The Levant. A glamorous part of the world, rich in history, rife in strife. People have built communities here pretty well since towns were built. Such a past should mean quite a future. But is this likely?
Let’s look at the state of Israel. This small region bounds roughly 21 000 sq kilometres. Living and working within this are about 6.6 million people. This amounts to a population density of somewhere about 300 people per square kilometre. Just think, every square kilometre of land must grow enough food and provide enough water for 300 people.
The land within the state of Israel is quite a mix just like every area on Earth. The three major divisions are crop land and crop land/natural mix (36%), shrub land and savannah (33%) and, sparse and barren (26%). Given the population density, it is quite reasonable to expect that every scrap of land available for crop production is being used for this. Thus around 7560 square kilometres or 756 000 hectares provides for crops.
Let’s do an energy balance.
Assume all the crop land is for wheat. Wheat annually provides about 2.46 tons per hectare. Wheat provides 1.2e7 joules per metric ton of energy (not all digestible). This amounts to 2.2e13 joules of energy annually.
The 6.6 million people need on average 3.8e9 joules per year. In total, the population within Israel need 2.58e16 joules of energy annually.
This shows the huge energy shortfall. The land in this region can’t even provide 1% of the energy needs of the people. It is not surprising that 94% of food cereals have to be imported [1]. Israel obviously is hugely dependent upon food surpluses grown by other countries and then transported to them. If this didn’t happen, their people couldn’t survive.
Israel will have difficulties in the future. But consider the Gaza strip. This region is roughly 360 square kilometres. Nearly 1.4 million people call it home. This makes an incredible population density of almost 4000 people per square kilometre. Is there any wonder why strife is rampant here.
Gaza
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