Harnessing rainfall to meet the UAE water needs

Under the theme of ‘Connecting People to Nature’, this year’s World Environment Day encouraged people around the world to take positive action to protect natural ecosystems and adopt sustainable lifestyle choices that harmonise with the natural environment around us.

It also reminds us that rising global populations and the resultant pressure on the water-energy-food nexus has created an urgent need for sustainable solutions to the wide ranges of social, economic and environmental challenges raised by the depletion of natural resources.

In the UAE and other arid and semi-arid regions, the increasing strain on natural fresh water resources and over-reliance on desalination requires fresh thinking on alternative sources of clean water. Given that current seawater desalination operations require significant expenditure of energy, the UAE government is determined to encourage research and development on innovative new technologies that are both cost-effective and environmentally sustainable.

The science of rain enhancement is offering an increasingly viable and technically feasible method of replenishing and boosting existing water supplies. In the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region, the UAE is among the national governments leading the way in promoting such innovation.

Given the important role of primary rainfall in groundwater recharge and the provision of fresh water supplies for consumption, we can exploit this resource to help solve the challenge of water scarcity rather than continuing to rely heavily on traditional energy-intensive methods.

In 1990, the UAE commenced rain enhancement operations and has since developed and refined these efforts in cooperation with world-class organisations such as the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in the United States, the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, and the US space agency, Nasa.

Since 2007, the National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology (NCMS) in Abu Dhabi has played a key role in tackling water scarcity as one of the seven pillars the UAE’s National Innovation Strategy.

In leading national studies of climate and environmental phenomena through mathematical analysis and field experiments, the NCMS’s active research programmes currently cover a wide range of meteorological and atmospheric phenomena, borderline and cloud dynamics, aerosol usage, precipitation and individual cloud characteristics.

The Centre also plays a key role for the UAE in coordinating and managing the monitoring and screening activities, keeping track of local climatic conditions through a national network of air stations consisting of 75 air-conditioned automatic weather stations, six weather radars, eight air quality control stations and 34 atmospheric dust measurement stations.

In keeping with the Centre’s mission to serve our leadership’s vision, the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science was launched in 2015 to promote global water security through rain enhancement research. This research programme, under the leadership of Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, serves as a focal point for the ground-breaking innovation needed to tackle the challenge of global water security.

By offering an annual award of $5 million (Dh18.39 million) to up to five research proposals submitted by successful awardees, the Programme is already advancing scientific understanding through new knowledge of cloud formation and precipitation production.

The Programme’s outstanding success in driving global rain enhancement research was recently demonstrated by its Third Cycle call for submissions: A total of 201 research pre-proposals were received that incorporated the latest ideas from 710 researchers, scientists and experts belonging to 316 research institutions, located in 68 countries spread across five continents.

Although the immediate aim of the Programme is to increase the UAE’s rainfall and enhance freshwater supply, the intention is to generate results that could have wider applications for countries that may benefit from advances in rain enhancement science and technology.

By so doing, the UAE is helping to realise the common global aspiration for a sustainable, environment-friendly future.

Through the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science, the NCMS is playing its full part in working to develop the scientific and technological innovation needed to ensure that humanity can secure the fresh water essential to life while prospering in harmony with nature.

Dr Abdullah Al Mandous is the director at National Centre for Meteorology and Seismology.