The area of Lebanon is approximately 10,452 square kilometres. Being a mountainous country with topography extending beyond its borders, land forms, soils, climate and vegetation differ over short distances (Collelo 1987, 43). Lebanon is endowed with scenery and natural beauty lending it the potential of capitalizing on tourism.
Relative to other countries in the region, Lebanon is well endowed with renewable water resources of ~8,600 million cubic meters per year from 40 major rivers and more than 2000 springs yielding on average ~1,200 cubic meters per year per capita. However, the renewable freshwater has declined from ~1,900 cubic meters per year per capita in 1990 and the country is poised to fall into a water deficit within the next 10–15 years (Halwani 2009; Shaban 2009).
Climate Change Risks:
Agriculture
Of the several central challenges facing the food and agricultural sector in Lebanon, food security, rural poverty, the critical role of water-related constraints, urbanization and the resulting loss of farmland, and the vulnerability of rural populations to climate change and price volatility are some examples of concerns the World Bank recommends be resolved through agricultural intensification ( Verner et. al 2013, xxii).
Mean Temperature and Precipitation
“The range of downscaled mean annual temperatures changes of +1.3°C to +2.7°C by the 2050s and +1.9°C to +4.6°C by the 2080s—depending on emis- sions scenario and location (table 2.1)—bracket the results of Evans’ multi- model ensemble “(Evans 2009 in Verner et. al 2013, 27).
Water
The Middle East also emerges as a “hot spot” of severe water stress by the 2050s in several global assessments (Alcamo, Flörke, and Märker 2007; Arnell 2004; Ragab and Prudhomme 2002, in Verner et. al 2013, 33). The falling per capita water is also attributed to human factors including: growth in the urban population, lack of investment in infrastructure, unregulated sinking of private wells, overexploitation of aquifers, and resulting deterioration in the quality of groundwater ( Verner et. al 2013, 34)
Citations
Dorte Verner, David R. Lee, Maximillian Ashwill, and Robert Wilby, “Increasing Resilience to Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector of the Middle East : the Cases of Jordan and Lebanon”, 2013