Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Multidimensional Analysis of Water Poverty in MENA Region: An Empirical Comparison with Physical Indicators

  • Published:
Social Indicators Research Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

It is not easy to determine whether water is really scarce in the physical sense or whether it is available, but people cannot get access to it, or use it better. This paper reviews selected physical water scarcity indicators, and criticisms made against them on several grounds. Under the premise that the water scarcity issue is inherently multidimensional, a composite Water Poverty Index has been developed, to complement the traditional physical water indicators. In this paper we propose some technical refinements based on principal component analysis, in order to improve the method of calculation of the index. Using the proposed methodology, the present paper assesses the applicability of the index for the MENA region, by comparing the situation of oil-rich and water-poor countries (Gulf States) with that of lower-income yet water-rich countries (Horn of Africa states).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. It is nearly the most widely used indicator of water stress in the press.

  2. The water availability is defined as the annual runoff available for human use.

  3. The 1,700 m3 threshold is calculated based on estimates of basic water requirements in the domestic, agricultural, industrial, energy and ecological sectors. Gleick (1996) and Rijsberman (2006) evaluated basic human water needs as 50 L per capita per day (excluding food production).

  4. Vörösmarty et al. (2000) developed a new index called the water reuse index which’s defined as the fraction of aggregate upstream water use relative to discharge.

  5. The green water (generally the soil moisture and water as evapotranspiration in plants) is the main source responsible for most of the food production in many regions of the world, and as a result is substantial for human well-being.

  6. The Human Development Index assesses the average accomplishments in a country in three main dimensions of human development such as longevity, knowledge and a decent standard of living. A composite index, the HDI hence comprises three indicators: life expectancy, educational attainment (adult literacy and combined primary, secondary and tertiary enrolment) and real GDP per capita.

  7. In others studies, the MENA region is defined differently and contains less of countries. In this analysis, we aimed to include as many countries in the region as possible.

  8. The Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) is a composite index that was published from 1999 to 2005; it tracked 21 elements of environmental sustainability including natural resource endowments, past and present pollution levels, environmental management efforts, contributions to protection of the global commons, and a society’s capacity to improve its environmental performance over time.

  9. The Principal components analysis (PCA) is a data reduction technique used to extract a smaller set of uncorrelated variables, called principal components, from a large set of correlated variables. Each principal component is a weighted linear combination of the original variables with mathematically determined characteristic vectors of the correlation matrix of the original data as weights; it can be argued that PCA can provide a good solution for the problem of arbitrary choice of weighting scheme.

  10. Approximately 70% of water desalination projects in the world are located in the Gulf region.

References

  • Alcamo, J., et al. (1997) Global change and global scenarios of water use and availability: An application of WaterGap 1.0. Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR), University of Kassel, Germany.

  • Alcamo, J., et al. (2003). Development and testing of the WaterGAP 2 global model of water use and availability. Hydrological Sciences Journal, 48(3), 317–338. ISSN 0262-667.

    Google Scholar 

  • Alcamo, J., Henrichs, T., & Rosch, T. (2000). World water in 2025: Global modeling and scenario analysis for the World Commission on Water for the 21st century. Kassel world water series report no. 2, Center for Environmental Systems Research, Germany: University of Kassel, 2000, pp 1–49.

  • Allan, J. A. (1998). Virtual water: A strategic resource: Global solutions to regional deficits. Groundwater, 36(4), 546.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Asheesh, M. (2007). Allocating gaps of shared water resources (scarcity index): Case study on palestine-israel. Water Resources in the Middle East,2 241–248.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, A., & Matlock, M. D. (2011). A review of water scarcity indices and methodologies. Arkansa: The Sustainability Consortium, University of Arkansa.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cho, D. I., Ogwang, T., & Opio, C. (2010). Simplifying the Water Poverty Index. Social indicators research, 97(2), 257–267. ISSN 0303-8300.

  • Dow, K., et al. (2005). Linking water scarcity to population movements: From global models to local experiences. Stockholm: Environment Institute (SEI).

    Google Scholar 

  • Falkenmark, M., Lundqvist, J., & Widstrand, C. (1989). Macro-scale water scarcity requires micro-scale approaches. Natural Resources Forum, 13, 258–267 (Wiley Online Library).

    Google Scholar 

  • Feitelson, E., & Chenoweth, J. (2002). Water poverty: Towards a meaningful indicator. Water Policy, 4(3), 263–281.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foguet, A. P., & Garriga, R. G. (2011). Analyzing water poverty in basins. Water Resources Management, 25(14), 3595–3612.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garriga, R. G., & Foguet, A. P. (2010). Improved method to calculate a water poverty index at local scale. Journal of Environmental Engineering, 136, 1287.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gleick, P. H. (1996). Basic water requirements for human activities: Meeting basic needs. Water international, 21, 83–92. ISSN 0250-8060.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hair, J. F., et al. (2006). Multivariate data analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hajkowicz, S. (2006). Multi-attributed environmental index construction. Ecological Economics, 57(1), 122–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heidecke, C. (2006). Development and evaluation of a regional water poverty index for Benin. International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), EP discussion paper 145.

  • Kaiser, H. F. (1974). An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika, 39(1), 31–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Komnenic, V., Ahlers, R., & Zaag, P. (2009). Assessing the usefulness of the water poverty index by applying it to a special case: Can one be water poor with high levels of access? Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 34(4–5), 219–224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence, P., Meigh, J., & Sullivan, C. (2002). The water poverty index: An international comparison. Keele economics Research paper, 19. Staffordshire, UK.

  • Malkina-Pykh, I. G. (2002). Integrated assessment models and response function models: Pros and cons for sustainable development indices design. Ecological Indicators, 2(1–2), 93–108.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Manandhar, S., Pandey, V. P., & Kazama, F. (2012). Application of the water poverty index (WPI) in the Nepalese context: A case study of Kali Gandaki river basin (KGRB). Water Resources Management, 26(1), 89–107.

    Google Scholar 

  • Molle, F., & Mollinga, P. (2003). Water poverty indicators: Conceptual problems and policy issues. Water policy, 5(5), 529–544. ISSN 1366-7017.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nardo, M., et al. (2005). Handbook on constructing composite indicators: Methodology and user guide. OECD Statistics Working Papers.

  • Ohlsson, L. (1998). Water and social resource scarcity. Rome: Food & Agriculture Organization.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohlsson, L. (2000). Water conflicts and social resource scarcity. Physics & Chemistry of the Earth, Part B, 25(3), 213–220.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ohlsson, L., & Turton, A. R. (1999). The Turning of a Screw: Social Resource Scarcity as a Bottle-neck in Adaptation to Water Scarcity. London: School of Oriental & African Studies, University of London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Oki, T., & Kanae, S. (2006). Global hydrological cycles and world water resources. Science, 313(5790), 1068.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Raskin, P., et al. (1997). Water futures: Assessment of long-range patterns and problems. Comprehensive assessment of the freshwater resources of the world (p. 23). Stockholm: Stockholm Environment Institute.

  • Rijsberman, F. R. (2006). Water scarcity: Fact or fiction? Agricultural water management, 80(1–3), 5–22. ISSN 0378-3774.

  • Rovira, J. S., & Rovira, P. S. (2008). Assessment of aggregated indicators of sustainability using PCA: The case of apple trade in Spain, Conference on Life Cycle Assessment in the Agri-Food Zurich, pp 133–143.

  • Salameh, E. (2000). Redefining the water poverty index. Water Resources Ass. Water International, 25, 469–473.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Savenije, H. H. G., & Van Der Zaag, P. (2000). Conceptual framework for the management of shared river basins; with special reference to the SADC and EU. Water Policy, 2(1–2), 1–37.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Smakhtin, V., et al. (2004). Taking into account environmental water requirements in global-scale water resources assessments. IWMI. ISBN 9290905425.

  • Shiklomanov, I. A., & Markavo O. L. (1987). Problems of water availability and water transfers in the world. Leningrad: Hydrometeoizdat.

  • Sullivan, C. A. (Ed.) (2000). Constructing a Water Poverty Index: A feasibility study. Centre for Ecology & Hydrology/DFID.

  • Sullivan, C. A. (2002). Calculating a water poverty index. World Development, 30(7), 1195–1210.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, C. A., et al. (2003). The water poverty index: Development and application at the community scale. Natural Resources Forum, 27, (pp. 189–199). London: Butterworths.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sullivan, C. A., Meigh, J. R., & Fediw, T. (2002). Developing and testing the Water Poverty Index: Phase 1 final technical report. Report to Department for International Development, CEH Wallingford.

  • Vörösmarty, C. J., et al. (2000). Global water resources: Vulnerability from climate change & population growth. Science, 289(5477), 284.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yang, H., Reichert, P., Abbaspour, K., & Zehnder, A. (2003). A water resources threshold and its implications for food security. Environmental Science & Technology American Chemical Society, 37(2003), 3048–3054.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics Sciences and Management of Sousse, University of Sousse, Sousse, Tunisia

    Hatem Jemmali

  2. Taieb M’hiri Avenue, Public POST PO Box No. 177, 2080, Ariana, Tunisia

    Hatem Jemmali

  3. School of Environment, Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia

    Caroline A. Sullivan

  4. PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480, Australia

    Caroline A. Sullivan

Authors
  1. Hatem Jemmali
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Caroline A. Sullivan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hatem Jemmali.

Appendix

Appendix

See Table 9.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Jemmali, H., Sullivan, C.A. Multidimensional Analysis of Water Poverty in MENA Region: An Empirical Comparison with Physical Indicators. Soc Indic Res 115, 253–277 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0218-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-012-0218-2

Keywords

Search

Navigation