Bassel Daher, Ph.D.

According to the McKinsey report (2009), the world is facing a water scarcity challenge agriculture is its predominant consumer. It accounts for approximately 3100 billion percent of global water withdrawals today and is expected to increase 2030. This increase is due to a number of factors: growing population and the ever necessity to cater for its food needs, economic growth, the variability of increase in global temperatures. In add sector faces an enormous challenge of producing almost 50% more production by 2050 (OECD, 2010). The main objective of this light on different policies to sustainably manage our water greatest consumer of this resource, as a reaction to the to growing food demand in the presence of current and management practices.
Most scientists agree that the water cycle is highly affected by climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that the average global surface temperature will increase by additional 2.0  2008). The climate change will affect the amount, spatial distribution and the quality of water which will highly affect the agricultural sector. First, with the increase in the the ice from the mountains melts faster. In irrigation systems that rely on high for water, high runoff periods will advance earlier in the spring, when still low (UN-Water, 2010). The agricultural water consumption
evaporation and interception loss” increases and heat damage during occurs mainly for the tree crops such as citrus and fruit (Morrison et. al., change in the precipitation form from “snow to rain” wi
change highly affects the agricultural sector in the world depend on the snowmelt precipitation intensity increases, or “the amount potential of the erosion of fertile soil, which agricultural products. Moreover, as occurrence of dangerous floods water content. Hence, severe reductions in river runoff and aquifer recharge are expected in much of the world: the Mediterranean basin a Australia and Southern Africa. This reduction affects the water availability and quality in these already water stressed regions (UN frequency, “how often the precipitation occurs”, will reduce the groundwater recharge, reduce the flows in the rivers and affect the water availability for the agricultural sector, mainly rain crops such as fodder.
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