This article briefly reviews regional constraints and trends, among them environmental climatic and social ones, existing and developing in the regions of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and which should affect planning, design and construction policies and practices. It reviews the current state of legislation regarding energy and other green building issues, as well as the various voluntary tools which are being promoted in the region. This paper concludes that the pace of building practices adaptations is far from meeting the pace of needs and constraints. The repercussions on the livability of buildings and settlements, and the survivability and resilience potential of communities in the arid regions of MENA, may well be at risk. Thus, for many countries in the region, green building (and the standards that encourage this) is not a luxury of developed countries, which they might adopt in the future once more pressing constraints are eased, but, rather, a critical development goal to lessen these constraints and allow a viable path into such a future.

The Jordan Valley is a heavily modified, data-limited transboundary river basin where water availability is constrained by both climate conditions and intensive human intervention. This study applies an integrated hydrological and hydrogeochemical modeling framework using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to quantify basin-scale water availability and quality and to assess climate change impacts for the period 2000–2021. Results indicate that the basin is strongly evapotranspiration-dominated, with mean annual precipitation of 298.9 mm and precipitation-derived evapotranspiration accounting for 66.3% of rainfall. When externally supplied irrigation water is included, total evapotranspiration increases markedly, highlighting the strong dependence of agriculture on imported surface water and groundwater abstractions. Only a small fraction of total water input contributes to river discharge toward the Dead Sea, indicating a very limited internal water surplus. Hydrological dynamics are largely controlled by upstream dams and transboundary diversions, while nitrate and sediment simulations demonstrate a close coupling between hydrology, land use, and water quality. Climate projections suggest further reductions in water availability during the 21st century, exacerbating existing water scarcity. Overall, the study illustrates how intensive regulation and irrigation dependency constrain water availability in the Jordan Valley and in similar heavily modified transboundary river basins.