FRESENIUS ENVIRONMENTAL BULLETIN, cilt.26, sa.1, ss.439-444, 2017 (SCI-Expanded)
Water scarcity is among the main problems to be faced by countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century and, although there is no global water scarcity as such, an increasing number of regions are chronically short of water. Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon. There is enough freshwater on the planet for seven billion people but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and unsustainably managed [1] The situation is made worse by climate change and poor governance. Agriculture is the biggest water consuming sector in the region. More than 80% of the available water is consumed by agriculture. Therefore, managing agricultural water demand play an important role in coping with water scarcity. Demand managing by using water footprint methodology proved to be a sustainable way. It is obvious that academic community of a country have to contribute to the efforts coping with water scarcity with developing country specific management proposals. In this study it is shown that the contribution of the academic world in Mena region to water related problems of the region is not very significant in relation to the significance of the water scarcity.