A. B. PODTSEROB Candidate of Historical Sciences Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences Arab countries Keywords:, water supply problem. Great Artificial River, desalination of water, struggle for water resources The avalanche-like growth of production and population of the Earth has led to an increase in the need for water. In this regard, water supply is beginning to turn into one of the global problems. This problem is particularly acute in the Arab countries, where most of the territory is occupied by deserts. For normal human functioning, depending on the ambient temperature, 0.5 - 1 thousand liters of water are needed per year. Naturally, the use of water for domestic needs, agriculture, and other sectors of the economy is added to this. If in 1960 in this region per capita accounted for 3.3 thousand people per year. m3 of water consumed, now this indicator has decreased to 1.3 thousand cubic meters. In the period 2003-2009. The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the University of Irvine conducted a study on the problem of water. It turned out that in six years, the water indicators of surface sources (not counting sources located in depth) decreased by 144 km3 1. In countries such as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, 2.7 thousand, 1.4 thousand and 1.1 thousand m3 per year are accounted for per inhabitant, respectively. By current standards, this volume is insufficient, and these countries fall into the category of countries with low and very low water supply. The situation is even worse in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, where water supplies intended for personal consumption, from natural sources flowing on the surface, are 56, 37 and 7 m3 per capita per year, respectively .2 Already in 2000, 130 million people in the Middle East and North Africa were living on starvation water rations (less than 1 thousand m3 per person per year), and 45 million in countries with insufficient water supplies. Currentl ... Read more