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INTRODUCTION
Potable water is an essential element for life. It is also an important requirement for developing society, both in social as well as economic aspects. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are four million children dying annually in developing countries as a result of waterborne diseases, such as malaria and amoeba (Rubenstein 2008).
It is well known that a lack of water resources is more likely to occur in countries with fast population growth and high density, such as in Mexico, the Middle East and East Asia. For example, China has more than 22% of the total world population with only 7% of the total potable water worldwide (Simon 2001). Population has an important effect on water consumption: it is estimated that as the population is doubled, water consumption increases three-fold (Simon 2001). In addition, the increase in water usage will affect agriculture negatively and decrease food availability. This is more obvious in developing countries, where 90% of the water is being used for irrigation with a high loss ratio (water loss/total water added) and high evaporation (Abu Zeid 1998).
The water crisis in the Middle East is more visible; this is mainly because more than 90% of the area exists under arid and semi-arid conditions, with a mean annual rainfall of less than 250 mm (Hasan 1999), limited water resources, high population growth and the intensive use of water resources, which exceeds the water demand of these countries in most of the cases. This stress might grow further in the Middle Eastern countries where they suffer from poverty, limited social capacities, and a vast use of old traditional water distribution and irrigation systems (Allan 2002; Sullivan & Huntingford 2009). The Middle East witnesses a diversity in its climate due to the diversity in topographical features. The diversification in climate affects the existing water resources and water losses under different climatic conditions, where temperature fluctuates greatly between summer and wintertime, and rainfall is limited to 40-50 days in wintertime (International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) 2009). The ongoing industrial and irrigated agricultural development is putting further pressure and threats on these countries’ water resources, hence putting more demand on studying the environmental consequences of existing old traditional irrigation systems to cope with...