World Water Resources book series (WWR,volume 7)

Abstract

Water resources in the Middle East Region, where they are scarce, is a matter of utmost significance. However, it must be made clear that Lebanon has a diverse topography that makes it with different physical setting from the surrounding regions in the Middle East. Even though, Lebanon has a small area (10,452 km2), yet it encompasses different aspects of water resources whether on surface including rivers, springs, snow and lakes; and sub-surface where a number of aquiferous rock formations and karstic conduits exist with considerable amounts of water. Nevertheless, there is still complain about water supply/demand. The country becomes under water stress and suffering from water shortage. Meanwhile, creditable estimations on water resources are still inadequate. Recently, challenges on water resources have been exacerbated including the population growth and the increased water demand, plus the changing climatic conditions. The existing management approaches done by the governmental sector are few enough to adapt water sector to these challenges. Thus, managing the demand of water in Lebanon is substantially adopted by the individuals rather than the public sector itself. This chapter will introduce an overview on the Lebanon’s territory, then it will illustrate different measurements on water resources including mainly water availability, demand and supply. In addition, an inventory on the previous obtained studies will be mentioned.

Keywords

  • Water stress
  • Mountainous region
  • River flow
  • Contamination
  • Eastern Mediterranean

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Council for Scientific Research, Beirut, Lebanon

    Amin Shaban

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  1. Amin Shaban
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Shaban, A. (2020). Introduction. In: Water Resources of Lebanon. World Water Resources, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-48717-1_1

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