Water to Burn in the Desert

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

by Erica Solomon, REUTERS, June 21, 2010

image Driving along brand new highways with medians of lush trees and manicured grass, one could easily forget the United Arab Emirates sits on a sweltering desert coast with rapidly diminishing freshwater resources.

The Gulf Arab nation’s oil income has allowed it to subsidize extravagant water use for Emiratis, either those in gated communities sporting pristine pools and evergreen golf courses or for farmers clinging to ancient irrigation practices.

Environmentalists warn the country, already reliant on costly desalination plants powered by its lucrative fossil fuels, must cut consumption by its 8.2 million people or risk depleting groundwater resources in 50 years.

“We need to convince them that water here isn’t a free resource. It’s not even a natural resource, it’s manmade. It is costly, and it has a big environmental impact,” said Mohamed Daoud of the state-run Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi.

But that is not an easy task in a country where billboards encouraging conservation compete for space and attention with promotions for waterparks, an indoor ski slope and a famous dancing fountain.

Abu Dhabi, seat of the seven member UAE federation and the wealthiest of its emirates, consumes 550 liters of water per person per day, Daoud said — two to three times the world average of 180-200 liters. Analysts say per capita water use in the UAE overall is roughly four times that of Europe.

To ease groundwater use, about 60 percent of consumption in the desert country, the UAE has invested heavily in desalination, producing nine million cubic meters of water daily at $18 million a day.

Desalination dependence is a luxury only oil-rich Gulf countries can afford: It requires huge amounts of fuel and sea water. Dubai is completely reliant, while Abu Dhabi’s use more than tripled by 2007, the Emirates Wildlife Society said.

“The UAE was a net gas exporter before 2008, but now it has become a net gas importer,” Ayesha Sabavala, of London’s Economic Intelligence Unit said, citing increased desalination and electricity production as the main cause.

ENERGY DRAIN

Desalination is powered mostly by gas and, more rarely, oil — resources that transformed the UAE from a small pearl diving and fishing center into a financial hub in half a century.

Alternatives like nuclear energy will take another 10 years at least, said Sabavala of the Economist Intelligence Unit. Without alternatives, she expected desalination would increase domestic demand for oil and gas, thereby decreasing exports. [Read rest of article]

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