17 Items

Syrian Desert, Eastern Jordan, November 12, 2012.

Creative Commons

Journal Article - Systems Engineering

Formulating Expectations for Future Water Availability through Infrastructure Development Decisions in Arid Regions

| May 24, 2016

In this research paper, the authors propose that future human mediated water availability in arid regions may be assessed by considering key projects that have been identified or proposed by regional experts and organizations. Using Multicriteria Decision Methods as a framework to organize a set of decision criteria and their relative salience, the likelihood of selection (and development) of a project can be determined and used to form expectations of future regional water availability. The authors apply this approach in a case study of Jordan.

A water tank truck in Jordan, April 1, 2010. Future water availability in arid regions may be assessed by considering key projects that have been identified or planned by regional experts, such as desalination plants.

Xavi Talleda Photo CC

Paper - Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Assessing Future Water Availability in Arid Regions Using Composition and Salience of Decision Criteria

| March 2014

Water resources development options are usually selected on a least-cost basis. While economic considerations are dominant in choosing projects, there are also a mix of other factors including social demands, political expediency, social equity, and environmental considerations that impact final decisions and development of water supply systems. Understanding local priorities in water resource management decisions can allow for forming expectations of future regional water availability. In this research, the authors propose that future water availability in arid regions may be assessed by considering key projects that have been identified or planned by regional experts.

Afreen Siddiqi (3rd from left) visits a self-contained solar/hydroponic system in Jordan.

Jade Salhab

- Belfer Center Newsletter

Center Multidisciplinary Team Tackles Energy and Water Challenges

Spring 2014

With a team of scientists, engineers, and political scientists, the Center’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program (STPP) and Energy Technology Innovation Policy group (ETIP) are tackling critical global issues related to energy challenges and water-energy connections. During the past few months, STPP/ETIP faculty, fellows, and visiting scholars have conducted research, made presentations, and held high-level discussions in the U.S., China, and the Gulf region.The work is a joint effort of STPP and the Belfer Center’s Environment and Natural Resources Program (ENRP) along with Harvard Kennedy School’s Sustainability Science Program.

Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) in Europe (Czech Republic and Poland)

DoD Image

Journal Article - Arms Control Today

Missile Defense Against Iran Without Threatening Russia

| November 2013

"Although the cancellation of the planned deployment of the SM-3 IIB interceptors has removed the possibility that interceptors deployed under the phased adaptive approach would pose a threat to Russian missiles, it has not diminished the missile defense system's primary mission of intercepting an array of current and potential future Iranian missiles. The restructured missile defense system would still theoretically be able to handle these Iranian missile threats, even if one factors in a comfortable amount of time for detecting and tracking them."

A plant strips natural gas from freshly pumped crude oil at the Shaybah oil field in Saudi Arabia's Rub al-Khali desert in this 3/8/2004 file photo. All of Saudi's natural gas production is used for desalination & petrochemical plants.

AP Photo

Journal Article - Journal of Environmental Management

A New Case for Promoting Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation

Saudi Arabia is the third-largest per capita water user worldwide and has addressed the disparity between its renewable water resources and domestic demand primarily through desalination and the abstraction of non-renewable groundwater. This study evaluates the potential costs of this approach in the industrial and municipal sectors, exploring economic, energy, and environmental costs (including CO2 emissions and possible coastal impacts). Although the energy intensity of desalination is a global concern, it is particularly urgent to rethink water supply options in Saudi Arabia because the entirety of its natural gas production is consumed domestically, primarily in petrochemical and desalination plants.

Paper - American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Nuclear Collisions: Discord, Reform & the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime

    Authors:
  • Wael Al-Assad
  • Jayantha Dhanapala
  • C. Raja Mohan
  • Ta Minh Tuan
| April 2012

Nearly all of the 190 signatories to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree that the forty-two-year-old treaty is fragile and in need of fundamental reform. But gaining consensus on how to fix the NPT will require reconciling the sharply differing views of nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Strengthening the international rules is increasingly important as dozens of countries, including some with unstable political environments, explore nuclear energy. The result is an ever-increasing distribution of this technology. In this paper, Steven E. Miller outlines the main points of contention within the NPT regime and identifies the issues that have made reform so difficult.

Policy Brief - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

A New Case for Wastewater Reuse in Saudi Arabia: Bringing Energy into the Water Equation

Industrial and urban water reuse should be considered along with desalination as options for water supply in Saudi Arabia. Although the Saudi Ministry for Water and Electricity (MoWE) has estimated that an investment of $53 billion will be required for water desalination projects over the next 15 years [1], the evolving necessity to conserve fossil resources and mitigate GHG emissions requires Saudi policy makers to weigh in much more heavily the energy and environmental costs of desalination. Increasing water tariffs for groundwater and desalinated water to more adequately represent the costs of water supply could encourage conservation, but also reuse, which may be more appropriate for many inland and high-altitude cities.

Journal Article - Energy Policy

The Water–Energy Nexus in Middle East and North Africa

| August 2011

Extracting, delivering, and disposing water requires energy, and similarly, many processes for extracting and refining various fuel sources and producing electricity use water. This so-called 'water–energy nexus', is important to understand due to increasing energy demands and decreasing freshwater supplies in many areas. This paper performs a country-level quantitative assessment of this nexus in the MENA region.

- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Quarterly Journal: International Security

Belfer Center Newsletter Spring 2011

| Spring 2011

The Spring 2011 issue of the Belfer Center newsletter features recent and upcoming activities, research, and analysis by members of the Center community on critical global issues. This issue highlights the Belfer Center’s continuing efforts to build bridges between the United States and Russia to prevent nuclear catastrophe – an effort that began in the 1950s. This issue also features three new books by Center faculty that sharpen global debate on critical issues: God’s Century, by Monica Duffy Toft, The New Harvest by Calestous Juma, and The Future of Power, by Joseph S. Nye.

Iranian top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili smiles after Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki signed an agreement to ship most of Iran's enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal, in Tehran, Iran, May 17, 2010.

AP Photo

Analysis & Opinions - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

The European Union and Future Nuclear Talks

| December 4, 2010

"The weakening of the EU's role as an independent and mediatory player in the nuclear talks, however, beyond economic losses, could bring negative strategic and political consequences for the EU's status in the entire Middle East, which could in turn damage the region's interests. The new economic sanctions will preclude the opportunity of investment by the EU in Iran's gas and oil sectors, thus decreasing trade and commerce between the two—a shift of policy that provoked a sharp rise in China's activities in those sectors."