The subject of water resources has recently been appearing more frequently in the press. Localized droughts tend to receive the most attention, but during 1978, information from the US Water Resources Council indicated a far more complex and critical water situation was developing. The ominous overtones of severe problems with water resources led to this National Defense University study to assess the anticipated impact of these problems on the military base structure in the United States. (Author).

This book is the result of a joint research effort led by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and involving the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and the Palestine Health Council. It discusses opportunities for enhancement of water supplies and avoidance of overexploitation of water resources in the Middle East. Based on the concept that ecosystem goods and services are essential to maintaining water quality and quantity, the book emphasizes conservation, improved use of current technologies, and water management approaches that are compatible with environmental quality.

A review of global water demand projections (WDPs) show substantial over- or under-estimation. The pre-1990 WDPs, with population as the main driver of change, over-projected current water use by 20 to 130%. The post-1990 WDPs, with sophisticated modeling frameworks, show substantial underestimation under the ‘business-as-usual’ scenarios and are more downward biased under sustainable scenarios. Overall, the value of long-term country-level projections in global WDPs is inadequate for local water resource planning. To increase the accuracy and value of global WDPs, future WDPs should take into account the spatial variation and influence of rapidly changing key exogenous and endogenous drivers of water demand in different sectors across and within countries, and provide a sensitivity analysis of projections.