Water resources in the Middle East are under enormous stress, due to an increase in population growth and the extensive use of water resources, which exceeds the water demand in this regional bloc. Moreover, climatic changes pose another dimension of stress on water resources; these changes have significant environmental, social, and economic effects. In fact, the governance of these countries has the tendency of increasing this stress or decreasing it, depending on its performance and efficiency in applying policies, legislation and managerial plans towards decreasing the poverty and the vulnerability of the countries specially those suffering from poverty. In this paper, the vulnerability of five countries-Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria—will be assessed based on the extent of climate changes and the type of climate governance and their effects on water resources. This paper will introduce a new index, which will be called the Governance and Climate Vulnerability Index (GCVI). The index will measure the vulnerability of each country vis-à-vis water-related issues, while taking into account governance and climatic indicators. The vulnerability of these countries will also be ranked, for purposes of comparison. This paper concludes with the recommendation for governments to develop appropriate water resources management and to improve their environmental policies, including raising awareness on multiple levels. These strategies are expected to lead to decreased vulnerability to climatic changes. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012
