The urban transition in developing countries is telescoping time, needing just a few decades to do what took a century or more in the industrialized countries.
In addition to the substantial acreages devastated by fire, the summer of 2007 was equally noted for the very heavy human death toll.
Water is at the core of the problem of sustainable development. Its management in the Mediterranean area is characterised by non-sustainable forms of production and consumption.
In the light of observational evidence of mean air and ocean temperature rises and the disappearance of glaciers and perennial snows, as well as average sea-level rises, planetary warming is indisputable.
The potential for water conflicts over transboundary, shared, or international waters (as some countries prefer to call them) is increasing as population, development, and the demand for water increase.
The application of economic concepts to the management and use of water (a non-substitutable good in general terms) leads us to the dilemma of determining the market price.
For some years now the question of water in the world and around the Mediterranean has been emerging as one of the most urgent.
The complex and very compartmentalised geological structure of the Mediterranean Basin has not allowed the formation of very extensive aquifer systems, with the exception of the South-East African Platform.
Political leaders have always been aware, and increasingly so, of the importance of water in the Euro-Mediterranean context and the need to tackle it at the regional level, albeit with ups and downs.
. In addition to having water unevenly allocated in space and time both regionally and within countries, the situation is further exacerbated by intense demographic changes.
With significant natural resources and infrastructures of demonstrated reliability, Algeria exports approximately 65 billion m3 (bcm) of natural gas per year.