Conservation strategies improve water table

Though water conservation is not new to the local populace, the UAE in recent years has also been considering the issue more seriously, and initiating a number of successful projects to explore alternate avenues.

According to United Nations estimates, as many as 1.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and 2.4 billion have no access to adequate sanitation. Each year, more than two million children die from water-borne diseases.

Traditionally, water conservation is woven into UAE local culture and their attempt to survive in a harsh dry landscape bereft of water. But, what's unique about the UAE is that they have very easily blended the traditional water conservation methods with the new and the modern techniques during the last two decades.

More and more new water management methods are being adopted.

Being the world's third largest per capita water consumer after the US and Canada, UAE is now the world's second largest producer of desalinated water after Saudi Arabia. In the recent years, UAE has increased its investment in water conservation by building more desalination and wastewater treatment plants in the country.

The initiatives also include restoration of traditional 'falaj' systems (underground water channels), exploration, construction of delay and recharge dams, well drilling and aquifer testing and exploration.

These initiatives are more important for a country like the UAE. Traditionally, the country has depended on its sparse and intermediate rainfalls for both domestic and agricultural water consumption. A wet year may experience above 150 millimetres of rainfall, whereas as little as 2mm (recorded in 2001) may be recorded in a dry year.

Realising the country's geographical features and location, water conservation has always been given the top priority in policy making under the leadership of President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

During the last three decades, coupled with traditional methods, new water technologies, such as desalination and treatment, have been utilised in the country to help conserve its natural water resources.

The country has maintained its traditional water utilisation and conservation along with new management methods, which include desalination plants, construction of dams, restoration of traditional underground water channels (falaj system), well drilling and aquifer testing and exploration.

Elaborating on management, Mike Brook, Manager Water Resources Department at Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency (Erwda), said, historically, all the UAE's water requirements were met solely from groundwater obtained from shallow hand dug wells and the traditional falaj system, comprising man-made channels used to collect groundwater, spring water and surface water and transport it, by gravity, to the demand area.

Over the last two decades, rapid economic development, coupled with sharp population increases and a strive for agricultural development to achieve self-sufficiency in food supplies has placed ever increasing pressure on the UAE's precious natural water resources.

According to Erwda, irrigation for agriculture now uses more than 65 per cent of all water supplies and has meant an increasing reliance on unconventional water resources, such as desalination, and also the development of alternative conventional water supply measures, such as recharge dams, storage dams, recharge wells, interception of groundwater losses, re-use of wastewater and water transfers.

Erwda statistics put the UAE water availability in 2000 at: groundwater 53 per cent; surface water three per cent; recycled water nine per cent; and desalination 35 per cent.

The figures also show a total of 2.2 billion cubic metres water consumption with the following brake up: agriculture and forestry 67 per cent; domestic and drinking 24 per cent: and industry and commerce nine per cent.

According to the agency, which is Abu Dhabi's prime environmental organisation, water consumption is expected to increase by 44 per cent to 3.2 billion cubic metres by 2025.

With water use now being significantly greater than the renewable water resources of the Emirates, there is an urgent requirement to coordinate the current activities of multiple organisations in the fields of water supply and use so as to achieve sustainable development.

The UAE's ever-increasing demands are being met from a large programme of desalination.Despite its over-abstraction, often leading to dry wells and increasing salinity of groundwater due to reduced water levels near aquifer base elevations, groundwater in 2000 still accounted for over 50 per cent of available water supply in the UAE, followed by desalination (35 per cent), treated sewage effluent (nine per cent) and ephemeral surface water (three per cent).

The most important of the unconventional water sources, and one which contributes most in helping to redress the imbalance between supply and demand, is desalination.

According to Erwda, the desalinated water now accounts for over one third of all the UAE's water sources.

In the UAE, water conservation measures have had to be taken to help mitigate the adverse effects of over-abstraction of precious groundwater resources. Presently, both national and emirate-level strategies for water resources management are being developed.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has constructed over 130 recharge and storage dams to utilise an estimated 150 million cubic metre per year 'wadi' (seasonal river) flow from 15 main catchment areas; nine major recharge dams, have a capacity of 47 million cubic metre per year, the remainder have a capacity of about 60 million cubic metres per year.

Future challenges on resources
The Erwda identifies the following as the main issues of water resources in the UAE.
* Rapid economic growth, population rise, high per capita demands, strive for self-sufficiency in food means.

* Water use far exceeds renewable resources.

* Depletion in terms of quantity and quality of groundwater resources and increasing reliance on unconventional water resources, for example desalination.

* If water demands continue unabated, groundwater quality degradation will continue unabated, leading to water shortages and continued degradation.

* Salinisation of land, abandonment of farms.

* Very high consumptive use – presently demand in UAE is seven times that of the renewable water resources.

* Located in arid area, with low rainfall, high evaporation and very low and unreliable groundwater recharge.

* Depletion in terms of quantity and quality of groundwater resulting in increasing reliance on unconventional resources such as desalination.

* Salinisation of land through increasing salinity levels of groundwater.

* UAE is generally a world leader in desalination applications.

* In Abu Dhabi, four main plants provide 83 per cent of all domestic demands, two new plants at 0.5 million cubic meter per day capacity to be completed by 2004.