MENA region comprises the driest part of the world which has a rich history of adapting to water scarcity over centuries. However, the challenges of the future are expected to assume whole new dimensions due to unprecedented population growth, improved lifestyle, and climate change. It is imperative that these challenges begin to be addressed without further delay in order to avoid rapidly rising remedial costs in future. Unfortunately, we do not yet have reasonably precise understanding of the future which makes any planning process difficult. The anticipated climate changes modelled by the current GCMs incorporating the futuristic scenarios (SRES) presented by IPCC vary greatly from one model to another. Given this background, this study presents the results of various parametric and non-parametric statistical analyses of historical long time series data of the region to identify the patterns and trends that has already manifested thus far, and a literature survey is conducted to capture the current state of knowledge of the forecasts relevant to the water resources of MENA. In particular, greater insights are sought on issues such as: the impact of global warming will have a high degree of spatial variability which means two neighbouring catchments can have very different changes in climate; there will be more extreme weather conditions implying more frequent floods and droughts with higher magnitudes; the percentage of variation in precipitation and runoff will be much higher than the percentage of variation in temperature; the minimum and maximum temperatures will vary more than the average temperatures which combined with CO2 fertilization and increased evapotranspiration will be instrumental in changing the crop production regimes; sea level will rise and many low lying coastal areas will be affected; and the ability of the aquifers to act as buffer will diminish due to mining of groundwater effecting reduction in storage capacity from land subsidence and deterioration of water quality. Keywords: climate change, water resources, MENA region, statistical analysis

MENA region comprises the driest part of the world which has a rich history of adapting to water scarcity over centuries. However, the challenges of the future are expected to assume whole new dimensions due to unprecedented population growth, improved lifestyle, and climate change. It is imperative...