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• Historical drought condition is assessed over the Middle East. • A Bayesian approach is conducted to simulate food security. • Socioeconomic factors and drought are considered as inputs to the Bayesian model. • Agricultural production decreased in the Middle East after the 2009 drought. • Hydrological drought extent reached its peak in 2009 affecting 50% of the region. Natural disasters may act as harmful causes of food insecurity in the Middle East. Frequent drought events, water scarcity, and unsustainable intensive agricultural practices may impact food security in the region. This paper investigates a causal relationship between drought and food security across the Middle East. Meteorological, agricultural, and hydrological droughts are analyzed at multiple timescales over the region for seven decades during the period of 1948–2017. We simulate food security in the Middle East as a function of drought (representing a water stress factor) as well as several other socio-economic drivers. A Bayesian approach is implemented to integrate these drivers in order to accurately predict food security in the region. Results reveal that hydrological drought is the most intensified drought type over the region, especially in Egypt, during the study period. Moreover, the results demonstrate the significant impacts of livestock, population growth, agricultural products, and drought on food security in the Middle East. Our findings further indicate that the agricultural products decreased in the Middle East following the recent drought event that happened in 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change will substantially exacerbate extreme temperature and heatwaves. The impacts will be more intense across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), a region mostly characterized by hot and arid climate, already intolerable for human beings in many parts. In this study, daily climate data from 17 fine-resolution Regional Climate Models (RCMs) are acquired to calculate wet-bulb temperature and investigate the mortality risk for people aged over 65 years caused by excessive heat stress across the MENA region. Spatially adaptive temperature thresholds are implemented for quantifying the mortality risk, and the analysis is conducted for the historical period of 1951-2005 and two future scenarios of RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 during the 2006-2100 period. Results show that the mortality risk will increase in distant future to 8-20 times higher than that of the historical period if no climate change mitigation is implemented. The coastal regions of the Red sea, Persian Gulf, and Mediterranean Sea indicate substantial increase in mortality risk. Nonetheless, the risk ratio will be limited to 3-7 times if global warming is limited to 2 °C. Climate change planning and adaptation is imperative for mitigating heat-related mortality risk across the region., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)