Sustaining the ecological functions of the Litani River Basin, Lebanon

ABSTRACT

Although Lebanon has the highest mean annual rainfall of all Middle Eastern countries, it is affected by water stress, negatively impacting agricultural food production, energy generation, and undermine ecosystem functions. The Bekaa area, where the upper Litani River Basin (LRB) is located, suffers serious water quality and quantity problems, which threaten agricultural productivity and public health. Most of the domestic and industrial water in the basin is left untreated. This study investigates prevailing water management issues in the basin. The analysis provides a critical reflection on the water quality and quantity indicators using Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), to ‘ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all’. Results based on the author’s observations and evidence from published reports and papers, since the early nineties, showed the existing management approaches fall short to mitigate the negative impact of the environmental problems in the LRB, particularly low water quality (indicator 6.3) and inefficient water use (indicator 6.4). Progress on achieving integrated water management (indicator 6.5) in the LRB is limited. Persistent environmental challenges remain due to weak governance, insufficient capacity, and law enforcement, which must be targeted by a public-private partnership.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable water management
• safe water
• sanitation
• contamination
• ecosystem services

Acknowledgment

The team acknowledges with thanks the financial support received from the IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft the Netherlands through DUPC2 programme for the project: Promoting integrated and sustainable development in the Litani River Basin Lebanon using new approaches (grant no. 108714). The project acknowledges the logistic support received from the LRA, CNRS-Center for Remote Sensing (notably Eng. Houssein Khatib for map production), LARI, and FAFS-AUB. Dr. Jaafar wishes to thank the contribution of the IHE Delft Partnership Programme for Water and Development (DUPC2) – the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, grant number 108485, under the project ‘ITSET: Integrating time-series ET mapping into an operational irrigation management framework’, as well as the American University Research Board, URB.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the IHE-Delft Institute for Water Education, Delft the Netherlands through DUPC2 programme financed by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The work is carried out under the project: Promoting integrated and sustainable development in the Litani River Basin Lebanon using new approaches (DUPC2 grant no. 108714).