This paper will explore how the interaction between natural resource mismanagement, poor governance, and projected changes in climate can undermine social and political stability in the Middle East. The paper focuses on the cases of Syria and Jordan. In Syria, the government’s mismanagement of water and soil resources, particularly in the country’s northeastern provinces of Al-Hasakah, Ar-Raqqah, and Deir Az-Zour, caused high levels of popular discontent that contributed to the outbreak of social unrest in March 2011. Local and national government officials’ toleration of, and support for, the overexploitation of groundwater resources, irrigation practices that increased soil salinity, and rampant overgrazing of animal pastures combined with severe drought to cause great ecological damage to rural areas in northeastern Syria. In response, nearly one million people migrated from their villages and towns in the northeast to the cities of Deir Az-Zour, Dar’a, Aleppo, Homs, and Damascus during the late 2000s. All of these events combined to create a “powder keg” of social and political discontent in Syria that exploded in March 2011. The paper’s second case study is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. While Jordan has not experienced the social, political, or ecological turmoil that occurred in Syria during the 2000s, trends similar to those in Syria are occurring. Groundwater resources are being exploited at unsustainable rates to supply both rural and urban water users, and soil resources are being degraded by a combination of overgrazing and increasing evapotranspiration. Decreased soil moisture has in turn led to increased pumping of groundwater from both renewable and non-renewable aquifers. The paper will explain the potential for the unsustainable use of groundwater and increasing water scarcity in rural areas to exacerbate ongoing social and political instability set in motion by the 2011 Arab Spring. The paper is the product of two years of research including two field trips to Jordan in 2012 and 2013. During this field research personal interviews were conducted with Jordanian water experts, environmentalists, agricultural policy experts, and journalists. No field research was conducted in Syria. Data sources for the Syrian case include official statistics and reports on the agricultural sector, reports from international agencies and organizations such as the International Crisis Group and the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, media reports, and scholarly research on the politics of water in Syria.

In June 2013, after the initial days of mass demonstrations in Gezi park, around one of the prominent squares in Istanbul, Turkey, that started to protest the ripping off the park's trees to construct a shopping mall, officials declared that the current government is the "most environmentalist government" in the history of Turkey. The prime minister and the Istanbul mayor supported their argument with the evidence that the government planted over 2,7 billion trees between 2002 and 2012. The same narrative about the Ministry of Forestry and Water Affairs' contributions and success in extending Turkey's forests emerged in a different format--action plan to plant 5 million trees for 5 million students-- when university students protested against the clearance of campus forest by Ankara municipality to establish a highway in November 2013. While the World Bank data confirm the expansion of forest area in Turkey from 1999 till 2011 in terms of percentage of land area, a global forest cover change map using Google Earth shows mixed results (Hansen et al 2013): Whereas some areas in Turkey have experienced forest loss, others gained forest area, and there are multiple areas which gained and loss forests from 2000 to 2012. Scholars and activists have questioned the overall commitment of the current government to conservation of forests, especially in light of its grandiose projects in Istanbul that would require clearing off large amounts of forest, whether tree planting for rehabilitation purposes count as an achievement, and whether new definitions such as 'urban forests' capture the ecological complexity of forest. This paper examines the debates about forest cover and land use change in Turkey using a political ecology perspective: Turkish government's current plan of afforestation, reforestation and erosion control, and its Action Plan 2008-2012, resonate with the earlier global efforts, such as UNEP's The Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign in 2007, that continues with more ambitious goals to address climate change. However, the policy narratives that focus on the number of trees planted distort attention from the overall changes in forest management policy in the same period, particularly legal changes that redefine forest categories and access to forested areas, the increasing pressures on forest areas from urbanization, and prevent a discussion of who benefits from reforestation/afforestation efforts in Turkey.

This paper examines the hydrological challenges of Morocco’s enduring emphasis on tourism as a viable economic sector. It juxtaposes the ambitious efforts the Government of Morocco has taken to capitalize on its historical and cultural patrimony—as well as its relative political stability in the region—against the ongoing hydrological challenges confronting the country. The Moroccan National Tourist Office has embarked in recent years on an effort to increase visits to the country, including a 2014 campaign to “MEET Morocco”—i.e., casting Morocco as a destination for professional meetings, conferences and exhibitions. Such tourism is seen as complementary to the longstanding emphases on adventure and luxury tourisms. Yet, it all comes at a time of increasing hydrological stress in the country: the decline of potable water, poor delivery infrastructure, the salinization of ground water, and the high demand for water in other sectors (e.g., industry and agriculture). Such stress is likely to accentuate with Morocco’s geographical position in the Mediterranean basin, a region long understood by IPCC reports to be at particular risk from warming temperatures and declining rainfall. The paper focuses on the politics of the dilemma. First, the transmission of knowledge gained from climate and earth sciences to political actors is germane. Second, even as GOM officials may understand and acknowledge the challenges to varying degrees, they also are caught in an array of institutional and social pressures: e.g., bureaucratic (interministerial politics between various ministries), economic (job creation and pressure from tourist individuals), and security (the maintenance of the country’s stability for international tourists). Third, as the literature on the political economy of tourism emphasizes, the ongoing “branding” of a country is essential; in this instance, the sustainability of that branding may be jeopardized by the hydrological challenges. Research for this work is conducted this summer and fall with 2 planned trips to Rabat, Casablanca, and Marrakech to interviews officials in the NTO; the Ministry of Tourism; and the Ministry of Energy, Mining, Water and the Environment. Additionally, empirical analyses of the country’s hydrological resources will be closely examined.

As the impacts of climate change intensify, the adaptive capacity of small farmers worldwide is increasingly challenged. Tunisia is already experiencing climate change impacts, but the socioeconomic aspects have yet to be well analyzed. The high rainfall variability, characteristic of the Tunisian ecosystem, makes the country vulnerable to current and future climate impacts. This variability and the vulnerability due to climate change affects the agricultural sector, which makes up approximately 25% of the labor force, and 10% of the nation’s GDP. Despite these facts, there has been a lack of research on the socioeconomic impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector in Tunisia. This project assesses indicators of the adaptive capacity and resilience of agricultural communities in the Cap Bon region of Tunisia to climatic changes. The indicator framework is based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) definition of adaptive capacity, and I am modifying it to fit my specific context. I am conducting interviews, surveys, and focus groups in order to understand the policy and institutional factors that impact adaptation to the environmental stressors that this region is facing, which include temperature and precipitation changes, as well as increased soil salinity and degradation. The goal of the research is to enhance understanding of the indicators of adaptive capacity in agricultural systems. These indicators include human, financial, social, political, natural and technological factors. The project is multi-scalar, analyzing adaptation at three different scales: the national policy level, the local institutional level, and finally the household farm level. This paper focuses on the national scale results. Interviews conducted with national government ministries reveal the prioritization of climate adaptation at the policy level, and the coordination between different actors regarding climate change policy. The current transitional political atmosphere may provide opportunities for greater emphasis on climate policies in the future. Furthermore, interviews at the local institutional and household scales reveal local adaptation behaviors which may present opportunities for future state support and investment.