Abstract
Climate change is a big environmental challenge facing the world today. The Middle East region is especially vulnerable to climate change because of its already dry conditions and the limited water availability. With increased heat and increased evaporation, the problem may become even worse under global warming and there may be severe problems for people in regions that are particularly vulnerable to change. In terms of economic impact, changes in temperature and precipitation patterns may result in damage to agriculture, tourism and other strategic economic sectors. In the geologic sense climatic changes are nothing out of the ordinary. During the last two million years several more wet and even dryer phases occurred in the Middle East, causing variations between semiarid and hyper-arid climate, however not changing the dominating aridic morphodynamic. For the assessment, forecasting and respond to the impacts of climate changes on the water systems integrated water resources management is proposed.
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Hötzl, H. (2008). Water Resources Management in the Middle East under Aspects of Climatic Changes. In: Zereini, F., Hötzl, H. (eds) Climatic Changes and Water Resources in the Middle East and North Africa. Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85047-2_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85047-2_8
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