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Beirut faced with climatic aridification Volume 24, issue 3, Juillet-Août-Septembre 2013

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Université Saint-Joseph Département de géographie BP 17-2508 Mar Mikhaël Beyrouth Liban, Université de Savoie EDYTEM 73376 Le Bourget du Lac cedex France, Université Libanaise Département de géographie Corniche al Mazraa Mehyo Building Beyrouth Liban, Archéorient Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée 5-7 rue Raulin 69365 Lyon cedex 07 France, SciencesPo 27 rue Saint-Guillaume 75007 Paris France, Université Pierre et Marie Curie 2 place Jussieu 75005 Paris France

Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, is currently undergoing a significant deterioration of its air quality. At the same time, water resources appear to be a crucial challenge, especially in late summer. These two environmental problems simultaneously related to regional climatic characteristics, urban planning and anthropogenic activities, are likely to worsen in the middle term. Indeed, the country is starting to feel the early impacts of the climatic developments observed in the Near and Middle East: desertification is spreading, the length of the dry season increasing, rainfall patterns changing, and temperature rising significantly. However, no management policy has yet been implemented in response to such environmental constraints. Quite on the contrary, private initiatives are developing and putting human pressure on resources already under strain: urbanization is becoming vertically and horizontally denser, illegal wells are being multiplied, thus increasing the scarcity of water and pollutant emissions due to road traffic are suffocating the town. In the end, early signs of aridification combined with the lack of environmental management are threatening, especially in terms of water resources, the thus-far privileged position of Lebanon in the arid or semi-arid context.