By: FWI Staff Writer Until recently, agricultural practice in Arabia has been characterized by a dependence on grazing and subsistence farming. Some specific exceptions exist, such as Egypt's Nile Delta, the areas between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers and areas of coastal Northern Africa. Agricultural practices have been altered dramatically in recent decades. Several factors, including population growth and the development of cash crop industries and commercial grazing are at the root of these changes. The adoption of new agricultural methods, while increasing the land under cultivation, has led to large scale desertification and the contamination of previously healthy agricultural lands through salinization. Salinization is a term used to describe the increase of salts and minerals in the soil to levels at which healthy agricultural is no longer sustainable. It most often results from the overuse of irrigation and the use of intensive agricultural techniques inappropriate to the region in which they are applied. Since most of the land in Arabia even marginally suitable for agriculture has been in use for centuries, farmers in this region have been forced to turn to the cultivation of semi-arid rangelands to increase agricultural capacity. This has required the widespread use of irrigation. Water is the most precious and limited natural resource in this region, especially in the Arabian Peninsula, and this increase in the use of irrigation has placed unsustainable demands on the region's water resources. Though surface water is rare in some regions, the Arabian Peninsula has extensive groundwater resources. Until recently it was believed that these groundwater resources would be sufficient to meet continued demands. More recently, however, the unsustainability of current usage patters has been widely acknowledged. In most Arabian countries, irrigation water is supplied largely from wells. In the Middle East over ninety percent of the region's well water is used for agricultural purposes. Brining large quantities of water to the surface for use in irrigation has depleted many of the region's aquifers. As aquifers are depleted, the intrusion of salt water, especially in coastal regions, into the groundwater supply increases. Moreover, when water is diverted from rivers, lakes and aquifers and used instead for irrigation, ambient levels of salt in the water increase. When this water is used for irrigation, much of the water evaporates off, leaving any previously dissolved minerals behind. Some of these minerals remain in the soil, making it less suitable for agriculture, while others are carried back to aquifers by that irrigation water which does not evaporate. As this water returns to the aquifer, it also picks up additional mineral content from the soil, further increasing the salt content of the groundwater. Thus, irrigation is at the root of a cycle of salinization which is rendering cropland too saline to support agriculture and which is raising the ambient mineral levels in the region's water supply to levels where it is unsuitable for consumption by humans and livestock and is altering the region's water-based ecosystems. As a result of salinization, agricultural production has been reduced, and some agricultural areas have been completely lost. Copyright 2006 Fine Water Imports Inc. All Rights Reserved