• Availability of water is a problem throughout the region

• Qanat system – Iranian process of tapping into groundwater by a series of gently sloping tunnels

• Egypt built Aswan High Dam to store water, generate energy, but it has created environmental problems

• Libya’s “Great Man-made River” draws underground fossil water 600 miles to irrigate crops in the north of the country

• Hydropolitics – interplay of water resource issues and politics