Environment: Climate Change Threatens Cradle of Civilization

Spiegel Online International (Volker Mrasek)

The traditional definition of the "Fertile Crescent" is expanded to include Egypt in this article (which has a map showing the area under discussion).

The Middle East's famous Fertile Crescent was the birthplace of agriculture, the first settlements and civilization. But a new study shows that climate change will dry up the area's rivers and destroy its agriculture -- with devasting effects for the region.

The region known as the Fertile Crescent forms a 3,000- kilometer (1,900-mile), sickle-shaped corridor at the northern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Embedded in desert and barren mountains, it extends in a giant arc from the Nile valley in Egypt to the east coast of the Mediterranean and up to the Persian Gulf. It runs right through Israel, Lebanon and western Syria, touches southern Anatolia, then Iran and finally descends into the area between the Euphrates and Tigris, in modern-day Iraq. . . .

But the area known as the cradle of civilization is now under serious threat. Before the end of this century, the Middle East's legendary bread basket could dry up as a result of global warming, to the extent that it is no longer suitable for traditional rain-fed agriculture -- destroying its existence as an agrarian landscape.

"Ancient rain-fed agriculture enabled the civilizations to thrive in the Fertile Crescent region," Pinhas Alpert, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Tel Aviv University, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "But this blessing is soon to disappear due to human-induced climate change."

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