Desertification in Cyprus - Same Story. Different Country.

This post is about the impact of global warming on another Mediterranean country - Cyprus. Like Spain, both countries rely heavily on tourist revenue. Yet, rising tourist populations place considerable environmental demand on destination countries, especially, for freshwater.

Under "suitable" conditions, a desert is often considered to be an ideal resort destination. Under "normal" conditions, a desert is often deadly.

Before going into the article on Cyprus, I would like to revisit the extreme weather being experienced in Australia. I think you will see some important similarities.

In case you are not aware of the extended drought in Australia, I will provide a few links to put those conditions into perspective. The following link provides a map of the region impacted by the Murray-Darling River System - the agricultural heartland of the country. It is shared between the States of Victoria and New South Wales. Like failing arteries, the continuing drought has begun to constrict supplies of available water - ultimately, impacting the health of Australia's agricultural sustainability.

1. The Independent/Australia's Epic Drought: The Situation is Grim by Kathy Marks in Sydney (4/2007). Although a dated article, it has many of the decision details that countries suffering from drought/desertification must begin to consider. Many countries in arid and hyper-arid geographies, such as the Middle East, have been trying to address these issues for a very long time. Often, water issues are the only common ground that can bring politically-opposing factions to a negotiation table. The article opens with: "Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation."

2. WashingtonPost/A Lingering Pool of Disbelief: Despite a decade of record drought, Australian farmers refuse to buy into climate change by Blaine Harden (12/2009). (P.S. Close the Advertisement if it pops up first. It is annoying). This article is two years more current and describes how life USED to be. "SWAN REACH, AUSTRALIA -- Before climate change strangled his lemon trees, Hermann Markovsky would drift off to sleep to the murmur of black swans in a lagoon beside his citrus farm. The lagoon has dried up and the swans are gone. Gone, too, after a decade of the worst drought on record, is Markovsky's right to pump irrigation water from the Murray, Australia's largest river. Once called the Mighty Murray, it is now too sickly to flow to the sea, nor can it fill the irrigation pipes that sustain the country's agricultural heartland."

3. Climate Progress/The Severity of the 'Big Dry': In this article, I think the conclusion will be most helpful to put its content into perspective. "So the work Aussie scientists cannot be used to argue that the “Big Dry” is not “a CO2-driven event” (which in any case isn’t quite what had been asserted originally). Indeed, the scientists find that climate change has probably worsened this recent drought, which again is not new climate science (see “Must-have PPT: The ‘global-change-type drought’ and the future of extreme weather“). Warm-weather droughts are generally worse than cooler-weather droughts — and this has been a hot-weather drought, which is perhaps the worst of all. Future droughts will increasingly be very hot weather droughts."

4. Drought Statement Archive: For the 6 and 12-month periods ending 31st December 2009. Issued on 5th January 2010 by the National Climate Centre.

Now that there has been sufficient background on the impact of freshwater deficiencies in Australia, I guess it is time to introduce the article on Cyprus. The article, Climate Change in Cyprus: Battling Drought from Euranet (01/2009) is another telling example of what is likely to become a recurring theme throughout many countries as freshwater demands increase for irrigation and consumption.

Again, I like to return to the simple formula: Food = Virtual Water. Whether we are talking about grain or meat production, water is the essential ingredient.