Sediment Management for the Fertile Crescent and Southwest Asia in Times of Global Warming

The accumulation of sediments in the reservoirs 8 leads to important economic losses and is expected to occupy 25% of the volume of reservoirs by 2050. Mismanagement of sediments leads to acute environmental problems with an average yearly loss of power between ½ and 1% Certain studies of global warming predict rising sea levels on a world-wide scale. Efforts to control global warming on a world scale have had a very limited success as industrial countries continue to pour 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere [1]. Many studies predict a rise of sea-level between 0.5 and 2 m by 2100 on a global scale. Coastal communities are under the threat of seawater inundation such as the Shatt El Arab at the border of Iraq and Iran, or the city of Basra in Iraq, shores of Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Although the United Nations has developed appropriate studies on rising sea levels risks on the shores of the Arab-Persian Gulf, they have been ignored by decisions makers. Global warming is also causing a melt-down of glaciers in the Himalayan mountains, sending massive floods into Pakistan and the Arabian Sea. The floods of 2022 displaced 30 million people in Pakistan causing tremendous economic hardship. By the end of the century hundreds of millions of people in Southwest Asia could be impacted by global warming and rising sea levels. An emerging method to combat the loss of shore to rising sea levels, consists of depositing sediments transported by dedicated slurry and capsule pipelines. To protect the cities and communities within the shores of the Fertile Crescent, we are proposing the development of bypass pipelines around dams through international collaboration programs of sediment management between Iran, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Further protection of the shores of Kuwait would be achieved by building a 100 km sediment pipeline from Shatt El-Arab, or a 700 km long pipeline to Qatar linking some intermediary regions on the Eastern coast of Saudi Arabia and Bahrein. Improved sediment management would increase the resistance of the coast on the Arab-Persian Gulf and the Makran region in Iran on the gulf of Oman. Proper sediment management on the Indus River through collaboration between Pakistan and India in Kashmir could also reduce the risk of massive population disruption on the shores of the Arabian Sea. This approach will increase the life span of reservoirs upstream of dams, while protecting farming communities and shores downstream. This implies a serious effort by decision makers in neighboring countries, to overcome their differences as well as support from rich donor countries.