Advancing Circular Economy in Water Management in Algeria: From Wastewater to Strategic Resource

As climate change accelerates water scarcity across the Mediterranean and the Sahara, countries are compelled to rethink their approach to water management. The traditional linear model of extracting freshwater, using it once, and discharging it into the environment is no longer viable in regions where rainfall is decreasing, aquifers are overexploited, and agricultural demand continues to grow [1-2]. In Algeria, this challenge is especially acute – declining annual precipitation, high evapo-transpiration rates, rapid population growth, and urban expansion place tremendous pressure on limited freshwater resources. At the same time, industrial and agricultural demands continue to rise, further stressing conventional water … Continue reading

The Retreat of the Tigris River and Its Impact on Biodiversity in Northern Iraq

The Tigris River, one of Mesopotamia’s twin lifelines, plays a vital ecological and socioeconomic role in northern Iraq. However, over the past two decades, it has undergone significant hydrological decline. This retreat, driven by a combination of climate change, upstream damming, and poor water governance, has caused a cascading effect on ecosystems and livelihoods, particularly in the northern provinces of Iraq such as Nineveh, Dohuk, and parts of Erbil. The drop in water levels in the Tigris River has: Severely impacted agricultural lands, especially in riparian zones that once depended on natural flooding cycles for soil fertility Diminished fish populations … Continue reading

Towards New Partnerships in Water Management

Market-exchange economy and territory-bound nation state were not designed to accommodate a communication revolution that can envelop the globe and connect everyone and everything on the planet simultaneously. The result is that we are witnessing the birth of a new economic system and new governing institutions that are as different from market capitalism and the modern territorial state as the latter were from the feudal economy and dynastic rule of an era ago. Markets, in effect, are linear, discrete and discontinuous modes of operation. The new communications technologies and partnerships, by contrast, are cybernetic, not linear. The operational assumptions that … Continue reading