Human Exploitation and Water Crisis

In an excellent article "is Water the New Oil" published by The Guardian (11/2/2008), Juliette Jowitt discusses early human exploitation of water by referring to the work of archeologist Steven Mithen, professor of early prehistoric at the University of Reading and archeologist Bill Finlayson.

Their studies dealt with an ancient site where "humans made a permanent settlement, " Wadi Faynan in Jordan.

Jowitt stated in her article that according to archeologist Mithen, water was the reason for the settlement in Wadi Faynan 11,500 year ago.

The early wave of settlement was "drawn to water." It "attracted successive wave of settlements...which would eventually all but destroy the resource which made life possible."

History is definitely repeating itself. In modern time, water crisis is caused by human exploitation, or as Jowitt wrote "human over-exploitation" of the environment. "It is a pattern that's been repeated for millenia, around the world and it now threatens us on a global scale."

As the livelihood of the ancient Bedouins of Wadi Faynan in Jordan was inextricably tied to water, so is the livelihood of modern man.

Water "is the world's most precious commodity, yet many of us take it for granted. But, that's all about to change." Juliette Jowitt

More to come on the future water crisis faced by the Middle East.