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'. .V' 2" This is to certify that the thesis entitled Food and Agriculture in the Arid Environment of Saudi Arabia Under Human Pressures and Changes presented by Abduirahman Khedr Ai-Zaidy has been accepted toWards fulfillrnen't of the requirements for M.A. degree in Geography . <\ K7672 V {/3 :\ 6. u.- 07‘,- 5 7 M57 V, f Major professor Date 10/24/80 0-7 639 we .. ~ ' WWWii\\\\\\\\\\\i\\\\;i\i§\1i\\i\\ OVERDUE FINES: 25¢ per day per item RETURNING LIBRARY MATERIALS: Place in book return to remove charge from circuiation records 5 ”" .. 11/1. Ws‘vww Tf'9‘f- ’ A A 1 ihii‘. 9 $95; (I) “at”? W¢nMa~4§ ' ‘ L ' I: R Oblog'a FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE ARID ENVIRONMENT OF SAUDI ARABIA UNDER HUMAN PRESSURES AND CHANGES BY Abdulrahman K. Al—Zaidy A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Department of Geography 1980 ABSTRACT FOOD AND AGRICULTURE IN THE ARID ENVIRONMENT OF SAUDI ARABIA UNDER HUMAN PRESSURES AND CHANGES BY Abdulrahman K. Al—Zaidy Saudi Arabia is a country with an area equal to two- : fifths of the United States, with a population of about 8 ‘ million. Although the country is dominated by an arid envi- ronment, it was agriculturally self—sufficient until the 19405, when the economy reached a turning—point with the discovery and exploitation of petroleum resources. Since then, the gap between food demand and supply has enlarged and been filled by importation. Throughout this period of economic change and development, there have been many studies and inventories by the government (represented by the Ministry of Agriculture) and by consultant firms and experts, to eval— uate the potential production from agricultural resources, especially water resources. Based on these studies, many agricultural projects have been implemented, but the positive results of these efforts are very limited——if any——and the country has become more dependent on imported food and other agricultural prod- ucts, while domestic production contributes only about 20 percent. Abdulrahman K. Al—Zaidy The aim of this study is to use the diverse informa- tion available to evaluate the environmental constraints and human pressures on food and agriculture. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The assistance of several people was valuable and necessary for completion of this study. I would like to especially thank my graduate advisor and chairman of my advisory committee, Dr. George Borgstrom, for his advice and guidance. Dr. Stanley Brunn was also extremely helpful, particularly for his methodological assistance and his comments on the preliminary draft. Dr. Robert N. Thomas, the third member of my committee, also provided valuable comments on the draft. I would like to thank Steve Freedkin and Robin Landfear for their help with editing, typing and illustrating the text. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the Um Al-Qura University in Mecca for its financial support of this study. LIST OF LIST OF Chapter I. II. III. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLES . . . . . . . . . . FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . INTRODUCTION . . . . u . . . Geographical Concepts of Ecology—-Development Relationship . . . . Statement of the Problem . . Information Resources and Method of Analysis . Organization of Thesis . . . . . . REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE . . . . . Historical Trends of World Population . . ’Population Pressure on Agricultural Land and Water Resources . . . . . . . The Efficiencies of Modern and Traditional Agriculture . . . . . . . . . Ecological Constraints on Human Activities and Change in Arid Land . . . . . . Irrigation: Potential and Problems . . . Industry, Mining and Tourism . . . . Present Situation and Future Security of Food Supply . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . PHYSICAL CONSTRAINT ON AND RESISTANCE TO AGRICULTURE IN AN ARID ENVIRONMENT . . . Water Balance in the Aridity System of Saudi Arabia . . . . . . . . Environmental Characteristics of the Ground- water of the Aquifer SYstems in the Sedimen- tary Formation . . . . . . . . Limitation of the Aquifer Water Resources ii iv comer—J 10 10 18 24 27 31 36 38 41 42 54 59 Chapter The Agricultural Situation in the Sedimentary Part of the Country Environmental Characteristics of the Western Pre-Cambrian Highland of the Arabian Shield Runoff Water: New Approaches, New Problems Demographic Aspects and POpulation Trends Agricultural Population, Economic Change, Farm Size, Subdivision, and Fragmentation HUMAN PRESSURE ON AGRICULTURE Saudi Arabia's Belt System of Food Deficit Food Situation Characteristics Food Situation Trends Local Food Production and Subsistence Agriculture and the New Economic Traditional and Modern Agriculture: Urbanization Pressure on Agriculture IV. Saudi Arabia's Food Situation Food Deficit Trends Internal Migration Competition . . Efficiency and Acceptability . V. CONCLUSION . . REFERENCES . . . iii 64 69 74 83 84 86 86 90 92 92 96 98 102 106 111 114 119 125 Table 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 LIST OF TABLES Speed of Growth of Population in the World 1976 World and Major Regiona Population, Demographic Trends, Per Capita Arable Land, and Food Situation . . World Production Per Capita of Key Commod- ities of Biological Origin Distribution of Land Use Over the World Per Capita Grain Production in Sixteen Desert Countries, 1950-52 and 1973-75 . . Major Demographic Aspects of Population of Saudi Arabia . . Food-Deficit Belts Local Agricultural Production Number of Local Animals Imported Agricultural Products Total Population, Agricultural Population and Economically Active Population Size of Farm Holdings Land Holdings by Regions Cash-Oriented Versus Subsistence Holdings Estimated Yield, Total Revenue and Net Returns for One Hectare of Crop for the Average Farm Unit in Bishah (1977-78) Number of Holdings Using Modern Agricultural Methods . . . . . . . . . Use of Agricultural Machines . . . . Population of Major Urban Centers, 1974 Non-Agricultural Water Demand . . . iv 12 13 17 20 39 88 89 94 94 97 99 104 104 107 110 112 113 115 116 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Relief Map of Saudi Arabia . . . 2 Mean Monthly Temperatures, Mean Monthly Maxima and Minima of the Different Regions 3 Position of Arabian Peninsula in the World's Pressure and Wind System . . . . Mean Annual Precipitation . . . . Evapotranspiration . . . . . . Clima Diagrams (Rainfall Efficiency) of the Different Regions of Saudi Arabia . . 7 Simplified Geological Map . . . . Approximate Major Agriculture Concentrations and Types According to the Kind of Water Resources . . . . . . . . 9 Major Aquifer Systems . . . 10 Isosalinity (PPM of TDS) Lines for the Groundwater of the Dammam Aquifer in Kuwait Which is a North Extension of the Dammam Formation in Eastern Saudi Arabia . . 11 Major Hydrological Components . . . 12 Wadies of Saudi Arabia . . . . . 13 The Population Growth in Saudi Arabia Since 1950 and the Projected Growth Until the End of the Century . . . . . . . CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Geographical Conception of Ecology—— Development Relationship Ecological knowledge has three dimensions. One re— lates to immediate effects, such as applying chemical ferti— lizers to increase crop production. The second involves long-run effects on the ecosystem. The third involves areal differentiation within the ecosystem-—for example, the ef— fects of irrigation systems in humid, semi—arid, and arid regions. Human knowledge generally increased equally along tflaese three dimensions prior to the nineteenth century. At tfliat time, scientists began to specialize and emphasize the first dimension-—that is, they began to study specific biolo- gical or physical phenomena isolated from their ecosystems with little regard for areal differentiation. Numerous dis- Ciplines and subdisciplines appeared, and specialization be- came a distinguishing feature of this period. Knowledge ac- cumulated rapidly, but unevenly. Man's ignorance of the areal and ecological dimensions of the biological sphere (in- cluding human aspects) and the physical environment has caused many problems to emerge from man's economic activi— ties on the earth's surface. The best examples are the spa- tial maldistribution, organization, and efficient utiliza- tion of natural resources; the failure to create a balance between the available food resources and exploding world population, of whom two-thirds have suffered malnutrition one way or another; and air, water, and soil pollution. The science of geography, which deals with the spa- tial and ecological dimensions of human and natural phenom- ena on a regional, local, and global scale, is so comprehen— sive that geographers have been unable to agree precisely on the boundaries of geography as a discipline. These defini- tions usually focus on one area of geography and reflect the evolution of geographical thought from the end of its class— ical period in the mid—nineteenth century to the modern day. When physical geography dominated the field in the late nine- teenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth, the emphasis was on the world's physical features. Starting 111 the 19305, the focus of geography was on area and regional Study, areal interrelationships, chronology, areal differen— tiation, and spatial concepts. More recently, especially Since the 19603, the environment, ecology, and systems con— cepts have been applied to the science of geography. In his discussion of the position and role of geog- raphy in relation to the various human and natural sciences, Fosberg (1976, p. 120) said: The important consideration is the role of geography as the integrator of this diverse plethora of information to make it possible to view the earth, or any large part of it, or any major aspect of it, as a whole. This we must insist on, not just as a feature and justification of geography, but in the long run, as a sine-qua-non for the continued tenure of the human race, at least as we know it, on the earth. Haphazard, piecemeal, narrow approaches to the problems facing civilization have not only outlived their useful— ness, but have brought us nearer to the brink of world- wide disaster than most of us either comprehend or are willing to admit. Geography alone cannot avert dis- aster, but if it can get a hearing, and if it effec- tively fulfills its integrative function, it may help government and private policy-makers get us on a path different from the catastrophic one we seem to be fol- lowing. This consideration may, at least to some ex- tent, support my idea, expressed at the beginning, that geography is one of the most important of sciences. The growing human population and rising technologi— cal levels have put substantial pressure on the biosphere. Man's overexploitation of the earth's resources has created serious conflicts between short-term benefits and the capa- city of the biosphere-ecosystem to provide benefits in the long run. Hill (1975, p. 218) has evaluated the current status of research on ecosystem stability in relation to Streesses caused by human activities. He concludes: Research on ecosystem stability to date has been dom- inated by ecologists. In reviewing the literature it is evident that this situation has resulted in a tend- lency to concentrate on the analysis of biological prop- fiCD mambo «30H are .mwofi :mEmHooom ooom oHnoz mo moOAmomeHo: .uooflom ..m .o .amocoo "mompom Roo.o omH.m mom.un an N.N oH MN o.o m.HN macmmoo omo Aomo.No omo.ooo a; o.o a or o.H o.omN .m .m .m .o he. one“... mmw a a... as: . w z . w z . . z o o iafisoom [manaom ooo Ho ooo so ooo so oamo ooo.H ooo.H Awe Aokas ooze maflmuu wnfimho mcwmuw manmu< woo woo m m Amaowaawzv Hmouoo Hmouoo Hmouoo mo mouowoom v V - u m moumEHumm mumm wumm :u3OHU . muuomxm uoz manomxm uoz Coauosooum mo Honabz coeumasmom romeo sonao «son Nmoouoson sumo inniiiiuilu .luiiiliiiuii (innirnapuiuuii xinniiiiiliii ounceuaoonlw m4m4e 15 available at reasonable ecological and financial costs. The rapid increase in the human population, combined with in- creasing use of technology, has imposed severe pressures on the earth's resources, especially food resources. Until recently, the relationship between humans and the earth's natural resources has been evaluated primarily by means of the economists' theories and equations, based on the monetary input-output relationship, with general ignor- ance of or disregard for both the ecological cost paid to increase the production of commodities, and the role of bio— logical systems in the economy. Borgstrom (1979, p. 9) ex- plains this situation by saying But this presupposes that economy is interpreted in its original sense as the guidelines for rational (wise) utilization of Nature's resources. It is encouraging to notice that a new generation of economists is now emer- ging who understand this and return to a complete ac- counting, thereby breaking loose from the dangerous play of their more tradition-bound colleagues. To put it in more blunt terms, we need to know the true cost in en- ergy, land, water, etc., not as measured in arbitrary money terms. Too many economists have for far too long been engaged in the futile game of arbitrarily selecting credit accounts and thereby given poor guidance. Bio- logical as well as economic balance are basic prerequi- sites for a viable strategem as to man's survival. The htunan population is dependent on the biological system for focxi as well as many important raw materials such as wood, vnool, etc. There are many ways of measuring human - pressurma on the biological system on different levels. One Of them, on the global level, is the per-capita supply of the four biological systems: fisheries, forests, grassland, and cropland. As Table 3 shows, world production per capita 16 of key commodities of biological origin peaked during 1960- 1976. The turning point toward decline in the per-capita production of these commodities came as a direct result of the continuing growth of the world population: production of commodities since World War II has increased more slowly than has the population, and since the early 19605 produc- tion of these commodities, one by one, has stopped in— creasing and even started to decline (Brown, 1977, pp. 5-17). The first decline in per-capita supply of a major commodity of biological origin was when wool production peaked at 0.87 kilograms/capita in 1960; since then, per- capita production has fallen by 28 percent (Table 3). The second decline, in per-capita production of wood, occurred in 1967 after a peak at 0.67 cubic meters. Since then pro- duction has been declining under growing demand pressure, ‘while the area of the world's forests is shrinking each year by about 11 million hectares, an area the size of Cuba (Brown, 1979, p. 10). . The first decline in production of the major food- stuffs started in 1970 after per-capita production of fish peakedi at 19.5 kilograms. Since then, the per-capita pro- ducticni of fish has decreased. In 1972 the per-capita pro- ducticni of mutton peaked at 1.92 kilograms; since then it has declined. Four years later, in 1976, the per-capita production of cereals and beef peaked at 342 and 11.81 kilo- grams, respectively, and since that time they have been 17 TABLE 3 WORLD PRODUCTION PER CAPITA OF KEY COMMODITIES OF BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN, 1960-1978, WITH PEAK YEAR UNDERLINED Forests Fisheries Grasslands Croplands Year -————-—— ._________ Wood Fish Beef Mutton Wool Cereals m3 kg 1960 13.4 9.43 1.91 .Q;§9 287 1961 0.65 14.3 9.67 1.91 0.85 278 1962 0.66 14.5 9.90 1.90 0.85 292 1963 0.66 14.7 10.25 1.89 0.83 286 1964 0.67 16.1 10.12 1.84 0.81 297 1965 0.67 16.2 10.09 1.82 0.79 288 1966 0.67 17.1 10.39 1.80 0.80 308 1967 0:61 17.7 10.59 1.92 0.79 308 1968 0.66 18.4 10.86 1.92 0.80 318 1969 0.66 17.7 10.90 1.88 0.79 316 1970 0.66 12;5_ 10.80 1.90 0.76 314 1971 0.66 19.2 10.57 1.91 0.74 335 1972 0.65 17.6 10.75 .1L92 0.73 319 1973 0.66 17.5 10.63 1.83 0.67 337 1974 0.65 18.1 11.16 1.80 0.65 322 1975 '0.62 17.6 11.49 1.80 0.67 321 1976 0.62 18.2 11.81 1.79 0.65 342 1977 0.62 17.4 11.53 1.78 0.63 333 1978* 0.61 16.6 11.21 1.77 0.64 340 ‘*Preliminary estimates. SOURCE: Of Agriculture. Food and Agriculture Organization and U. S. Department (In Brown, p. 9 ). 18 declining along with the other major products of the bio- logical system. The decline in per-capita production of food is the warning signal of impending food crisis, as well as a sign of the pressure on natural resources in general, as Brown (1979, p. 26) explains: As world population moves toward five billion, there is widespread evidence of excessive demand. Overfishing is now the rule rather than the exception, forests are shrinking in most countries, overgrazing is commonplace on every continent, and at least one fifth of the world's cropland is losing at a rate that is undermining its productivity. Demand pressures appear to be con- verging as output per person of key resources of biolo- gical origin declines and in production per person of oil threatens to turn downward. Population Pressure on Agricultural Land and Water Resources Population pressures vary around the globe as a re— sult of the differences between regions in terms of agricul— tural resources, population density, skills, technology and knowledge. The population pressure (or overpopulation) may be measured in relation to an area's natural resources, standard of living, total area, tilled land: habitable ter- rain, self—sufficiency in food production, and general bio- logical capability. Ehrlich and Holdren (1977, p. 277) in- dicated that population pressure should be perceived not in relation to absolute population size in a specific area, but in terms of pOpulation density and the resource base on which the people depend: that is, the productive 19 agricultural land. Outside the permanently ice-covered areas, there are about 13.4 billion hectares of continental land surfaces. About two-thirds of that area ia already under direct utili- zation to serve human survival needs. Crop production (in- cluding cereals) occupies 1.4 billion ha. For animals, which provide protein and other raw materials in addition to work power for land cultivation in large areas of the de- veloping countries, about 3 billion ha are preserved as per- manent meadow and pastures. Forested land amounts to about 4 billion ha (Table 4); the importance of forests for human survival goes beyond providing a source of wood products such as lumber, paper and firewood, to the ecological func— tion of adjusting the environmental elements, both atmos- pheric and land surface, essential for the continuanCe of the biological system as a whole. The ecological importance of forest and of vegetation cover as a whole becomes clear in areas Where the forest has been cut and pastures are overgrazed or turned over to cultivation. The removal of permanent vegetative cover is reflected in changes in an area's temperature, moisture circulation, soil erosion by flooding, desert encroachment, and many other ecological problems. The distribution of agricultural land (including pasture and forest land) among continents, regions and coun- tries is not equivalent to the distribution of the 20 TABLE 4 DISTRIBUTION OF LAND USE OVER THE WORLD Total Agricultural Land cougiry TOtal Arabl 1 d e an Group Area and land Permanent Forested Other Total meadow and under per- Land Areas pasture manent crop World 13,400 4,400 1,400 3,000 4,000 4,900 Africa 3,030 1,000 204 843 629 1,354 North America 2,241 627 253 374 815 799 South America 1,784 794 89 408 927 360 Asia 2,753 893 444 449 565 1,295 Europe 493 240 149 91 140 113 Oceania 851 505 43 462 82 264 U.S.S.R 2,240.2 598 224.3 373.7 910 732.2 *million hectares SOURCE: Statistical Yearbook 1970 21 population. The Asian continent, with a population of 2,476 million (1975), or more than half (58.4 percent) of the world's population of 4.2 billion, has 444 million ha (1970), or less than one-third of the world's arable land, and an average per capita arable-land area of 0.2 ha, less than the world per capita average of 0.3 ha. Europe is second to Asia in arable land, 149 million ha, but has a relatively higher population-—475.8 million, for 0.28 ha per capita. Technological development enables Europe to import foodstuffs and place it outside of the hunger belt. Per capita arable land in Latin America is almost the same as the world average of 0.32 ha; the region has a population of 334 million and 89 million ha of arable land. The Afri— can continent is a part of the world-hunger belt, along with Latin America and Asia, in spite of the fact that its per capita arable land amount, 0.49 ha, is greater than the world average. The Soviet Union in recent years has joined Africa in this regard: its per capita arable land is 0.9 ha, but its economic ability to compete in the world food market distinguishes it from Africa and puts it, with Eu— rope, in the world food deficit belt but not in the hunger belt. Surplus food is produced on only two continents: North America and Oceania, with per capita arable lands of 0.93 ha and 2.2 ha, respectively (Table 2). The interaction of the physical and human environ- ments makes it difficult to determine figures representing 22 a sufficient per capita area of arable land in any region of the world. But from a general perspective, it is clear that the larger amount of arable land per person in Africa and the Soviet Union, with tradition agriculture in the first and modern practices in the second, is still not cap- able of meeting human needs for agricultural products, es- pecially food, because of unfavorable climatic conditions. In suggesting expanding agriculture at the expense of natural vegetative cover, some writers and specialists disregard not only the contribution of pasture and forest land to providing agricultural needs, but also, the general ecological function of permanent vegetative cover, and the ecological problems which have emerged as a result of expan- sion of agriculture on forests and pastures. While these problems do not completely prevent extension of cultivated land at the expense of pasture and forest lands, as some writers and specialists suggest, they do threaten the exis- tence of arable land which once was forest or pasture. Borgstrom (1973) believes that mankind has exhausted most of the readily available water and land resources and now faces many ecological, economic and technological obstacles to further cultivation. Borgstrom (1973, p. 40) explains one aspect of agricultural pressure on the ecosystem: The unrelenting increase in human numbers has forced man to expand his tilled acreage in order to procure more food. Beginning in the plains and fertile river valleys he was gradually forced to plant up the hillsides, to break the pastures through plowing and above all to 23 clear the forest. In both Australia and Africa too many livestock on natural pastures were allowed to overgraze and destroy the vegetation cover. Many des- erts and wastelands have been created in this way. This is still happening, evidenced by deserts expanding and intruding into such overused borderland. Borgstrom believes the world's annual loss of tilled land to erosion is about 15 million acres, equivalent to twice the tilled acreage of Sweden or the total tilled land of Japan. This erosion has been caused by increased runoff resulting from the removal of forest and ground cover through agricultural expansion or overgrazing (1973, p. 40). Salinity is another problem for agricultural expan— sion in dry regions. Analysts estimate that the producti- vity of at least one-third of the world's 200 million ha of irrigated land is being undermined to varying degrees by salinity (Eckholm, 1976, pp. 125-35). Brown and Eckholm (1974, p. 45) summarize the eco- logical problems caused by agricultural expansion. The massive destruction of vegetative cover and the ero- sion of topsoil are apparent in the spreading deserts of Africa, Asia and Latin America; in the increasingly fre- quent and severe floods in some regions; in the silting of irrigation reservoirs and canals; and in the aban- donment of millions of acres of arable land to erosion. . . .Efforts to increase the food supply-—either by ex- panding the area under cultivation or by intensifying cultivation through the use of agricultural chemicals and irrigation-—may cause ecological disasters, such as the inadvertant modification of climate, the entrophi- cation of fresh water lakes and streams, the rapidly rising incidence of environmentally induced illnesses, and the threat of extinction of a growing number of wildlife species (pp. 45-46). The ecosystem is showing many signs of stress from agricultural pressure: salinity and silting, disturbing 24 irrigation systems in arid areas; flood, drought, soil ero- sion, and desertification, as a result of overgrazing or moving and burning of forests and grasslands; and soil, water, and air pollution, especially from the use of chemi- cal fertilizers. These problems and many others make opti- mism unrealistic. The rigid compartmentalization of pro- fessions in the academic world and in private and govern- mental agencies has not helped. When reading the analyses of economists, foresters, en- gineers, agronomists, and ecologists, it is sometimes hard to believe that all are attempting to describe the same country. The actions of experts frequently Show the same lack of mutual understanding and inte- gration (Eckholm, 1976, pp. 21-22). The Efficiencies of Modern and Traditional Agriculture Concern must be turned from the general ecological problem created by agricultural expansion at the expense of natural vegetative cover to the inefficiencies resulting from the adOption of modern technology, combined with neg- lect of the ecological effects of technology, especially in the long run. The industrial revolution has created changes in the agricultural system during the last hundred years by providing fuel-powered machinery to replace human and animal power in farm work; through construction of large-scale irrigation systems to control, store, and use running water when and where needed; and through chemical fertilizers to replace farmyard manure, chemical poisons to 25 control insects and weeds, and many other technological in- novations which affect agricultural products from the farm to the consumers. These changes, known as the "Green" or Agricultural Revolution, have occurred in the agricultural systems of the developed countries, and there have been strong efforts to transfer modern agricultural technology to the developing countries in spite of the fact that the conditions under which the agricultural revolution were de- veloped, such as industrial demand for labor in the cities and abundant land and cheap fuel and fertilizer, exist in few, if any, developing countries. The circumstances are different in some of the developed countries as well. Innis (1980, pp. 1—2) notes: Today the conditions under which the agricultural revo- lution began are changing. For a variety of reasons, including rapid population growth, many of the people now forced out of farming cannot find other work. Many parts of the world are running out of good new land to farm. And, as we are made aware every day, the era of cheap and abundant petroleum is over: fertilizer and fuel are rising rapidly in price and may, before long, become scarce. This is one aspect of the obstacles to transference of modern Western agricultural technology to the developing Countries or even to continuation in the developed countries in the long run. The other aspect is the efficiency of the modern Western agricultural system compared to that of tra- ditional agriculture. Innis indicates that while "agrono- mists are proud that nutrient utilization in raising chick- ens is now so efficient that a pound of broiler can be 26 grown for less than two pounds of feed,‘ they are less care- ful in times of shortages of food, fuel, and fertilizers, when they assess the best agricultural system to maximize crop production from each kilogram of nutrients, liter of water and kilocalorie of solar energy, rather than measuring the labor input per product output. From this definition of efficiency, the traditional intercropping system used on small farms, which is characterized by growing two or more crops interspersed in one field, is seen to use sunlight, water and nutrients more effectively than the one—crop (mon- ocrop) system in the developed countries. Because plants in the intercrop system differ in height, roots, depths, and time of growth and harvest, they can utilize sunlight and water more effectively. Semi-continuity of plant cover in- creases organic material, reduces soil and nutrient erosion through runoff, and increases soil nitrogen from the root nodules of legumes when they are grown mixed with other plants. These ecological advantages do not exist in the monocrop system of large farms which depend on great con— sumption of energy in the complex production process (ma- Chinery fuel, fertilizers, pest and weed control, irriga- tion, processing, and distribution). The present system Of Western agriculture not only faces the problem of relying on fossil energy and other vanishing resources, but also has created many ecological problems from air, 27 water, and soil pollution. Greenwood and Edwards (1979, pp. 79—80) indicate that this system of agriculture "required an input of 10 calories of supplemental energy for each calorie of energy consumed as food." They add, in discussing the Indian attempt to adopt to Western—style modern technology: With millions of Indians on the point of starvation, it is a severe temptation to increase harvest yields in the short run by the quickest and easiest means. But the application of Western high—energy technology prom- ises further conflict with natural systems, not only through pesticides, artificial fertilizers, and the dis- appearance of hardy though low-yielding grain varieties, but also through the urbanization of displaced peasants. On the other hand, by encouraging small farmers to stay on the land and by seeking low-energy improvements in agricultural technology, Indians may be able to increase agricultural production in a manner they can live with in the long run. Ecological Constraints on Human Activities and Change in Arid Lands Many of the global ecological problems mentioned in the review of the literature are to this point also occur- ring in arid lands-—some, almost exclusively there. Since Saudi Arabia is the focus of this research, emphasis will now be placed on the literature on arid-land development and its ecological problems. Aridity exists when water input from precipitation is less than water expenditure by run—off, evaporation, e- Vapo—transpiration, and so forth. According to the esti— mates of Meigs (1953) and Petrow (1973), the total arid and Semi-arid world area is 48,350,000 kmz, of which 5,850,000 km2 are extremely arid, 21,500,000 km2 are arid, and 28 21,000,000 km2 are semi-arid. Although all arid and semi- arid areas lack water resources, each has its own environ- mental complexities and level of aridity (Kassas, 1977, p. 185). Kassas (1977, p. 185) classifies arid lands into four categories: 1. Rainless deserts, where rainfall is not an an— nually recurring event, such as the Rub al—Khali of the Ara— bian Peninsula, the central Shara, and so forth 2. Runoff desert, where annual rainfall is low (less than 100 mm) and variable, and where perennial plant life is restricted to especially favored habitats (for ex— ample, runoff—collecting basins) 3. Rainfall deserts, where rainfall is insufficient for sustained crop production (100-200 mm per year), and where perennial plant life may be somewhat widespread and not confined to runoff-collecting habitats; and 4. Man—made deserts, parts of the semi-arid steppe country (rainfall 200—350 mm per year) that have been trans- formed into deserts due to man's overexploitation (deserti— fication) Desertification is one of the major environmental problems in semi-arid areas. The intensive or excessive use of these areas may be attributed to two factors. One 29 is rapidly growing population and its pressure on existing land. This growth has been caused in part by the extension of medical care to combat common diseases, as in the Sahel. The second factor is the application of new technology ex- tensively in agriculture, as in the semi-arid grasslands of the West Central United States (Great Plains). Kassas (1977, p. 186) has estimated desert areas on a three-fold classification scheme as follows: 1. Deserts defined according to climatic data i constitute 36.3 percent of the earth‘s surface of 7,115,000 5 km2 2. Those classified on the basis of soil and vege— tation account for 43 percent; and 3. Man—made deserts account for about 7 percent of the earth's surface The margins of the Sahara offer an outstanding ex— ample of desert encroachment. The TEEN Bulletin of 1976 states that "the Sudan's desert is marching south slightly faster than 5 km a year," and that the southern boundary of the desert has shifted southward about 90-100 km between 1958 and 1975 (Rapp, 1976, p. 232). Since the early 19505, scholars, researchers, and governmental and U. N. agencies have studied and assessed the potential for new technology in arid lands. There are two reasons for this interest. First, arid areas account 30 for about one-third of the total land in the world, but they contain only 14 percent of the world's people (about 630 million), most of them densely concentrated around water resources. Second, despite limited water, arid lands have several positive features, such as valuable natural resources (petroleum, phosphate, potash, and so forth), un- occupied spaces, clear skies and sunshine almost year-round, and warm temperatures (Brinck, 1976, p. 7; and Kassas, 1977, pp. 188—190). In the past, discussion about the potential for in- creasing utilization of arid land have emphasized the scar— city of water as the main inhibiting factor. (See UNESCO Arid Zone research, 18, 1962; and International Symposium on Increasing Food Production in Arid Lands, 1969). But the scarcity of water in arid lands is caused by and interacts with the entire complex environment of arid ecosystems. Ecological resistance to overexploitation of arid lands has existed since the emergence of ancient civiliza- tions. As Emmel (1977, p. 4) states: Through unsound agricultural practices, deforestation and overgrazing, great civilizations-—in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America-—devastated their surroundings and thereby destroyed themselves, leaving littered ruins and bleak landscape as testimony to how nature fought back. The countries where these civilizations once flourished are today among the poorest in the world. In the recent past, development technology has been introduced to areas throughout the world, including arid lands. It has taken the form of large dams, irrigation 31 projects, oil and mineral exploitation, industrial plants, nomadic settlement, resettlement, medical facilities, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, road construction, and growing cities, to name a few features. The export of development technology to arid lands has not only brought with it the ecological problems of de— veloped countries, but also has created a transfer problem. Farvar and Milton (1968, p. xiii) explains: The problems of man's careless use of development tech- nologies tend to fall into two general categories. In one, the fault is intrinsic to the technology on global scales. The environmental problems of application are present in developed countries and have been exported along with technology to less developed countries, where similar environmental impacts than have occurred. In the other category, there is a "transfer" problem: a technology which has been developed to suit conditions of temperate zone ecosystems will fail operationally when imposed on an alien, usually tropical environment (arid and humid). Irrigation: Potential and Problems Agricultural development in arid and semi-arid areas, including those that have seasonally dry periods, is dependent on irrigation systems. Accurate figures on existing irrigated areas are unavailable because of the lack or inadequacy of statistics in most developing countries. The newest estimations indicate that irrigated land totals 233.6 million ha——l6 percent of all cultivated land, and 1.7 percent of the total land on earth. This area consumes about 1,400 billion In3 of water per annum (Fukuda, 1976). Eckholm (1976, p. 134) mentions that 32 one of the key factors permitting world food output to keep up with the surging post-war demand has been the historically unprecedented explosion in irrigation capa— city. A total world irrigated area of 8 million ha in 1800 reached 40 million ha in 1900, 105 million ha in 1950, and then 140 million ha by 1970, thus growing faster than world population so far this century. Although some observors believe that extensive de- velopment of irrigation in the future is mainly to be ex- pected in Africa, the Middle and Near East, and Central Asia, others, including Borgstrom (1971), believe that ex- pansion on a large scale has reached its end, and that most economically available arable land and water resources have been put to use. Most irrigation is concentrated in seasonally dry areas, especially in southern and eastern Asia where mon— soons occur. China has the largest amoung of irrigated land in the world, 76 million ha, while India is second with 39 million ha. The two countries possess more than half the irrigated land of the globe. Although there have been magnificent achievements from irrigation projects intended to provide water in the right place, at the right time, and in sufficient quantity, many problems have arisen. The most severe is salinization. This process is the gradual deposition and accumulation of salt on the surface as a result of heavy watering accom— panied by excessive evaporation, scarce rainfall, dry air, insufficient runoff, and strong winds. In arid regions, millions of hectares of tilled land have been turned into 33 marshes, or all vegetation has been killed, through salini— zation. El Gabaly (1977), Houston (1977), and Fukuda (1976) estimate that at present, about 50 percent of the irrigated areas in Iraq and the Euphrates Valley of Syria, 80 percent in Pakistan, 35 percent in India, and 30 percent in Egypt suffer to varying degrees from salinity and water logging. Some experts believe that the highest priority for the fu- ture should be to renovate and improve the utilization of existing irrigation facilities. Houston (1977) mentions a that reports presented at the 1974 World Food Conference 2 suggest a desirable target: the improvement by 1985 of some 50 million ha of existing irrigation. Sedimentation is another important problem. It oc- curs when the accumulation of silt in a dam or reservoir de- creases its capacity. The retention of silt in these res— ervoirs prevents it from being deposited on the irrigated areas and increases the need for large compensating quanti— ties of commercial fertilizers in order to maintain soil fertility in the irrigated areas (Borgstrom, 1971). The establishment of an irrigation system also may create health problems. Water can carry toxic chemicals and many communicable diseases. The warm and dry climate sur— rounding irrigation systems in arid regions offers the best conditions for the spread of malaria. Bilharziasis, cholera, typhoid, and many other diseases may find favorable condi- tions along irrigation streams. 34 Ecological imbalance also may result from nomad set- tlement projects. Frequently these are intended to raise the nomads' standard of living, but they also may be aimed at gathering in one place nomadic peoples who are considered an obstacle to modernization and/or a military threat, and therefore politically undesirable. The result is often to intensify agricultural and grazing land uses. Many studies indicate that nomad settlement has failed to obtain its ob— jective and has created many adverse ecological consequences. These studies conclude that in most areas nomads have better standards of living than do their sedentary countrymen (Dar- ling and Farver, 1968, pp. 671-682; Heady, 1968, pp. 683— 693). Industry, Mining, and Tourism Specialists in nonagricultural sectors of the econ— omy maintain that the most effective use of water, as of any other resource, is that use which produces the maximum a- mount of wealth, not necessarily the use which produces the maximum amount of food, in arid and semi-arid lands. Thus, they claim, a specific water resource in an arid area might PrOduce enough food to sustain 100 people, but the same QUantity of water might be used in an industrial operation t0 create enough wealth to permit 6,000 people to purchase the food they need from other areas (Wells and Marmion, 1969 , pp. 19—29) . 35 It is clear that such specialists are concerned only about commercial profits in their investigation of arid land utilization problems. They do not consider whether the arid land is located in a developed or a developing country. There may be quite a difference between the two in terms of development goals and ecological and technological accepta- bility and capability. The objectives of arid-land develop- ment in developed countries are to strengthen or expand e— conomic activities. That is, they try to complement acti- vities in the humid regions to exploit the special potential of arid land. In most developing countries, especially those dominated by aridity, the objectives are to achieve economic and social change so as to meet basic human needs, mainly food supply. Industry, mining, and tourism in arid lands have contributed to the growth of urbanization, which has brought new and severe problems in addition to the well-known dif- ficulties of cities in humid areas. In addition to the water—supply problem, Amiran (1977) notes: In dry atmospheres this material-—garbage and other solid waste—-instead of disintegrating, is preserved. The absence of flowing rivers and the rarity of surface run—off in general leaves all waste in the city. Con- sequently, a considerable portion of land around certain arid-zone cities is covered by waste. Environmental malfunctions below ground include salinization of aquifers, water logging, and accelerated sedimentation in storage reservoirs. 36 Present Situation and Future Security of Food Supply Estimates differ as to the number of malnourished or undernourished people in the world, depending on the defi- nition of hunger. Mayer (1976, p. 14) believes that one— eighth of all humans live on the verge of starvation, while Nicol (1980, p. vii) indicates that 40 percent of the world's population lives in poverty. But according to Borgstrom (1973, p. 26), two-thirds of all humans suffer Lu varying levels of food and water shortages in addition to :Q lacking adequate shelter, clothing, education, and medical care. These people are distributed throughout the criti- cally hungry belt which includes the southern half of Asia, Africa, and South America. More than one billion are mal- nourished (that is, they get enough food to fill their stomachs, but it lacks protein, minerals, and vitamins), and more than half that number are undernourished (they do not have enough food even to fill their stomachs). It is es— timated that about 12,000 people die each day from starva- tion or the diseases of malnutrition (Borgstrom, 1973, pp. 54—57, and Ehrlich, 1970, p. 72). Borgstrom (1973, p. 57) mentions that if all the food available in the world were equally distributed and each human being received identical quantities, we would all be malnourished. He adds that global food production can feed about one—third of mankind at the United States level. 37 The so-called “Green Revolution" helped to increase food production during the 19605 and early 19705 at an av— erage annual rate of 3 percent in the low-income nations and 2.7 percent in the high—income nations. But the high population-growth rate in the developing nations absorbed most of this increase (Crosson and Frederich, 1977, p. 15). Brown (1975, p. 1053) attributed this increase to the use of chemical fertilizer, which increases the productivity of each hectare and enabled India, for example, to double its wheat production within six years, while other countries, such as Mexico, the Phillipines, Pakistan, and Turkey, all increased cereal production dramatically. But while the population growth rate of developing countries remained high, the relief provided by the "Green Revolution" was only temporary, and it gave way in 1973 to a new decline in av- erage output per hectare with use of a given amount of fer- tilizer. Despite the long-term growth of global hunger, the problem began to attract serious attention only recently, when those who were able to pay became unable to obtain food. World reserves of grain in exporting countries dropped from 93 days of world grain consumption in 1969 to 39 days in 1973. The whole world began to make it from one harvest to the next (Brown, 1977, pp. 24—30). Any nation's food security cannot be isolated from the context of regional and global food insecurity created 38 by the continuous growth of population, weather fluctuation and instability, limitations of agricultural resources which can be used with reasonable financial or ecological costs, and frustrating environmental response to the so-called "Green Revolution" dependent on fertilizers and fuel-powered machinery. The interaction of these factors has changed four major regions-—North Africa, Southwest Asia, Latin America, and the U. S. S. R.-—from food-exporting to food- importing areas during the last 25 years (Table 2). The food situation in less developed arid countries poses deeper troubles than in the world at large. This is especially so in countries in the wide Afro-Asian Desert belt. While worldwide grain production doubled between 1950 and 1975 and global grain output per person increased by more than a third over this period, only four countries of the sixteen in Table 5 were able to raise their per capita grain output. Those countries are Iran, Libya, Senegal and Sudan. In the other twelve countries, per capita grain output declined at different rates; in two countries, the per-capita decline was more than 50 percent (Algeria, 61 percent; Lebanon, 54 percent), and in the other four coun— tries it was more than 40 percent. Summary The previous discussion demonstrates that up to two- thirds of the world's population suffers from malnutrition 39 TABLE 5 PER CAPITA GRAIN PRODUCTION IN SIXTEEN DESERT COUNTRIES, 1950-52 AND 1973-75 Country P Per Capita Cereal Change roduction (Kilograms) (Percent) (1950-52) (1973—75) Afghanistan 263 234 -11 Algeria 221 87 —61 Ethiopia 220 190 -14 Iran 182 185 -2 Iraq 269 156 -42 Jordan 143 79 -45 Lebanon 44 20 —54 Libya 99 106 +7 Mali 267 146 -45 Morocco 272 213 -22 Niger 303 169 -44 Senegal 142 186 +31 Sudan 102 150 +47 Syria 315 241 -24 Tunisia 216 184 -15 Upper Volta 193 180 —7 SOURCE: U. S. Dept. of Agriculture in Eckholm and Brown, 1977, p. 20. 40 or under-nutrition in different degrees, and about 90 mil- lion people are added to these groups each year. There are serious ecological and economic constraints on the ability of agricultural expansion to produce more food and on the so-called Agricultural Revolution, which depends on in- creased use of fertilizers and fuel-powered machinery and faces serious problems (such as the declining agricultural output for each input unit of fertilizer, limitations of fossil-energy supply, and water, soil and air pollution). Under these circumstances, the food security of a country cannot be isolated from its human and physical environments nor from the regional and global context of these environ- ments. Borgstrom (1977, pp. 321-322) suggests that any plan to create a food balance should depend on the adjustment of these six interacting factors: food production, population better storage and utilization, nutritional requirements, disease control, and resource appraisal (land, water, ener- gy, minerals). All these factors interact to direct the food situation toward insecurity if one or more of these factors is ignored, as is the case in the present situation, or toward food balance of all these factors are considered in relation to all the others. The "ecology and economy are the two balancing wheels holding this system together——a responsibility which has thus far not been too well dis- charged by either group of proponents" (Borgstrom, 1977, p. 322). CHAPTER III PHYSICAL CONSTRAINT ON AND RESISTANCE TO AGRICULTURE IN AN ARID ENVIRONMENT In the previous chapter, three major features of global agriculture were reviewed in detail: world popula- tion and the food situation, population pressure on agri- cultural land and water, and ecological constraints on human activities and change in arid lands. In this interdependent world, increasing pressure on the earth's four major biolo— gical systems-—fisheries, forests, grasslands, and crep- lands-—requires each human community-—local, regional, na- tional, global-—to consider this situation in working for a secure food supply for the future, because the deterioration of the earth's biological systems, as a result of both pop- ulation growth and irrational use, threatens the security of all nations. Lester Brown (1977) explains: The productivity of the earth's principal biological systems-—fisheries, forests, grasslands, and croplands-— is threatened by excessive human claims. . . .Global food insecurity and the associated instability in food prices have become a common source of political insta- bility. The centuries-old dynasty in Ethiopia came to an end in 1974 not because a foreign power invaded and prevailed but because ecological deterioration precipi- tated a food crisis and famine. In the summer of 1976 the Polish government was badly shaken by riots when it sought to raise food prices closer to the world level. In 1977 the riots that followed official attempts to 41 42 raise food prices in Egypt came closer to toppling the government of President Anwar Sadat than has Israeli military power. In this chapter and the next, the viability of agriculture in Saudi Arabia is examined closely with attention to the pressures and constraints mentioned above. In this chapter, the discussion will focus on the physical environment and its agricultural capability; in the next chapter, attention will turn to human pressure on agriculture as a source of food supply for the country, as a source of livelihood and employment for 50 percent or more of the population, and, lately, as a competitor with other economic sectors. Water Balance in the Aridity System of Saudi Arabia Many approaches have been developed to measure cli— matic characteristics which interact to support different varieties and densities of plant life on the earth's surface. At first, attention was given separately to climatic ele— ments such as wind, temperature, precipitation, humidity, etc. In 1948, C. w. Thornthwaite developed the concept of water balance, which is determined by the relationship be- tween the actual precipitation in an area and the potential _evapotranspiration in that area. This relationship is represented in the form of a surplus or deficit between the available, incoming moisture (precipitation) and the needed, outgoing moisture (evapotranspiration). As surplus moisture increases in an area, the area becomes more humid; and as a 43 deficit increases, the area becomes more arid. Thornthwaite explains this idea by saying: We cannot tell whether a climate is moist or dry by knowing the precipitation alone. We must know whether precipitation is greater or less than the water needed for evaporation and transpiration. Precipitation and evapotranspiration are equally important climatic factors. (Lockwood, 1974, p. 23) The water balance or precipitation-evapotranspiration relationship in Saudi Arabia is a product of interacting climatic factors which create an arid environment in which temperatures are high, rising to over 400C (and as high as 500C) during the summer in most of the country except the western highland strip (the Assarah Mountains). (See relief map, Figure 1) On the other hand, in most of the country, the temperature drops to freezing or below on winter nights, except in the western coastal strip between the Red Sea and Assarah Mountain Range (Burdon and Otkun, 1968, pp. 145-153; and Beaument, 1977, p. 44). This fluctuation is represented in Figure 2, which shows the mean annual maximum and minimum temperatures at eleven stations. The mean annual temperature is over 40°C at all stations except the western coastal stations of Alwagh, Jeddah, and Gizon. Although the Arabian Peninsula is surrounded by water bodies on three sides, the effect of these bodies is limited to a very narrow strip along the coastal area because the Red Sea in the west and the Gulf in the east are relatively small compared to the extensive Afro-Eurasian land masses surrounding Saudi Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula is 44 RELIEF MAP OF SAUDI ARABIA Aneters - over 1800 - 1200 — 1800 600 — 1200 300 — 600 [:3 o — 300 O 50 100150 200 250 Kilometers P Source- Atlas oISaudIArabIa,BindagJ:,1978 Fig.1 45 Te'lf K. Muohclt .130 ‘0 ::::::::::::::::::::f20 20£::::::::::::::::::: Qasoeem 40 1O 30 °o Wdlna 2° 40 10 AIR TEMPERATURE 4o»Joddah 3°EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Tabouk «4o 20 :::::::::::::::::::§3o 10- 20 Rlyad ,’/////////~\\\\\\\\:'° ‘°' can; so EggégéffafssEEEEEEEan 20 ' ‘20 10 ~10 .IF M A M J.|A S O N D J FNIA M J JIIS‘OlND Source: A. Abdel "Rah man and S. Balegh,1974. Fig.2 Mean monthly temperatures, mean monthly maxima and minima of the different regions. 46 between these two huge masses of land, which may be con- sidered one body, but it is under the dry trade wind belt of the West Continents. The northeasterly trade wind sys- tem, which is supposed to dominate the area, is usually in- terrupted by regional and local wind systems which affect the Middle East during the summer, with a low-pressure system centered on the Arabian Gulf basin area. Local and regional wind is develOped, coming from the north and north- west or from the southwest, and blowing toward the low-pres- sure center. In winter, the Asian high pressure extends to the area, and the continental polar air masses move into the region from Eastern Europe and Siberia. (Figure 3). From this simplified picture of the very complicated wind system in the Arabian Peninsula, we conclude that most of these winds are dry because they are developed in and blow over extensive land masses, usually in Eurasia and Africa. They do not pass over relatively wide water sur- faces. At the same time, these winds move from relatively cool areas to warmer ones; thus, their ability to carry vapor increases and their relative humidity decreases. Two relatively moist winds provide relief from this dryness. One is irregular, cyclonic, and lifting, associa— ted with the eastward passage of depressions from the Med- iterranean area. It blows over the north half of the coun— try during the winter. The average annual precipitation of this cyclonic wind usually fluctuates between 25 and 75 mm PRESSURE/WINDS V v “*I‘ «b Source:0xiord World Atlas. The Cartographic Dept. of the Clarendon Press.1973. Fig.3 Position of Arabian Pennisula in the world's pressure and winds system. 48 and rarely becomes more than 100 mm, so it has little or no direct effect on agriculture. However, it is very important to nomadic pastoralism. The other wind is the southwest monsoon wind which blows on the mountainous southwest part of the country dur- ing the summer. (Figure 3) The southwest highlands also receive orographic rainfall during the winter. Because of this, these lands are regarded as the only part of the coun- try which receives comparatively constant and reliable rain, although the part of the highlands which receives more than 150 mm accounts for less than four percent of the country's land mass. (Figure 4) The three conditions of temperature, wind, and pre- cipitation comprise one side of the water balance. The other side is the evapotranspiration potential, which is greatly affected by climatic elements already mentioned and is very important in determining efficiency of precipitation, as well as underground drainage and surface run-off. It is expected that, under conditions of aridity, there will be a high deficit between the outgoing moisture (mostly evapo- transpiration) and incoming moisture (precipitation). There are different estimates for the evapotranspi- ration potential of Saudi Arabia. For example, Burdon and Otkun (1968) estimated that it is between 1,500 mm and 3,000 mm, and Mather and Carter (in Beumont et al., 1976) estimate that the evapotranspiration potential in the western 49 I ,‘\ r A/x,’ ,. x. . ._ MEAN ANNUAL; PRECIPITATION . I \ ’. \'\ ' ‘,‘ '1' JORDAN '\_‘ .\ .~ IRAQ L". IRAN “.I ,_.--’ . ' - . ," - oTabuk . Ha'il- . ° SAUDIA ‘ °Medina "Q ' ' Climatological Stations Jedda T31" . Isohyets in Millimeters Mecca . ° 0 Kilometers 400 l_ l I I J c ’ . I ' ’ Rub al Khali ’ . I ( ’ of. ' ,/ South \. ./ Yemen ‘ Source: (From Beaumont.1977). Fig.4 50 highlands of Saudi Arabia is between 570 mm and 1,140 mm, and in the rest of the country is over 1,140 mm per annum (see Figure 5). In an attempt to measure the efficiency of precipi- tation and the aridity in Saudi Arabia, Amin and Balegh (1974) used the available data for rainfall and temperatures recorded at eleven' regional stations during 1963-1973. They applied the Clima-Diagrams method, developed by Walter (1955), in which the average monthly temperature and rain- fall are represented by two curves on the same axis for each station. The concept of these diagrams is that the more the rain curve crosses over the temperature curve, the more the soil-water content is replenished. But whenever the rain curve lies below that of the temperature, the degree of ari- dity increases as the area between the two curves increases. The Clima-Diagrams show that at only two stations of eleven does the rain curve cross over the temperature curve for an average of about one month (Taif) and three months (K—Mush- ait); both stations are in the western highlands in the most humid part of the country. At other stations, and even throughout the rest of the year at Taif and K—Mushait, the area between the temperature curve and the rain curve indi- cates a large deficit of incoming moisture relative to po- tential outgoing moisture (Figure 6). It is easy to see that in this arid environment, characteristic of Saudi Arabia, the water balance represents a major factor in the 51 EVAPORTRANSPIRATION “I IIIII ~ :‘IC"' I" I: I IJIIIIIIII ii ilhl . Illllll 1.... m" III III Iiiiiii, IIIIIIIIiii. ..... - < 570 mm‘ IIII 57o,1140 >1140 1| I. SourcezAfter Thornthwaite.Mather and Carter, in Beaumont, 1976. Fig.5 52 '6 Medina o «no .o-o - u ‘.'-.-ou.. o-I. . .0’ [-0 I 'o-:' 'l .0 ooooooooooooo I. ' u on .I. 0.0::.‘ A I JMMAJJAséu Source: A. Abdel-Rahman and S. Balegh In Beaumont.1976 Fig.6 Clima diagrams (rainfall efficiency) of the different regions of Saudi Arabia. 53 environmental capacity of agriculture. In this context, water balances means not only the available quantity of moisture, but also the ecological interaction of the clima— tic elements which affect the efficiency of the available moisture. The water balance in Saudi Arabia, characterized by a high deficit between the precipitation and the potential evapotranspiration (in other words, characterized by the domination of an arid environment), suggests that agricul- tural activities are not expected to succeed except in that small portion of the southwestern highlands where the alti- Eff tude is over 1,800 m and which receives over 300 mm of rain: the Assarah Mountain peaks. But people in areas where there is a precipitation deficiency, the arid and semi—arid areas, have tried to counter the water-balance deficit by irriga- tion. They have utilized available surface-water resources such as rivers, streams, and underground water. The magni— tude of irrigation increases in areas where there is a sea— sonal or locational cycle of surplus and deficit of precipi— tation, such as in the monsoon area or the marginal areas between the humid and arid regions. In arid areas where there is a precipitation defict year—round and there is no surface-water resource, such as Saudi Arabia, groundwater becomes the main source for human needs, including agricul— ture, which exists in many dispersed oases despite the very small quantity of water available compared to the semi—arid 54 or humid areas. Considering the different factors which describe groundwater supply (quantity, major source of accumulation, recharge rate, and the quality of the water), Saudi Arabia has two groundwater systems that parallel its two major geological structures. One is the groundwater system of the western, pre—Cambrian complex, which occupies over one-third of the country's area, and the other is the eastern portion, consisting of sedimentary formations, occupying the remain- ing two—thirds of the country (Figure 7). Each of these hydrogeological systems will be investigated in terms of its characteristics and its environmental stress on agricultural activity (see Figure 8). Environmental Characteristics of the Groundwater of the Aquifer Systems in the Sedimentary Formation Sedimentary formations cover about two-thirds of the Arabian peninsula, dipping gently to the north, east and south of the pre-Cambrian basement of the western part of the peninsula. These sedimentary formations overlie the dipping extension of the pre—Cambrian complex. Their width reaches about 5,000 m in the eastern coast of the country, and their extension under the Arabian Gulf may reach 10,000 m. There are about thirty identified formations grouped into four major categories (see Figure 9). The oldest of these shallow—water marine rocks is the Paleozoic formation 55 SIMPLIFIED GEOLOGICAL MAP Tertiary and Quaternary m1] Jurassic Volcanics “Neogene ”Triassic ////////vy9" ////////‘§r):. S // " o . a l O .0. O ' . 0...... m hl-l-l Escarpment '2\‘ J? I\\ Source: (From Beaumont. 1977). V; Fig.7 56 \. \ W I ‘3’\'>._. V. L. (i) A Agriculture depending on toe-II water . resources ahauow water reaourcealn alluvlal plalna Fig.8 Approximate major agriculture concentrations and types according to the kind of water resources. a: 57 m.u_u. “5:0 22m I>o_uIl.' 83:5 o. 8.65%: . ‘ . mormcowfi 5639590 _ . _ o a o o a 09- I I o constant-IN...”- au . a o. Reno-ah“ cc. 0 o o o I a at O \é/ .. ma uF><10 (21(0 O< O><>>DP 4m mmm50< "—0.332 1. :2: Somood _ 3.652005; 39003; I I i 58 which lies in a great, curved belt along the eastern margin of the Arabian shield. Other formations overlie each other, and their western edges appear as belts, the oldest in the west and the newest in the east; therefore, the newest for— mations are found in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. The movement of groundwater within the sedimentary forma- tion, in general, is down—dipping to the east; therefore, underground water tends to concentrate in the eastern part of the formations. In terms of groundwater, the sedimentary formations have been grouped into four major aquifer systems. As Fig- ure 9 shows, the first two, Paleozoic and Triassic, are the oldest formations, dating from the Cambrian to the Triassic ages. Unlike the third and fourth aquifer systems, these two are closed, so most of their infiltration groundwater has been held. The third aquifer system, the Cretaceous, consists of the Wasia and Biyadh formations; and the fourth, the Eocene aquifer system, includes Paleocene sediments and the Ummar Radhuma formation. This system is the largest of the four. Both the Cretaceous and the Eocene systems are being depleted, as water is transfered from the Cretaceous system into the Eocene system through sub—surface faults and reaches the land surface from the Eocene system through ter- restrial and submarine springs in the Eastern Province and the Arabian Gulf. 59 Limitations of the Aquifer Water Resources The groundwater of the sedimentary formations of the country has been utilized since ancient times through natural springs or hand-dug wells over the parts of the formations nearest the land surface. At some sites, when the upper part of the formation consists mainly of poorly cemented rocks and these sites stand in low elevations, then the groundwater level forms artesian conditions and flowing bore- holes are developed. Since the early 19505, when the search for petroleum resources began, groundwater has been dis- covered with petroleum or alone in different geological for- mations. This discovery has brought hope for ending the scarcity of water and has been followed by relatively inten- sive exploitation of the groundwater through the installa- tion of oil-driven pumps on traditional wells and bore-holes, or through newly-drilled wells in old oases or newly-created settlements. The ecological responses to such rapid modifi- cation of the hydrologic cycle in such an extremely arid system have been resoundingly negative. Shortly after this change began, there were rapid declines in the groundwater level leading to complete depletion or to increases in water salinity. Responses to agricultural irrigation included land salination and water logging. From these experiences, and from data developed in an overall inventory assessment of the hydrogeology of the 60 sedimentary part of Saudi Arabia, it has been found that in any aquifer or formation, there is a relationship between the percentage of water salinity and the down-deep direction of the aquifer or formation where fresh water exists in the upper part and water salinity increases to high salinity in closed sections, if they are found. Although there are no salinity line maps available for the sedimentary part of the country, such deposits are usually found in the Paleozoic aquifer system. There is a salinity map of the Dammam limestone a- quifer in Kuwait (Figure 10), which is the northern exten- sion of the Dammam formation in the Eastern Province. The map shows that the salinity is about 2,000 ppm of total dis- solved salts (TDS) in western Kuwait, about 50-80 km from the Gulf, and becomes between 10,000 and 40,000 ppm under the coastline (40,000 in the Arabian Gulf), rising to 100,000 ppm in northern Kuwait, where the groundwater is static. In Saudi Arabia, in shallow groundwater, the salinity is less than 1,000 ppm, but the salinity increases in the aqui— fer water, in general, from between 1,000 and 3,000 ppm of TDS in the aquifer or formation system, to 10,000 ppm or more in the older water in the deeper section of the aqui- fer. This rapid increase in salinity parallels the increase in the depth within an aquifer and is not restricted to the eastern part of the sedimentary formation of the country. It also exists in the southwestern section: in Wadi /__ ________ \\ 3OIN ’.I '\.\ ,_. u: - ,- \ ,; I" p V I! No Movement 3Q ' 1’ 9 sun I o ISLA D U. —’ KUWAIT 0 BAY Kuwait City 2 < _ 1’ m “,1! < I: I: I < '\ '~~-._._._.--—'" \- ‘. NeutraIZone \- Q 10 20 40 80 910 KM SourceDv Burdon and A Al Sharhan. Journal at Hydrology, 6. 1968, Fig.10 Isosalinity (ppm of 705) lines for the groundwater of the Dammam aquifer in Kuwalt which is a North exten- sion of the Dammam formation in Eastern Saudi Arable 62 Dawasir, salinity of less than 1,000 ppm is found in shallow groundwater in or near the recharged area of the aquifer, but salinity increases to about 6,000 ppm in some wells dis— charged from the Minjun-Dhruma aquifer (Triassic system) (Italconsult, 1969). In addition, analysis of groundwater samples from different aquifers in different parts of the country has been done at depths beyond 1,200 mm (more than 2,100 ft) and distances from the aquifer's outcrop of 24 to 250 km. It has been found that groundwater age in the j aquifer increases with increase in water depth and distance 3% from the aquifer's outcrop, usually toward the east. Water i“ ages of the samples were estimated to be from 22,000 to more than 30,000 years. (Thatcher, Robinson, and Brown, 1961). Other important factors connected with groundwater are the discharge and recharge rates, which explain the incoming and outgoing water balance and establish a link be- tween existing exploitation and ecological capacity of the water resources in an aquifer system. Although complete and accurate information about the rates of groundwater dis— charge, recharge, and related matters is hard to find, it is estimated that the total discharge is about 1,660 mil- lion3 yearly, distributed as follows: 300 million3 are dis- charged yearly through springs, 300 million3 are discharged yearly by the extraction of groundwater for domestic and agricultural use, 500 million3 are extracted yearly for in— jection into the petroleum reservoirs, and evaporation 63 losses in Sabkhus are about 500 million3 yearly (Italcon- sult, 1969, in Dincer, et al., 1973). This estimation does not include discharge through the submarine springs in the Gulf. On the other hand, there are many indications that there is little or no recharge in the aquifer system. Pike (1970) indicated that the total rainfall over the superfi— cial and Neogen outcrops (see Figure 7) is equivalent to ap- proximately 8 percent of the evaporated water loss from the Sibakh Playas. Also, E1 Khatib (1974) found that, from a total of 22,000 mcm estimated to fall yearly in the form of rain on the Great Nafud Basin (one-sixth of the country's area), only 1 percent (220 mcm) infiltrates into the ground. All of this infiltrated water returns to the atmosphere very near the location where it falls except on rare occasions. It has also been found that the same situation ex- ists in the confined aquifer systems. The confined Paleozo— ic aquifer system overlying the pre-Cambrian rock is sup— posed to receive the rain runoff from drainage networks in the Arabian Shield, the most rainy and runoff—producing area in the country (Figure 4). However, different studies indi— cate that the recharging process occurs only in the shallow groundwater while analysis of the Saq formation, which is part of the Paleozoic aquifer system, indicates that the water in this system is quite old and there is no effective recharge process (Job, et al in Al—Suyari, 1978). 64 These facts outline major features of the sedimen- tary groundwater phenomenon. The most important character- istics of this picture are: 1. Relatively fresh water (usually 1,000—3,000 ppm of TDS) forms a small part of the upper section of the water in a formation or aquifer system, and salinity increases with the depth until the water becomes brackish or salty (brine) 2. The quantity of discharge, naturally or through pumping, exceeds the quantity of recharge (which is very limited if it exists at all). This is clear-from the water age determination, the increase in salinity as water is pumped or flows, and the decline of the groundwater level which has led to the drying of some wells or springs (Ital- consult, 1969, in Tayeb, 1978) The Agricultural Situation in the Sedimentary Part of the Country Agricultural statistics of Saudi Arabia released during the last two decades are very confusing and conflic- ting because most of them are products of estimation rather than of accurate surveys. Therefore, they are affected by different impressions generated through the misunderstanding of or disregard for the ecological dimension of the avail- able water resources during the investigations, which con- centrated on the groundwater in sedimentary rocks during the 19505 and 19605 and changed to the water resources of the 65 western highland region since 1970. This situation has led to two kinds of overestimations related to cultivated land in both the Arabian Shelf sedimentary sections first and the Arabian Shield later: 1. Early overestimation of the percentage of the country's cultivated land in the sedimentary section: esti- mations in the early 19605 indicated that about 60 percent of the total cultivated area was located in the sedimentary part of the country and depended on the fossil groundwater (Nyrop, 1977). The exaggeration in this percentage may be attributed to the more-visible extension of the agricultural area in the oases compared to the very scattered farms in small segments throughout the western, mountainous high— lands, and to the discovery of groundwater in many aquifer systems, encouraging expansion of cultivated areas through individual initiatives or through governmental projects 2. Overestimation of the percentage of the coun- try's agricultural land contained in dry farms (non—irri— gated agricultural areas) in the early 19705: rain-fed (dry-farm) agriculture was estimated to be about 75 percent (404,000 ha) of the total cultivated land in the country, which was estimated in 1971 to be about 525,000 ha. Of this total, 75 percent was said to be in the western region, com- pared to only 40 percent in earlier estimations (Nyrop, 1977, p. 279; and Second Development Plan, 1975, p. 119). This overestimation is a reflection of the 66 ecological difficulties which have faced the existence or expansion of agriculture in the fossil water dependent re— gion, and may be attributed to the attraction of public and government attention by the exceptional environment of the highland (at an altitude of more than 1,800 m) which recent— ly came into focus after the development of a transportation system with highways and airports. It should be mentioned that even recent statistics contain confusion about the distribution of cultivated land between the Arabian Shield and the Arabian Shelf. According to the government's Statistical Year Books (1975—78, Vols. 12-14), total cropland is estimated at 600,859 ha, of which only 145,993 ha, or about 24 percent, is located in the Ara- bian Shelf (the sedimentary area) and dependent on the fos— sil-water resources. About 76 percent is reportedly in the Arabian Shield, dependent on rain or on runoff and infil- trated, shallow groundwater. On the other hand, statistics from the Comprehen- sive Agricultural Census of 1973-74 indicate that the coun- try's total cultivated land (both temporary and perennial crops) is 395,248 ha, of which 184,410 ha, or 47 percent, is in the Arabian Shelf. The discrepancy may be due to the fact that a considerable amount of the agricultural area in the Arabian Shield is cultivated more than once a year, and that some areas in the Arabian Shelf that were classified as cultivated lands are unproductive because of water shortages 67 or the salinity problem. Salinization is a major ecological problem threat- ening both new and traditional agricultural areas. There is no statistical information about the agricultural area af- fected by salinity problems, but it is believed to comprise the heavily cultivated area in the regions of sedimentary rocks in which the irrigation process depends on groundwater. Compared to the irrigated area in the Nile, Indus, and Eu— phrates-Tigris valleys, where salinization eliminates con- siderable area from farming each year, the Arabian Shelf is a more-favorable environment for the emergence of this eco- logical dilemma: groundwater with 2,000 ppm of TDS or more, low rate of atmospheric humidity, and absence of perennial running water to carry away the accumulated salt, even with construction of drainage systems. There are still major unsolved difficulties such as the lack of sufficient water to supply the root zone to meet the needs of plants and counteract soil leach. Therefore, it will not be surprising if the 112,117 ha appear in a column entitled "temporary wasteland" or "useless lands" as a result of salinity, with about 86 percent, 96,024 ha, of this abandoned land being in the Arabian Shelf. Although there are no available statistics on the magnitude of the expansion in exploiting the groundwater to increase cultivated land in the Arabian Shelf area, it is believed that the available figures for the Eastern Province 68 may reflect, to some extent, the rest of the Arabia Shelf. Twitchell (1944) stated that several wells had been drilled since the early 19405 by the oil companies, the government, and individuals, but he did not give a number of wells and springs. In 1951, Vidal reported that there were only five wells and sixty—two springs (Tayeb, 1978). Drastic in- creases in wells (336) and springs (162) were reported by a Swiss consulting firm in 1963—64 (El—Khatib, 1974). During 1964—1967, the number of wells was up to 887, but the number of springs had dropped to 102 (Italconsult, 1969). Lately, it has become clear that the groundwater po- ? tential in the Arabian Shelf was exaggerated or poorly esti- mated. An investigation of the Al-Hassa Oasis agricultural potential was conducted by the United States Agricultural Mission, led by K. S. Twitchell, and the Swiss firm Wakuti, which surveyed the area in 1963—1964 and again in 1966 as a potential base for the Al-Hassa Irrigation and Drainage Pro- ject and the Faisal Settlement Project of Harad. The goals of both projects are to add about 16,000 ha of new culti- vated area (12,000 ha in Al—Hassa) and to improve the tradi— tionally irrigated area of 8,000 ha in Al-Hassa. Although there are no specific statistics for the direct ecological response to this expansion of regional capability, the ex- istence of a problem may be assumed based on the previous discussion and on El-Khatib's indication that the average discharges of the springs have declined since Wakuti's 69 survey. This consultant firm had overestimated the ground- water potential (El-Khatib, 1974). It is possible to make simple computations for water consumption in agricultural and non-agricultural activities through the Arabian Shelf from its almost unrenewable water resources. It is estimated that 20,000 ha of cultivated land in the Al-Hassa Agriculture Project require quantities of water for irrigation equivalent to the regular flow of Al- Hassa Springs in 1963—1964, about 360 mom, with an additional 25 to 30 percent needed for soil leaching. It is reasonable to multiply that quantity of water (360 mom) by seven to obtain an approximate estimation of water consumption for the total cultivated land in the Arabian Shelf in 1973-1974, a- bout 140,000 ha. According to this estimation, the required quantity is about 2,520 mom in addition to non—agricultural consumption which may reach between 1,000 and 1,500 mcm. Environmental Characteristics of the Western Pre-Cambrian Highland of the Arabian Shield The western pre-Cambrian highland is the outcrop of the basement complex which underlies the sedimentary forma- tion. The topographical features of the highland are gen- erally classified as follows: 1. Tihama: a narrow strip of coastal plain exten- ding from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Yemen border. The width Of this plain varies from about forty kilometerd minimum in in the south to almost nothing in the north. It separates 70 the Red Sea from the east scarp of its depression 2. Higaz Highland: the western upper part of folded shield, the Arabian part of the African Shield. It has different local names such as Higaz, Assir, and Assarah Mountains. The elevation of some of its peaks may reach 2,400 m above sea level in the Assir Mountains. The western slope is a very deep scarp created by the separation of the Arabian Shield from the giant African Shield (see Figure 11). The eastward slope is very gentle 3. Higaz Plateau: a vast peneplain extending di- I“ rectly east of the highland. It slopes slightly toward the ‘ northeast and east and extends inside the Arabian Peninsula to about 150-200 km west of Riyadh, Unayzah, and Hail From agricultural and hydrological points of View, the Arabian Shield may be classified into two regional sys- tems: 1. Mountain Zone: including the mountainous area and its foothills, an area over 1,400 m above sea level, with mild temperatures and precipitation over 200 mm. It is possible to divide this area into two subsections: the dry farming system on the terraced mountain slopes over 1,800 m in elevation with rainfall over 350 mm per annum, and the irrigated terraces in the tributaries and valley bottoms be- tween the mountains and foothills with elevations of 1,400— 1,800 m and rainfall of 200-350 mm per annum. Rain—fed crops, such as wheat and barley, occupy the terraced slopes, 71 :SE :l'IflO NVISHEd .omm— ,OEunO Ucn ._..,< .coueam wueaow hzwimw:__m 0:056:00 camera ._0 owczcoo Ucm coczcoo coca: .coEmooEoo new 0595 5:250:30th not? so 5:252:05 mEEmEoo . w0_Z wzo_._.<2m0n_ >mI $0352 JUBLUdJBOSB mg I v35 c133 72 while fruit trees and vegetables dominate the valley bot- toms (Figure 12). El-Khatib (1974), using 1971 estimates, indicates that the agricultural land in this zone accounts for 92,000 ha, of which only 15,000 ha is under irrigation. But, as mentioned previously, the dry farms were overesti- mated in the early 19705. According to the 1974 agricul- tural survey, the dry-farm area is assumed to be represented by the difference between the total irrigated area of 374,830 ha and the total area of temporary and permanent crops of 395,248 ha; this leaves only about 20,000 ha. The over- estimation of the dry farms in the mountain zone may be at— tributed to classifying irrigated areas as a complement to the rainfed and runoff-flooded agriculture in the valley bottom within the mountains and their foothills. 2. The irrigated agriculture in the desert and coastal major valley: more than 90 percent of the Arabian Shield lies in elevations between 900 and 1,400 m and re- ceives less than 200 mm of rainfall. This area extends from the eastern mountains and their foothills to the western edge of the sedimentary formations in the shape of a pla— teau, its drainage toward the east through major valleys in which agricultural activities concentrate, dependent on run- off and the resultant infiltrated groundwater of the rela- tively shallow alluvial deposits along the valley bed. The valley extends toward the east beyond the 100—200 mm rain belt, but the runoff from the rain belt has created a 73 Al Wajh Umm Lajj Yanbu AI Bahr g Rabigh '1 Jedda ‘9 7 (6 0 Al Qunfudhah ' w.0 . . Kharn's Musha t . ' MM 1' Y I ’ m $.\ Q‘s/3‘ w. abanmah I <6 this“)? {an d Wane" ' f/j. . '7 WE] - < / ' \ . 0 e / 230 \. , ' E P‘ Kilometers S A N A B ‘ Source: Atlas of SaUdl Arabia. Bundagji_1978 A R Fi9.12 74 hydrological system able to support many agricultural oases in this dry part of the Arabian Shield where fossil ground— water does not exist On the western scarp of the mountains, the major valleys emerge through the scarp and dip deeply to sea level through the narrow coastal plain of Tiharma between the highland west slope and the Red Sea. Intense runoff is gen- erated on the scarp, which faces the rainy southwestern mon- soon winds. It is clear that, in this portion of the coun- try, the runoff plays a vital role in the hydrological bal- ance, particularly as the only source of recharge to the groundwater in the relatively shallow alluvial deposit in the major valleys (Figure 11). The most important runoff— generating area within the Arabia Shield as a whole lies in the median 100—300 mm rain belt. Unlike the high part of the mountains, which receives more rain, these areas are wider and their soil contains less organic matter; consequently, its permeability is very low, which positively affect the runnoff accumulation after rainfall in these areas. Runoff Water: New Approaches, New Problems The negative ecological responses to increased groundwater utilization through expanding and intensifying agricultural activities in the Arabian Shelf (the sedimen— tary regions) have forced government planners to turn more attention to the more-rainy area of the country, the flu. 75 pre—Cambrian highland or Arabian Shield. An inventory of the country's water resources, both surface and groundwater, in the Arabian Shield and the Shelf had been started in the 19605. Also at that time, the Al-Hassa Project was under- taken to increase the utilization of fossil groundwater, while the Wadi Jizan Dam was constructed to increase the utiliza— tion of runoff. But more recently, efforts have been increased in the western highland valleys to impose more control on their present flow systems and, consequently, the traditional utiliza— i 1 tion of water. Experts and consultant firms have made several Ifi studiesandassessmentsandhavesuggestedthepmssibilityof achieving more success in overcoming the ecological constraints to agricultural expansion, particularly the scarcity of water. Two dams have been built in the Arabian Shield: Jizan Dam (1971), mainly for agricultural purposes, and Abha Dam, mainly for domestic supply. A third, the Turabah Dam, is under construction, and there are many valleys under inves— tigation for possible additional dams. Available information is not adequate for comparison of the situations before and after construction of the Jizan Dam——for example, to evalu- ate the benefits and costs, including the ecological cost in the long run——although all agricultural projects are pre— ceded by studies and recommendations from experts and con- sultant firms. The ecological logic gained through experience with the aridity of the region was applied in the evalua— tions and recommendations by one of the consulting firms 76 that recently studied the eastern slope of the South Ara- bian Shield (MacLaren International Limited [M. I. L.]); and there is a possibility that on the basis of those recommen- dations, some agricultural projects, mainly dam construction, will be implemented. The findings and recommendations of the consulting firm are summarized in these points: 1. The direct use of surface water, in the sense of using flood water, has been almost non-existent with a few exceptions 2. Preliminary evaluations indicate that catchment of 30-40 km2 can provide a yield of good-quality water of 0.7 mcm per annum in the 450 mm rainfallzone 3. Aquifers in the Mountain Region consist of major alluvium deposits that do not have sufficient storage capa- city to be attractive for extensive exploitation for agri— cultural purposes. They do contain good quality groundwater 4. Aquifers in the Desert Region are generally long, narrow, and shallow. They are relatively complex from a geological standpoint. There are multi-aquifer systems in some locations. The exception to this description is the acquifer system in Habawnah where two relatively isolated aquifers exist 5. The crystalline rocks of the pre-Cambrian base- ment complex underlying most of the area do not function as a major aquifer' 6. The groundwater resources of the Arabian 77 Shield-South will not support significant expansion of hori- zontal agriculture except in Wadi Habawnah 7. No immediate horizontal expansion of development is recommended; rather, a vertical expansion, or intensifi- cation, of agricultural activity is proposed in both the terrace system of the mountains and the agricultural oasis system of the desert region 8. To supply the extra water required by this in- tensification, surface-water impoundments are proposed in the form of big dams on the major valleys such as Wadi Bishah, with an annual flow of 450 mcm, and Wadi Ranyah, with 267 mom; and small dams or cisterns are proposed for the narrow and steep valleys of the mountain zone (M. I. L., 1978, Annex 10) Examination of the proposal for building dams to obtain more output from each input unit of available water, according to the ecological problems experienced in similar environments, the above findings, and some additional facts about the present situation, indicates that the ecological potential of available water resources not only is under full use, but is already over-exploited in many cases. Thus, the proposed dams will create ecological problems rather than producing any considerable benefits. These conclusions originated from these analytical views: 1. The mountain zone is not arunoff—generating ar- ea, especially in areas which receive more than 400 mm per 78 annum (elevation over 1,800 m), because the terrace system is efficiently utilizing the rainfall and the runoff. This essential fact was realized by the consulting firm, which suggested the building of small dams in the rain-fed agri— cultural area to supply required irrigation water to sup— plement the existing dry farms (M. I. L., 1978, Annex 10). In lower—elevation parts of the mountains and in their foot— hills (elevation 1,400-1,800 m, rainfall 300-400 mm), the terrace system is concentrated in the valley bottoms where the runoff is utilized directly by flooding agricultural land or indirectly by increasing the recharge of groundwater which is then used as a supplement to rain- or runoff—fed agriculture 2. Runoff water is generated mostly within two areas in the Arabian Shield. One is the marginal area be- tween the mountains and the desert. It receives a rainfall of 100-300 mm, and its elevation is between 900 and 1,400 m. The second and more—important one is the west mountain scarp. The runoff in both areas drains through major val- leys which extend beyond the runoff-generating area to the desert in the east and to the coastal area in the west. This surface and ground water may be overestimated by con- sultants and experts who disregard the ecological function of the flowing surface and ground water in their estimation of the input—output relationship of that water. They con— ceive the input water required for any agricultural area as 79 only that quantity sufficient to convey nutrition from the root zone to the plants and being lost by evapotranspira- tion. They believe that technology is able to develop an ecological adjustment at the root zone resulting in less consumed water compared to the flooding of water through the valley beds. So four major dams are suggested to be con- structed on the southern Red Sea Coast, in addition to nine other irrigation projects, mainly small dams, to be con- structed in smaller valleys (Sogreah, 1968, in El-Khatib). Other major dams were proposed by M. I. L. in 1978 to be built on the eastern slope of the Arabian Shield highland in places such as Wadi Bishah and Wadi Ranyah, and smaller dams were suggested in the smaller valleys in the mountain zone The construction of surface—water improvements will create two major ecological problems. The first is that the quantity of water lost by evaporation from water ac- cumulating in a reservoir is greater than if that quantity flows along any valley bed where the infiltration potential is greater than the evaporation, especially since silt ac— cumulation decreases the permeability of the reservoir bed. In the eastern slope of the Arabian Shield, the alluvial deposit is relatively shallow and underlain by an imperme— able complex; therefore, there will be little or no infil- tration of the collecting water in the reservoir. The second problem originates from the fact that 80 surface water storage will end the natural process of fer- tility and salinity adjustment by flooding water. Modern technology has failed to control the fertility and salinity of the root zone in arid and semi-arid areas by irrigation and drainage systems because the ecological characteristics of the root zone cannot be isolated from the ecological con— text of the sub-root zone. Although technological failure in this respect has been experienced in all arid and semi- arid zones, many specialists disregard, underestimate, or fl». L4- misunderstand the ecological complexity of fertility and salinity of agricultural land, especially in arid systems. Contrary to the assumptions of M. I. L. and other consulting firms, runoff water is already fully utilized directly by flooding valley beds as well as the cultivated land; and through this flow, ecological adjustment has been made not just for the root zone, but for the whole sub—root zone and marginal soil and groundwater. The total culti- vated area in the Arabian Shield is about 210,838 ha (Ag- riculture Census, 1974), of which 191,169 ha is dependent on irrigation. The consultant firms Sogreah, Italconsult, and M. I. L. estimated water consumption in the area to be a- bout 650 mcm/year, including both runoff and groundwater. But this figure is an underestimation because of about 140,000 ha in the valleysijlthe coastal strip and desert re- gion, where the annual rainfall is less than 100 mm. Any agricultural area needs as much water for irrigation as the 81 quantity needed by the same area in the 100 mm or less belt, including the eastern region. M. I. L. estimated the pres- ent consumption of the irrigated 8,000 ha in sub-Wadi Bishah to be about 90 mom/year; that is, the 140,000 ha require about 1,600 mom/year if modern irrigation and drainage sys- tems are not applied to this agricultural area. With res— ervoir construction, the water required for irrigation and drainage is about 2,100 mom, while the total runoff water in the Arabian Shield which is subject to the proposed storage facilities is estimated to be about 2,000 mom/year (Sogreah; Italconsult in El-Khatib; and M. I. L.) and a considerable quantity of it will be lost by evaporation. If a reservoir is constructed, the groundwater will not be an additional source as assumed, because it is a link in the hydrological chain, and if the storing process of the runoff water is in— terrupted, the quantity and quality of groundwater will be deeply affected. Loss of the ecological function of flowing water will affect the recharging of groundwater and adjust— ment of ferility and salinity of soil and groundwater to a greater extent than is intended. It is clear from the foregoing discussion that the available water resources not only are under full use but, in some cases, are overexploited. Water consumption for irrigation of about 375,000 ha of agricultural land and non- agricultural uses is an estimated 6 to 9 billion In3 yearly. This figure is far higher than the government estimation of 82 3.7 billion In3 per year (Second Development Plan, 1975- 1980). CHAPTER IV HUMAN PRESSURE ON AGRICULTURE In many arid countries, including Saudi Arabia, e- conomic and development planners and specialists usually consider the population density to be very low or the coun- try to be underpopulated because its population density is one, five, ten, or even fifty persons per square km compared to high-density areas of several hundred to a thousand or more per square km. This would be correct if the human be- ing were not a part of the biological system and dependent on its products. Because of the organic relationship, how- ever, the number of people should be linked with the area's biological capacity to produce food and drink, rather than merely described as a number of people per unit of space without consideration of the biological system's capacities. In this respect the hydrologic cycle is the main factor that determines capacity to support the human population and, consequently, a square km of hot and arid desert with a pop- ulation density of one person may be considered biologically more populated than a square km with more water and a popu- lation density of a thousand or more. The following discus- sion will explain some aspects of human pressure on the 83 84 biological system from the agricultural perspective, such as the major demographic characteristics of the population, the food situation, and the agricultural socioeconomic sys- tem under the present, rapid economic changes. Demographic Aspects and Population Trends It is impossible to evaluate the capability and ef- ficiency of the biosphere in a specific area to support a human population at present and in the future without know- ing the demographic trends of that population. Demographic information for the population of Saudi Arabia is character- ized by conflicts and lack of confirmation. The first of- ficial Saudi estimation put the population at about 6 mil- lion for January 1, 1956, and on the basis of this figure, the United Nations population division developed its projec— tions during the 19605 and early 19705. It estimated the population to be aboue 6.7 million in 1965, 7.7 million in 1970, and 9.9 million for 1975 (Europe Pub. Lt. 1978—1979, pp. 618-619). The government has held two censuses. The first was held in 1962-1963, but its results were not released and were repudiated. The second census was held in 1974 and the figure of 7,012,642 was announced, but many writers be- lieve that the population is less than this figure and quote 4-5 million as a more-realisitic figure for that time (Eu- rope Pub. Lt. 1978-1979, pp. 618—619; Birks and Sinclair, 85 1979, p. 303; and Knauerhase, 1975, pp. 12—14). The con- fusion about the real native population is compounded by these facts: that about 40-50 percent of the population is concentrated in the urban areas; that about one-fifth of the people currently in Saudi Arabia are workers from out- side the country and most of these are concentrated in the urban centers; that more than half the entire Saudi Arabian labor force is comprised of foreign workers; that the number of people in the urban centers is 2—3 million; and thus, that at least one-third of the urban people are foreign workers and the remaining 2 million are citizens. If these 2 mil- lion comprise 40 percent of the native population, the total native population will be about 5 million. If the official figures for urban residents did not include the foreign workers, the native-population figure of the 1974 census (about 7 million) would be realistic, but as it stands, this assumption is unlikely to be correct. In any case, in the following analysis, the major demographic aspects of the population will be discussed according to the 1974 census. Until the end of World War II, population growth was adjusted generally to local food-production capability. Since then, the growth rate has started to increase as a re- sult of the decreasing rate of death. There are no records for these demographic changes during the 19505 and early 19605 except the United Nations estimations, which differed from time to time and from reference to reference. An 86 approximation from these sources indicates that the increase during the period 1952-1964 was 1.7 percent per year, and the rate continues to rise even with a slight decline in the birth rate because the decline in the death rate is greater. By 1979 the growth rate was estimated to reach 3.1 percent (Table 6). Therefore, Food and Agricultural Organization (UN) estimations for the population during the 19505 and 19605 are more consistent with the results of the 1974 cen- sus. It was estimated that the population was about 3.2 million in 1950 and 4.1 million in 1960; and almost double the 1950 number by 1970-1971, as external immigration short- ened the time required for the population to double natural- ly. The latest estimation, in 1979, indicates that the population reached 8.1 million and the growth rate is at its highest level, 3.1 percent, which will enable the popu- lation to double within 23 years or less if the growth rate continues to increase (Figure 13). Saudi Arabia's Food Situation §audi Arabia's Belt System inFood Deficit Most physical and human features are not compatible or consistent with the political boundaries and often extend within more than one political body in the shape of belts. These belts include many common features and impose many responsibilities upon the political bodies within these belts. 87 2o« 15~ m C 0 d) I- 0 n. 10- c .2 2 54 O r l I T ' 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2002 Source FA 0 UN Production Yearbook Diilerentlssues and world population estimate sheet. the Envnromental Fund. 1979 Washington DC :gif: Fig.13 The population growth in Saudi Arabia since 1950 and the projected growth until the end of the century. 88 TABLE 6 MAJOR DEMOGRAPHIC ASPECTS OF THE POPULATION OF SAUDI ARABIA Time Period Rate of Increase Crude Birth Crude Death (Percent) Rate Rate 1958-1964 1.7 n.a. n.a. 1965-1970 2.7 50 22.7 1970-1975 2.9 49.5 20.2 1979 3.1 49 19 Source: FAO. U. N. Production Yearbook, different issues and World Population Estimates Sheet, the environmental Fund, 1979, Wash- ington, D. C. There are arid and other climatic belts; mountain- ous, plain and vegetation belts; developed and underdevel— 0ped belts; deficit and surplus food belts; religious, and cultural and other social phenomenon belts, which extend a- cross different political organizations and communities. So it is necessary to evaluate problems and prOpose solu- tions related to any physical or human feature or problem in specific areas with consideration for their belt con- texts, and not just political boundaries. Saudi Arabia is a part of one of the four major food-deficit belts of the developing countries: the Near East Belt, which includes North Africa and the Middle East. This food-deficit belt 89 is characterized by these important and dynamic facts: 1. Although its population is numerically less than that of the other three major food-deficit belts (Asia, sub- Sahara Africa and Latin America), it is second in quantity of food imported (after the Asian Belt) (Table 7) 2. The population growth rate in the Near East re- gion is one of the highest in the world and expected to re- main high for at least the next two decades, until the pop- ulation explosion reaches its peak TABLE 7 FOOD-DEFICIT BELTS Index of Imported Imported Belt EMiIIiddg? Agricultural Products Cereal in 1978 1969—71=100 (MMT) Africa 348 194 11.3 Latin America 347 186 18.5 Near East 201 253 16.5 Far East 1,183 147 17.4 Developing Countries 3,038 183 78.7 Source: FAO, Trade Yearbook, 1978 and U. N. Statistical Yearbook, 1978. 9O 3. Agriculture in this belt is concentrated in the marginal area between the Afro-Asian desert mass and the surrounding semi-humid and humid belts, and has faced many ecological problems such as salinity, water logging, drought and desert encroachment Food Situation Characteristics The biosphere of the Arabian peninsula has supported the Arabian people for thousands of years. During this long period, there have been adjustments between the number of people, demand for food, production techniques, and the ar- ea's biological capacity. Since the end of World War II, modern technology has entered the Arabian peninsula, along with the process of searching for and exploiting petroleum resources. The application of modern technology has changed the human role in the very sensitive biosphere of the arid system. Many drastic changes have occurred, creating new imbalances and features which in turn affect food—production trends. Distinguishing characteristics to be discussed Zbriefly include: 1. The considerable nomadic sector of the popula— tion, which had depended on the light but widely spread pas- ture (about 1,200,000 km2), has abandoned this traditional and important source of food. As a result of their migra- tion to the urban centers in large numbers and to agricul- tural settlements in smaller numbers, the nomads, who 91 accounted for about half of the country's population in the 19405, have declined drastically, to not more than 8 percent (Second Development Plan, 1975). The nomads' migration to the cities has not just led to the loss of traditional sources of food, but has added a new demand on the limited agricultural food resources, and consequently has worked to effectively enlarge the food deficit in the country. Furthermore, in terms of economic attractiveness, the urban centers, where most oil revenue is absorbed, have competed with subsistence agriculture. A large sector of the rural population has moved to the cities; consequently, the population distribution has changed from less than 10 percent urban to about 50 percent. 2. The lifestyle of many people has changed as a result of the increase in income, which is reflected in the quantity, quality, and even kinds of foods eaten by individ- uals. 3. The population growth rate has increased during the last three decades; it is currently one of the highest rates in the world. The population is expected to double naturally every 23 years. Further, the intensive economic changes planned to absorb the high oil revenues have brought in a foreign labor force of 1.5 to 2 million workers. All these rapid changes in the population situation have dis- rupted the traditional balance between the biosphere and its human burden. 92 Food-Situation Trends The economic changes now taking place have created an imbalanced ecological relationship between traditional, limited food resources and rapidly growing demand. The def- icit in local food supply has been met by importation. Local Food Production The lack of accurate statistical information on food production before and during the last three decades, which have witnessed the deep conversion of the economic structure of Saudi Arabia, is a major obstacle to presenting the real picture of the situation. Even the statistics available for the last fifteen years in the statistical yearbooks of Saudi Arabia and the United Nations are mostly estimations; and there is contradiction among these figures. For example, in the statistical yearbooks of Saudi Arabia, the total esti— mated area of all crops in the country in 1973-1974 was 600,859 ha, of which about 76 percent were in the Arabian Shield. But the agricultural census of 1974 indicated that the total actual cultivated land (the sum area of temporary and perennial crops) in that year was 395,248 ha, of which only 53 percent was in the Arabian Shield. In any case, some important facts about food production help to draw a clearer picture of the situation. First, local agricultural production supplies only about 30 percent of the country‘s needs and only about 15 percent of the cereals. The rapidly 93 growing deficit between food production and demand has been covered by importation. Second, although the production indices showan increase of 13 percent from the average in 1969—1971 to that in 1978, this slight increase is far behind the growing demand. Production has fluctuated from year to year due to the exploitation of the groundwater in the Ara- Vbian Shield where 75.7 percent of the country's cultivated land is concentrated and mostly irrigated from infiltrated rainwater. So the yearly fluctuatioh in rainfall is reflec- ted directly in each year's production, unlike traditional agriculture, which had adjusted according to the average hy- drological capacity over longer time periods. The third important fact is that the rapid growth of urbanization has led to alteration of the traditional crop patterns. Vegetable and fruit production has increased at the expense of previously dominant crops such as dates and cereals. The average cereal production during 1969-1971 was about 456,000 MT; in 1978, cereal production declined to a- bout 300,000 MT. Date production has dropped from about 363,911 MT in 1973 to 256,903 MT in 1976. Meanwhile, vege- table production has increased from an average 304,000 MT in 1969-1971 to 515,000 MT in 1978. Fruit production has in- creased from an average of 280,000 MT in 1969-1971 to about 377,000 MT in 1978. (Table 8). Obviously, the fast-growing urban market is responsible for this change because it cre- ates tremendous demand for fresh vegetables and fruits. 94 TABLE 8 LOCAL AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION (1,000 MT) Products 1969-1971 1976 1977 1978 Cereals 456 282 265 274 Vegetables and Melons, Total 304 504 502 515 Fruits (excluding Melons) 280 331 340 377 Source: FAO. U. N. Production Yearbook, 1978. TABLE 9 NUMBER OF LOCAL ANIMAL (1000 HEAD) 1969-71 1976 1977 1978 Cattle 201 321 330 340 Sheep 1,950 2,243 2,300 2,400 Goats 735 1,577 1,600 1,700 Source: FAO. U. N. Production Yearbook, 1978. 95 Additionally, the government subsidizes food, especially cereals. Vegetables and fruits are excluded. This has kept the price of local cereals relatively low compared to local vegetable and fruit prices, making fruits and vegetables more profitable for farmers, but increasing the country's depen— dence on imported cereals. The worldwide increase in food shortages in 1973— 1974 prompted the government to offer a subsidy of S. R. 25 for each kilogram of cereal produced regardless of whether the farmer used or sold it. In 1980, the government offered to buy local wheat at a price of S. R. 3.5 (more than a dol- lar) for each kilogram; that is, about 150 percent of the retail price of imported cereal. But there is doubt that this will be sufficient to cause farmers to increase cereal production instead of continuing to expand production of high—priced vegetables and fruits. Although the number of nomads has declined, statis- tics show an increase in the country's livestock. (Table 9) But it was observed that the high price of indigenous ani- mals has encouraged many nomads to raise sheep and goats in permanent settlements. They depend on the imported feeds included in the food-stuff subsidies; most of the subsidized imported maize and barley is used as livestock feed. On the other hand, the government offers direct annual subsidies for each animal raised, so the traditional way of utilizing the pasture resources, by herding, has been replaced by a 96 new system of livestock farms dependent on imported feeds and direct financial support. There are no accurate fig- ures on the production of meat from slaughtered indigenous animals, but it is believed that most of the country's live- stock and animal products are supplied by importation. Food-Deficit Trends The gap between local food supply and demand has widened drastically, especially in cereals, where local production has declined in recent years. The quantity and growth rate of imported food are good indicators of that gap. (Table 10) Cereal importation has increased from 584,740 MT in 1970 to 1,118,250 MT in 1978. Local produc- tion now contributes only about 20 percent of the 1,456,250 MT of cereal consumed. Although vegetable and fruit pro— duction has increased at the expense of cereal, the value of imported vegetables and fruit has increased from $40 million in 1972 to about $277 million in 1977. Keeping inflation in mind, if the price increased two- or three-fold, the quanti- ty imported doubled two or three times within five years. This drastic increase in the gap between the ecolo- gical agricultural potential and the people's rising food demands is one side of the picture. The other side is rep- resented by rising importation of animal—protein products in the form of live animals or fresh chilled and frozen meats or other animal products. This is in spite of the fact that 97 TABLE 10 IMPORTED AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS (QUANTITIES OR VALUES) Products 70—72 Cereals (MT) 582,423 923,200 914,810 1,182,250 Cattle (Head) 55,232 59,704 63,429 70,000 Sheep and Goats 1,222,014 1,295,819 1,855,209 2,400,000 (Head) Meat (MT) 9,452 78,858 123,034 143,720 Agricultural Products Total Value ($0000) 24,701 99,526 155,242 192,434 Source: FAO, UN Trade Yearbook, 1974, 1978. the country was self-sufficient in this respect three decades ago, when animal products and dates were the bulk of the population's food resources. As Table 10 shows, imported sheep and goats have increased from an average of 1,222,014 head in 1970-1972 to about 2,400,000 head in 1978, about a loo-percent increase in eight years. The number of imported cattle has increased from an average of 55,232 head in 1970- 1972 to 70,000 head in 1978. Even the amount of imported meat-—fresh, chilled, and frozen, which was unpopular——has risen from only an average of 9,452 MT in 1970—1972 to 143,720 MT in 1978. The value of imported products rose from an average of $247 million in 1970-1972 to almost $2 billion in l978--a 700% increase. The above figures demonstrate that the new economic structure has profoundly changed the people's economic role 98 within their ecological system from the standpoint of their production and consumption of food. The society has con- verted from agricultural self-sufficiency to a consuming society dependent on imports to supply most of its food needs as well as other needs. If the food situation and physical environment are considered together with the inten- sive economic changes from development, on which $140 bil- lion will be spent during the five-year plan for 1975-1980, it is surprising that nearly 60 percent of the population of 8.1 million in 1979 still resists the severe socioeconomic and ecological changes and lives in the rural areas, depen— ding one way or another on agricultural activities. Agricultural Population, Economic Change and Internal Immigration Among many human and physical environmental factors, two are visible reflections of economic developments in ag- riculture as a sector in the economic structure. The first is the declining percentage agriculture contributes to the total national income because of the transition in human ac- tivity from agriculture to non-agricultural economic activi- ties such as industry or because of the exploitation of val- uable natural resources such as petroleum and minerals. The second reflection is the reduction of the share of the popu- lation engaged in agriculture. Agriculture has changed from the economy's backbone to a contribution of 1 percent in 1975 (Wilson, 1977, p. 179). This is an indication of the 99 speed of conversion of the society from food production within its biospheric capacity to food consumption beyond that capacity. Surprisingly, the portion of the population engaged in agriculture is still very high, considering the magnitude of the oil revenue which has been the means of physical and social change, positive or negative. According to a UN estimation, the rural population has declined from about 72 percent of the total in 1960 to about 61 percent in 1978 (Table 11). TABLE 11 TOTAL POPULATION, AGRICULTURAL POPULATION AND ECONOMICALLY ACTIVE POPULATION Population Economically Active Population Year Total Agricultural Total in Agriculture % in Agric. 1960 4,100 n.a. n.a. n.a. 71.51 1970 6,199 4,094 1,699 1,122 66.0 1975 7,180 4,534 1,909 1,205 63.1 1976 7,398 4,627 1,954 1,222 62.5 1977 7,624 4,723 2,001 1,240 62.0 1978 7,860 4,822 2,051 1,258 61.4 NOTE: All figures in thousands. SOURCE: FAO, Production Yearbook, different issues, U. N. Demographic Yearbook. estimated. 100 But the decline in the percentage of the population engaged in agriculture does not mean that the number of ag- ricultural people has decreased. In fact, the opposite has happened: 72 percent of the 1960 population is less than 61 percent of the 1978 population. This implies that the natural increase of the rural population during the past three decades has exceeded the rural-to-urban immigration. A similar development occurred in Europe in the nineteenth century and has taken place in some of the developing coun- tries since the Second World War (Grigg, 1974, p. 414), al- though their biosphere systems and agricultural populations were much greater than those of Saudi Arabia and their econ- omic changes were slower and less extensive. The situation is different in Saudi Arabia from the point of View of its population of about 8 million. Its biosphere is predominantly arid. Its vast economic changes cost $142 billion during the just—ended five-year plan and will cost about $300 billion during the new five-year plan (Madinah, 1980, p. 9; and Second Development Plan, 1975, p. 529). These intensive economic changes not only absorbed the local urban labor force, but also created a labor-force deficit that has been filled by more than 1.5 million impor- ted workers-—about 25 percent of the population, according to some estimations (Birks and Sinclair, 1979, p. 305). In spite of these unique characteristics of economic change or "development," the agricultural population still 101 accounts for about 61 percent of the country's total popu- lation, while in most developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, immigrants from rural areas have flooded the cities beyond the labor market's needs. This exceptional feature may be attributed to a complex of social and econom- ic responses to "development" in the urban areas and other social and economic aspects of the rural area. The vast, hurried economic change has combined with rapid growth of urbanization to produce a lack of adequate basic facilities: domestic inflation; real-estate specula- tion; and very high housing prices and rents. In addition, economic circumstances are more favorable for unskilled for- eign workers: temporary housing for groups of foreign workers is less expensive than permanent homes for native families, and the savings accrued by foreign workers are more valuable because of the lower living costs in the coun- tries from which the workers come, such as Egypt, Yemen, Pakistan, and South Korea. The local rural workers cannot compete with the foreign workers and immigrate to establish permanent homes, even if their incomes are very low compared to the wages in the cities. ”/.Furthermore, the relationship between farmers 1J1 Saudi Arabia and the farms is not controlled by purely econ- omic values and considerations. People look to the newly emerging non-agricultural activities and collection of ma- terial possessions as secondary goals that lose their value 102 when the basic food needs are exposed to serious danger. Their long history of dependence on their limited agricul- tural land has created emotional ties and ethical obliga- tions that make farm ownership and conservation a social value and a key to future security.¢9;d Finally, farmers near cities have found that it is very profitable to invest their limited water resources in planting fresh vegetables and fruits even if their land holdings are small. This change to cash-crop production is at the expense of cereal production. For all these reasons, farmers move to urban centers only when the farm cannot provide the minimum subsistence living for a rapidly growing peasant family. But an emer— ging factor which may encourage migration to the cities is the rapid expansion of schools in the rural areas. It is rare to find a person who has completed school beyond the elementary level and stayed on the farm except one who gets a job in his village. This phenomenon raises the farmers' concern about their farms' future. Farm Size, Subdivision, and Fragmentation According to the 1974 agricultural survey, the coun- try's farmlands are divided into about 180,670 land holdings. The actual cropland of 395,248 ha comprises only about one- third of the total agricultural land holding area of 1.2 million hectares. So the average holding of actual 103 productive land in 1974 was about 2 ha. (Table 13) Under Islamic law, Sharia inheritance is divided among all heirs. Sons receive an equal number of shares because they are responsible for the expenses of their fam- ilies, and daughters receive half-shares because wives, in general, do not have any financial responsibilities for their families. This inheritance system, including water rights which can be sold, rented, and inherited independently of land, has caused the subdivision of agricultural land into small holdings. As Table 12 shows, about one—third of the land holdings, 69,235, are less than one hectare each and only 40,252 holdings, or about one-fifth of the total, are 5 hectares or more. Farms of 10 ha or larger are 22,530, about 12 percent. Farm subdivision is a well-known phenomenon in the developing regions and not just a characteristic of the Islamic inheritance system. It is an indication of the population pressure on the agricultural land. For example, in a Serbian village, in 19th-century Europe, farms of 5 acres of less comprised only 23 percent of the total in 1859; by 1924, the percentage had increased under population pres- sure to 70 percent (Grigg, 1974, p. 155). Economic development in Saudi Arabia has no serious impact on the average farm size because most of those who immigrate to the cities usually do not sell their farms; they leave them to their closest relatives. Also, there is 104 TABLE 12 SIZE OF FARM HOLDINGS — Area Number of Percentage of Accumulated Categories Holdings Holdings Percentage less than 1 ha 69,235 38.3 38.3 2 1 - < 5 ha 71,173 39.4 77.7 2 5 - < 10 be 17,722 9.8 87.5 2 10 ha 22,530 12.5 100 SOURCE: Ministry of Agriculture, statistical section, Comprehensive Agricultural Census, 1973-74, part 5. TABLE 13 LAND HOLDINGS BY REGION Number Area of Area of Number Average Average Region of Land Land Cultivated of Plots per Farm Holdings Holding Land Plots Holding Size, Ha Entire Country 189,670 1,213,462 395,248 491,665 3 2.2 Arabian Shelf (Sedimentary Section) 36,674 596,740 184,410 51,999 1.4 5 Arabian Shield 143,996 616,722 210,838 439,666 3 1.5 Riyadh and Qassim 16,835 535,715 159,482 20,091 1.2 8.9 Assir 36,564 534,801 39,705 5 1.1 SOURCE: M. A., statistical section, Comprehensive Agricultural Census, 1973-74, part 5, Riyadh. 105 no tax on agricultural land, whereas in other countries, the taxation system plays a major role in pressuring land owners to sell their lands when their incomes become insufficient to support their financial responsibilities of subsistence and taxation. Farm fragmentation is a visible phenomenon in the ag- ricultural land of Saudi Arabia, where a farm consists not of one consolidated block of land, but a number of scattered fields, separated from each otherknrwastelandscnrby plots of neighboring farmers. Subdivision has played an important role in physical fragmentation, especially in the eastern sedimentary regions, and in the western highlands, where it has affected the physical environment of the region, which is characterized by a combination of mountains and hills, and water resources which depend on rainfall directly or via runoff. So the cultivated land has developed in the shape of terraces of small plots on the slopes of higher parts of the mountains, over 1,800 m elevation, that receive more than 300 mm of rainfall, and in the valley bottoms, as men— tioned in the previous chapter. The physical environment ' requires people to build terraced plots to catch both rune ning water and soils, and to dig numerous wells to exploit groundwater in shallow alluvial deposits. There is a well, on average, for every two hectares, so wells themselves, and water rights, have contributed to the fragmentation of individual farms. Each land owner, on the average, has 106 three separate plots, according to a 1974 survey (Table 13). The fragmentation increases, in general, from the east to- ward the west, and reached its peak in the Assir region, where the average is five plots. The 1974 survey did not include the number of wells, but the 1978 survey of the As- sir region revealed that there are 18,500 wells on about 40,000 ha of cultivated land, an average of one well for each 2 hectares (M. I. L. Main Report, 1978, pp. 5-14). Subsistence Agriculture and the New Economic Competition The agricultural system in Saudi Arabia, in relation to the economy (or market), might be classified in two major groups: 1. Subsistence-oriented agriculture, where most of the farms' products are devoted to the producers' consumption and the cash required to market the goods and services u— sually is obtained by one or more of these means: selling surplus farm products, adopting supplementary crOps, and working outside the farm for wages when the farm size or physical condition does not allow for surplus or for cash crops. Working outside the farm is more common 2. Cash-oriented agriculture with supplementary sub— Sistence——In this kind of farming production is adapted mainly to meeting market needs, but some food and other necessities may be home-produced. This kind of farming is 107 more common near the urban centers, since transportation costs and time are less According to the 1974 agricultural survey, of the 180,670 land holdings, 128,670 (or about 71 percent) are subsistence farms cultivated mainly to meet the direct needs of the farmers' households (Table 14). .Most of the subsistence agriculture is concentrated in the western re- gions such as Assir, Albaha, Jizan and some remote parts of the Mecca region. Within this type of agriculture, the dom- inant products are grain (maize, barley, or wheat) and dates. TABLE 14 CASH-ORIENTED VERSUS SUBSISTENCE HOLDINGS Type of No. of Percent- Perennial Total Area Percent- Holding Holdings age Crop Area, Ha of Holdings age Cash-oriented 52,063 29 62,992 79% 657,887 54 Subsistence 128,607 71 17,002 21% 555,575 46 Total 180,670 100 79,994 100% 1,213,462 100 —_ SOURCE: M. A. statistical section, Comprehensive Agricultural Census, 1973-74, part 5, Riyadh. Despite the massive economic changes, Saudi Arabia subsistence agriculture is not exceptional for the human and physical environment of a country characterized by great population pressure on the biological system, food shortage 108 with rapid population growth, and a harsh, arid ecology. But in spite of these circumstances, the government's sub- sidy of imported grains to keep the local prices low, and the demand for fresh vegetables and fruits in the cities, have induced farmers near the urban centers to invest their limi- ted water resources in growing cash crops of vegetables and fruits; the result will be more dependence on imported cer- eals. The agricultural census of 1974 did not identify the amount of area devoted to cash-oriented products. In spite of this, Table 14 shows that less than one—third the number of holdings had been converted to meet market demand. These holdings comprise more than half of the total area of the holdings, of which only one-fourth was actually cultivated in 1974. Cereal production through the subsistence agricultur- al system occurs in two circumstances: 1. When the distance of farms from the major urban centers, because of transportation costs or time, does not enable the farmers to change to cash crops. This is the case in the Assir region, the south Red Sea Coast valley, and many other isolated areas. For example, in the Assir region, where the topography is rugged and mountainous, the urban centers are still small and the major cities are far from the region. Cereal production predominates, as sub- sistence agriculture. But the new economic competition and pressure on cereal production and on subsistence 109 agriculture as a whole result from urban growth and the ex- pansion of transportation networks 2. When the environmental constraints prevent the adoption of cash crops even with the existence of economic pressure or market attractiveness. Thus, grains are the only possible alternative on dry farms, and in the terraces on the mountain peaks, even in those near the cities, be— cause of the lack of groundwater to irrigate cash crops There are no available statistics measuring the eco- nomic competition of vegetables and fruits against subsis- tence agriculture, or against cereal and date production in the country as a whole. But in 1977-1978 the M. I. L. con- sulting firm conducted a comprehensive agricultural survey in the south Arabian Shield, from which Table 15 was excerp- ted to give an idea of the new economic pressure even in the areas distant from urbanization, such as Wadi Bishah. (See Figure 12) Considering total cash cost, in spite of the fact that the cash cost of wheat is the least compared to other crops, return is very low. If a farmer sells his crop in the market, the hectare income (or return) is only S. R. 83 or about $25 even with the government's subsidy; with the government's new offer to buy each kilogram of wheat for S. R. 3.5 (a little more than one dollar), the net return will rise to S. R. 2,564 (about $700), which is still only about 40 percent of the return of the least profitable non-cereal 110 TABLE 15 ESTIMATED YIELD, TOTAL REVENUE AND NET RETURNS FOR ONE HECTARE OF CROP FOR THE AVERAGE FARM UNIT IN BISHAH (1977-1978) Net Returns . Unit . Total Total Crop Ytilg Price Sugggdy Revenue Cash Costs CaEHeCosts 3 (SR) (SR) (SR) (SR) Dates 6,765 .82 1,691 20,768 7,851 12,917 Oranges 22,000 .25 49,500 8,552 40,948 Alfalfa 80,000 .66 52,800 5,374 47,426 S. Tomatoes 15,000 .41 36,150 13,252 22,898 W. Tomatoes 25,000 .65 41,250 19,377 21,873 Okra 4,000 .78 23,120 10,482 12,638 Eggplant 15,000 .15 32,250 10,679 21,571 Water— melon 5,000 .78 11,700 4,662 7,038 Squash. 6,000 .06 18,360 8,677 9,683 Onions 18,000 .55 27,900 11,572 16,328 Cabbage 20,000 .58 31,600 9,332 22,268 Wheat 1,800 .82 540 3,816 3,733 83 SOURCE: Maclaren International Limited, "Water and Agricultural Dev. Studies, Arabian Shield-South; Agricultural Economics" Annex 2, Riyadh, Dec., 1978. 111 crop. From the total cost point of view (including labor hours), the labor required for each kilogram of cereals and wheat yielded is very high because the wheat yield in each hectare is far less than the quantity of any non-cereal crOp produced in one hectare. Traditional and Modern Agriculture: Efficiency and Acceptability Saudi Arabia is not an exception to the efforts of developing countries to replace traditional agriculture with modern agriculture (regardless of environmental acceptabil- ity). Subsidies have been offered directly to farmers to encourage them to apply fertilizers and machinery in their farming; the government pays 45 percent of the cost of ma- chinery and 50 percent of the cost of chemical fertilizers. Table 16 shows the amount of agricultural machinery and fer- tilizers, and the number of land holders who were using them. Important conclusions from an environmental perspec- tive may be reached even in the absence of information about the positive and negative effects of the adoption of new technology. Agricultural machinery was applied in two pro- cesses: the first was in pumping water from wells by ir- rigation machines (pumps), which comprise 96 percent of the 64,634 agricultural machines used. The other was ploughing cultivated land with tractors instead of animal-powered 112 TABLE 16 NUMBER OF HOLDINGS USING MODERN AGRICULTURAL METHODS Chemical Fertilizer Mechanical Power Type of Crop Total Holdings Holdings % Holdings % Cash-oriented 52,063 12,056 23 40,109 77 Subsistence 128,607 1,787 1 46,211 36 Total in Country 180,670 13,843 8 86,320 48 SOURCE: M. A. statistical section, Comprehensive Agricultural Census, 1973-74, part 5. ploughs, done by about 64,000 landholders, or 36 percent of the total, with about 850 tractors; about 62,158 land owners, or 97 percent of those who used tractors, used rented trac- tors. (1974 Agricultural Census) Mechanical power, mostly for irrigation and ploughing purposes, was used in cash-ori- ented farming more than on the subsistence farms. Mechanical power was used on about 77 percent of the 52,063 cash-orien- ted farms, while it was used on 36 percent of the 128,607 subsistence farms. (Table 16) Only about 1 percent of the subsistence farms used chemical fertilizer, while 23 percent of the cash-oriented farms did 50. Although these figures are old and were com- piled only a year after the subsidy act was issued, recent United Nations statistics indicate that the adoption of 113 agricultural machinery is still very limited and has not in- creased considerably (Table 17). So there has been no posi- tive effect of the subsidy act on agricultural mechaniza— m tion, and this is attributed to limited acceptability and strong resistance by both physical and human factors in the arid system: the small, fragmented farms, and the high num- ber of agricultural workers per square kilometer (49), third in the Middle East after Egypt and Sudan. (Edens, 1979, p. 12) TABLE 17 USE OF AGRICULTURAL MACHINES Type of Equipment 1969—1971 1975 1977 Agricultural Tractors 617 800 850 Harvester-Threshers 160 280 320 Irrigation Machines (pumps) . . . 62,319* ¥ *1974 figures SOURCES: FAO, Production Yearbook, 1978 and M. A. Comprehensive Agricultural Census, 1973-74, part 5. In spite of the rapid economic change in Saudi Ara— bia which led to a decline (to less than 1 percent) in the percentage of the agricultural contribution to the total national income——as a result of the greatly increased oil 114 revenues-—the agricultural system has remained different from that of developed countries, which are characterized by rapid declines in the percentage of the agricultural pop- ulation and increases in the average farm size combined with decrease in number of farms. Urbanization Pressure on Agriculture About 40 to 50 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia is concentrated in the urban centers. Seven cities have populations of 100,000 inhabitants or more, according to the 1974 census (Table 18). It was estimated that the combined average growth rate for the largest three cities during 1960—1970 was 4.7 percent, compared to the average growth rate of the world's dry-land cities of 3.93 percent (Potters, 1978, pp. 349-379). It is expected that drastic increases will be found to have occurred in growth of urbanization, considering both population and physical construction, especially the period of the last five-year development plan (1975—1980). The growth rate might rise higher during the new five-year de- velopment plan (1980-1985), with its expenditure twice that of the last plan-—that is, about $300 billion. The intensive process of development which began to increase the human and physical environmental acceptibility and capacity has created complex problems for agriculture in general, and for the food balance specifically, from these 115 TABLE 18 POPULATION OF MAJOR URBAN CENTERS, 1974 City Number of Residents Riyadh 666,840 Jeddah 561,104 Mecca 366,801 Taif 204,857 Medina 198,186 Dammam 127,844 Hufhuf 101,271 SOURCE: Potter, P. and Potter, V. "Urban Development in the World Dryland Regions, Inventory and Prospects," Geotorum, vol. 9, pp. 379, 1978. perspectives: 1. The intensive economic changes, including expan- sion of labor demand beyond the population's labor force, have led to a large deficit of locally available labor, and the gap has been filled by labor importation. The estimated incoming labor force of 1.5 million, twice the local non-ag- ricultural labor force, has increased the human burden on the biosphere system, and consequently, has helped to enlarge the food deficit 2. The rapid growth of the cities has combined with rising demand for water supply. Table 19 shows preliminary 116 TABLE 19 NON-AGRICULTURAL WATER DEMAND (MILLIONS OF CUBIC METERS) Type of Demand 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 Domestic (City Population Greater Than 5,000) Oil Injection Mining Industry Total 150 166 182 148 214 230 250 300 390 480 570 660 750 850 30 50 7O 90 110 130 150 42 48 48 480 606 732 858 1,026 1,158 1,298 SOURCE: Ministry of Agriculture and Water, Development Plan 1975- 1980, part 11——the water section, Riyadh. estimates that indicate that the non-agricultural water de- mand will increase from about 480 mom in 1974 to about 1,298 mom in 1980, an increase of 170 percent within six years. Most cities compete with agriculture for water resources, and many agricultural areas in the major valleys which had been blooming for thousands of years have changed into aban- doned areas because the water resources of these valleys were diverted to supply the cities. Although huge desalina- tion plants have been built in recent years and more will be built in the near future to produce 1.6 mcm per day by 1983 (Dodson, 1978), the capital and energy cost——80 cents 117 per cubic meter-is high in the long run even in oil—rich countries. This cost and the pollution factor were recently recognized by the former director of the desaliniation pro— gram in Saudi Arabia (Dodson, 1978, and Al-Faisal, 1980) 3. The expansion of urbanization has threatened the country's 1,800-plus small, partially forested mountain peaks (about 1.5 million ha) which, unlike the rest of the country, are characterized by mild climate and relatively considerable rainfall (over 300 mm per year). Many areas of this scarce vegetation cover have been subject to real—estate speculation and increasing demand by wealthy people to build summer homes 4. The combined phenomena of massive urbanization and great expenditures produce inflation, a major economic pressure impacting directly on the farmers. The average daily wages for unskilled workers in the country's labor market for agricultural and non-agricultural activities are about 100 S. R., or an average yearly income of S. R. 36,000 (about $11,000), while the highest income for a cash crop on the average farm in the Assir region does not exceed two- thirds of that amount (about S. R. 23,700) (M. I. L., Annex 2, pp. 5-18). This is an indication not only of the finan— cial obstacle to the farmer who needs additional labor at harvest time, but also of the cost—of—living level with which the traditional, subsistence farmer has to interact by selling his crops for less and obtaining his needs at 118 higher prices CHAPTER V CONCLUSION The foregoing discussion of the natural and human environments of Saudi Arabia indicates that the country's food deficit will continue to grow in the future as a result of the limited agricultural potential of the environment and the rapidly growing food demand. Available water resources in the country not only are under full utilization, but in some areas, such as the sed— imentary part of the country, have been overexploited, causing increased salinity in pumped water. The salinity in the water of the sedimentary region seriously threatens the existing agriculture and restricts the potential for increased food production; and modern drainage systems—— costly in terms of water and finances——have been unsuccess- ful in providing relief. In the western region, the situation is not much better. Rainfall and runoff, and the shallow, infiltrated groundwater, are already fully utilized. Therefore, con- struction of new dams, recommended by various consulting firms and other experts, will not support expanded or inten- sified agricultural development. Instead, such construction will increase water loss through evaporation, and will elim— inate the beneficial ecological role now played by flooding, 119 120 which adjusts soil fertility and salinity naturally without a need for drainage systems and artificial fertilizers. Human pressure on Saudi Arabia's arid environment has widened the gap between local food production and de- mand. This gap, which first appeared after the early 19405, has been filled by importation of food: currently, 70-80 percent of the food consumed in Saudi Arabia is imported. Three major human factors contribute to the increase in food demand. The first is an increase in the native pop- ulation at a time when agricultural production has remained stable or even declined. Population pressure is reflected in the rapid growth of the cities and the decreasing size of the average farmer's land holding. The second factor is the influx of 1.5-2 million for- eign workers. They have become an additional burden on the Saudi Arabian food supply. Meanwhile, their emigration has forestalled the necessary adjustment in food production in their native countries, and when they seek to return home, they will place a sudden, increased burden on the food sup- plies of their own nations. Turkey and several Northwest African countries that have exported labor to Western EurOpe are now facing this problem; as economic difficulties a- broad have caused their workers to return home, these coun— tries have imposed restrictions on immigration, and have tried to send away foreign workers now residing within their borders in order to reserve the shrinking number of job 121 opportunities for their own citizens. The third factor causing increased food demand in Saudi Arabia is the rise in the standard of living among a sector of the population. Average per capita food consump— tion has increased, and it will continue to increase as the percentage of the population in this higher—standard sector grows. This increase in demand will result in greater de- pendence on imported food. The population—food dilemma must be considered in the economic development policies of Saudi Arabia, the Arab countries, and the entire world. The Middle East and North Africa have suffered rapidly growing food deficits as a re— sult of their population explosions. Regional cooperation is needed in order to balance food supply and demand. Delay in implementation of regional efforts makes it more difficult, if not impossible, to balance the food—population relation— ship. Such cooperation should have been initiated a long time ago, when population pressure was less intense than it is today. Even with its wealth, a country like Saudi Arabia wil have a difficult time insuring a secure food supply in the long run if such efforts are made in isolation from the surrounding countries in the region. The power of the petro—dollar, which currently enables the country to import foodstuffs, is insecure in the long run, because of both diminishing petroleum resources and changeable interests 122 of the food-exporting countries such as the United States, which may turn more economic and political attention in the years ahead to other regions, such as China and Mexico. All of this does not mean that the present economic development efforts should be halted. Rather, these efforts should be continued, but under the guidance of human needs and with respect for the limits of the country's biological capacity. Six interrelated factors must be manipulated in concert in efforts to meet food demand: food production; population planning; better appraisal and utilization of water, land, energy, and mineral resources; better facili— ties for storage and utilization of human food, animal feed, and plant fertilizer; other efforts to guarantee the minimum food requirements of the population; and disease control a- mong people, animals, and crops. Changing the earth's surface and using specific natu- ral resources are not objectives in themselves, but rather are means for benefiting people as greatly, and for as long a time, as possible. The extensive economic changes adopted to date, combined with the influx of foreign laborers, have moved a large part of the local labor force from productive activities (such as agriculture) to easier earning oppor- tunities, such as real estate speculation, retail and whole- sale trade, government service, and the personal-service industry. 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