Before the Taps Run Dry: Responding to Gaza’s Existential Water Crisis

Responding to Gaza’s Existential Water Crisis

The semi-arid Middle East suffers from a chronic scarcity of water. The causes are many: climate change, drought, desertification, urbanization, over-consumption, waste and pollution. Politics also can present special challenges when it comes to accessing and distributing water resources. In Gaza, many of these issues are present in an extreme form.

The Gaza Strip is a 25-mile long stretch of coastal land (141 square miles, 365 square kilometers) that is home to a growing population of more than two million people. It includes eight recognized refugee camps that have some of the highest population densities in the world. Years of hostilities and a major blockade have crippled the economy and reduced much of the region to desperate levels of poverty. These conditions are demonstrated most clearly in the inability of the Gazan people to secure reliable access to some of the most basic necessities of human existence — water, sanitation, and power.

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