42a: Water Scarcity in SW Asia

Most of SW Asia is covered in which type of land form?

• desert

• desalination

• salt water

• forest

Which river is the border between Israel and Jordan?

• Tigris River

• Jordan River

• Euphrates River

Where can people find water in the desert?

• desalination plants

• dams

• oases (oasis)

• rivers

Most countries in SW Asia (Middle East) receive very little?

• sunlight

• rainfall

• heat

What is desalination?

• adding salt to freshwater

• adding salt to seawater

• removing salt from seawater

• removing salt from freshwater

How has the building of dams created problems for countries sharing rivers in Southwest Asia?

• Dams are too expensive to build to be practical

• Dams limit the water available to countries further downstream

• Few countries have the technology needed to be able to build dams

• Countries in Southwest Asia are not allowed to build dams along shared rivers

How has the use of chemical fertilizers affected water supplies in many countries in Southwest Asia?

• Use of chemical fertilizers means crops must be watered constantly

• Enormous amounts of water must be used to produce chemical fertilizers

• Chemical fertilizers have had very little effect on local water supplies in Southwest Asia

• Water supplies have contaminated by the chemicals through runoff from the fields

Why aren't desalinization and drip irrigation used more in Southwest Asia?

• Most countries do not know about these technologies

• Drip irrigation is not very effective in a hot, dry climate

• Few countries in Southwest Asia have access to seawater

• These technologies are very expensive for the countries to use

What word means to artificially apply water to land to help with farming and agriculture?

• Irrigation
• Scarcity
• Agriculture
• Basin

Why is there so much competition for fresh water in SW Asia?

• There is so much water that countries want to collect as much as they can to sell to countries facing droughts on other continents

• The water supply is distributed unevenly, and there is not enough water to support the needs of the people, so it must be used wisely

• The mountain and plateau regions take water from the desert regions because the deserts have a surplus

• There is water scarcity near rivers and coastlines