Sustaining the ecological functions of the Litani River Basin, Lebanon

Abstract

Although Lebanon has the highest mean annual rainfall of all Middle Eastern countries, it is affected by water stress, negatively impacting agricultural food production, energy generation, and public health. The Bekaa Plain, where the Litani River Basin (LRB) is located, suffers serious water quality and quantity problems, which threaten agricultural productivity and public health. Most of the domestic and industrial water in the basin is left untreated. This study investigates prevailing water management issues in the basin. The analysis provides a critical reflection on the water quality and quantity indicators using Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6), to 'ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all'. Results based on the author's observations and evidence from published reports and papers, since the early nineties, showed the existing management approaches are fall short to mitigate the negative impact of the environmental problems in the LRB, particularly low water quality (indicator 6.3) and inefficient water use (indicator 6.4). Progress on achieving sustainable water management (indicator 6.5) in the LRB is limited. Persistent environmental challenges remain due to weak governance, insufficient capacity, and law enforcement, which must be targeted by a public-private partnership.

Nationwide Assessment of Water Quality in Rivers across Lebanon by Quantifying Fecal Indicators Densities and Profiling Antibiotic Resistance of Escherichia coli

“…Notably, the Litani River is the chief source of irrigation for agricultural lands in the Beqaa Valley and the South, and it has been well established that the river is being subjected to different pollutants, including pesticides and human and animal waste [73,74]. For example,~69 villages and cities release approximately 47 Mm 3 per year of raw sewage into the Litani River [75]. Taken together, it appears that a high number of water samples from agriculturally important rivers in Lebanon were fecally contaminated and were deemed unacceptable for irrigation.…”

Exploring Cross-Sectoral Implications of the Sustainable Development Goals: Towards a Framework for Integrating Health Equity Perspectives With the Land-Water-Energy Nexus

“…Figure 3 below depicts potential pathways [ 64 ] by which resource nexus projects can impinge on the health of humans [ 65 ] biodiversity [ 66 ], and natural ecosystems [ 67 ] as well as impact on determinants of health [ 60 , 68 ] through disrupting the ecosystem services of provisioning, regulating, supporting, and preserving culture [ 64 , 69 ].…”

“…Our review identified numerous ways that water, energy, and land insecurities drive disparities in the determinants of health for human wellbeing and ecosystems [ 58 , 60 , 66 – 68 , 72 ], particularly, in rural, remote, and Indigenous contexts where the use and extraction of natural resources [ 57 ] create downstream health inequities. For example, Natcher and Ingram report incidences of higher rates of water, energy, and food (WEF) insecurity in rural and remote communities in Northern Canada, where residents struggle with wide disparities in access to safe drinking water, sanitation services, as well as affordable energy and nutritious food [ 60 ].…”

“…The land-water-energy-health equity nexus has the potential to be strengthened through increased emphasis on ecosystems services and related pathways [ 64 ] by which the nexus of land, water and energy have impacts on livelihoods, human well-being and the other species that depend on these services [ 66 , 67 , 69 , 81 ]. This emphasis may also enhance the emergence of community-based application of the SDGs focused on this nexus [ 27 , 57 , 58 , 60 , 68 , 72 , 75 ], with the potential to inform decisions around land, water, and energy insecurities as well as how these underlie the social and ecological determinants of health inequities. The land, water, energy nexus can also be applied to analyze specific resource issues such as forestry [ 63 ], hydropower [ 67 ], and desalination [ 83 ], with an emphasis on understanding impacts on health outcomes, such as the distribution of the impacts of socio-ecological determinants of health.…”

Heavy Metals Content in Water and Sediments in the Upper Litani River Basin, Lebanon

“…The study of river sediments is becoming more important internationally and in Lebanon, there are 14 rivers, but there are few data concerning the concentration of heavy metals in the sediment of the river (Korfali & Davies, 2005;Nehme et al, 2012;Diaba et al, 2014;Nehmeh et al, 2019;Nehmeh et al, 2020;Darwish et al, 2021). The Litani River is the longest river in Lebanon, with a length of 172 km and largest basin area of about 2180 km 2 .…”