Dr Mark Zeitoun

Dr Mark Zeitoun is a senior lecturer in the School of International Development, at the University of East Anglia. Mark’s primary research interests relate to transboundary water interaction, water policy and water negotiations. His analytical focus combines the social and physical sciences, and tends do focus on the role that power plays within each area, with a geographic focus on the Middle East and Africa. He takes a critical perspective on international transboundary environmental cooperation and conflict, and 'hydro-hegemony'.

As co-founder of the UEA Water Security Research Centre, Mark also explores analytical and policy related to ‘water security’. He sees water security in the broad sense, as a web which relates to food, energy and climate security, with implications for national and human security.

The research follows work as a humanitarian-aid water engineer in conflict and post-conflict zones including Chad/Darfur, Congo-Brazzaville, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine. He consults regularly on water negotiations, policy and governance for a variety of international organisations and local NGOs. He is author of Power and Water in the Middle East: The Hidden Politics of the Palestinian-Israeli Water Conflict (IB Tauris 2008), and contributes regularly to debates through public lectures and media pieces.

Mark has a B.Eng in civil engineering (1990) and an M.Sc in environmental engineering (1998) from McGill University, and a PhD in human geography from King’s College London (2006). He is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science.