ABDULRAHMN ALDAKHEEL King Saud University Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
OVERVIEW OF WATER RESOURCES Groundwater : Fossil aquifers (non-renewable) Alluvial aquifers (renewable) Desalination: More than 30 plants in east and west coasts. Production capacity is more than 1.1 BCM. Surface water: The country s mean annual surface runoff has been estimated at more than 2 billion cubic meters per year.
Main hydro-geological units of Saudi Arabia
WATER GOVERNANCE The Saudi Arabia government controlling water resources through Ministry of Water and Electricity for all sectors. The following water management challenges are existing : Water market demand: Increase water capacity to meet the growing demand. Privatization : Saudi Arabia invited private sector to build, finance and operate new desalination plants. Also the private sector start investment in rehabilitation, operation, maintenance and upgrading of wastewater plants. 4
National Water Company (NWC) was established in order to improve the efficiency of water service. The privatization will allow the Saudi government to be able to expand the water capacity and wastewater services to meet the growing population and water demand increase. Domestic water demand management: Water demand management and conservation aims to conserve water, and as result improve quality and quantity by controlling demand.
Irrigation water demand management: Total irrigation water use is 0.87 of the total national water use in Saudi Arabia. A royal decree was issued in 1980 to regulate well drilling and to protect aquifers from exploitation and pollution. In several agricultural regions, excessive water pumping has resulted in negative effects on groundwater levels and on quality. Consequently, improvement of groundwater management and reduction in irrigation water consumption, especially for wheat cultivation, became essential for maintaining the long-term productivity and quality of the aquifers. 6
Industrial water demand management: Although industrial water constitutes only a small portion of total demand, certain industries require special water qualities; and the environmental effects of mismanaging industrial wastewater represent a major hazard. Saudi Arabia implemented demand management measures such as water tariffs, water loss reduction, water recycling and implementation of Public Awareness programmers. Water Conservation : Government of Saudi Arabia largely cares in providing all the essential services that provide the public a decent life, one of these is the production of the desalinated water in large quantities, thus the quantity produced is considered very precious and we must conserve. 7
Technical: The water sector development should relay on water technology to develop and conserve the water supply. The Saudi government started to introduce the new drilling technology, desalination plant, water conservation devices. These technologies imported, where the future challenges are to develop and manufacture these technological products locally. The training of Saudi expert should go side by side with technological products improvement. Environmental : The environmental problem is considered as one of the most difficult challenges facing water supply in Saudi Arabia. The water contamination is easy to occur, but it is difficult to remediate. 8
The water resources contamination is Saudi Arabia is due to many factors. The incomplete wastewater network, untreated wastewater, illegal wastes dumped in Wadis are the major causes of water pollution in Saudi Arabia. The environmental issue is not separated from the lack of financing the wastewater treatment, and enforcement to follow the environmental guidelines. Socio-economical : Thirty decades ago Saudi Arabia has experienced agriculture development which economically and socially improved the social well-being of Saudi citizens. The adverse effect of the agricultural development has been seen latter when the aquifers water tables dropped, and water shortage noticed. 9
The Saudi government provide sustainable water supply to urban and rural areas from groundwater and desalination which was supporting the country development in all sectors, and improve the social well-being. The Saudi government will face many challenges in the future to maintain adequate water supply to all users, due to the population growth, and quality of life improvement. Financial: The Saudi government spends billions of riyals annually to construct, expand, maintain, and operate water facilities including desalination plant, dams, wastewater and water and water supply network. 10
The financial cost to maintain sustainable water supply is provided by the Saudi government. It is expected that this cost will increase to reach 40 billion riyals annually by the year 2020. There is a need to look for financial resources to expand and improve water facilities, where the private sector will not be able to finance the water sector without restructure the water tariff to be able to pay off the cost and generate reasonable profit. The role of the private sector through privatization is to increase the efficiency of water sector, introduce the new technology, and integrated management.. 11
Climate change: Climate change has been at the front of research in the last twenty years. The impacts of the climate change on water resources are an important issue, where it is one of the major challenges on water resources management. It is assumed that since Saudi Arabia has very arid climate, the impacts of climate change would be negligible. There are variations in the climatic impact due to the vast areal extent of Saudi Arabia.
Water sector governance and institutions The water governance and institutions, Saudi Arabia has only slowly developed the governance and institutional setup that would allow it to manage water resources in line with society s development goals. According to the Ninth Development Plan 2010-2014, the policy objective is to ensure governance and management of water in a rational and integrated manner (Saudi Arabia National Water Strategy prepared by World Bank ). A Supreme Council for Water Affairs would be authoritative and would bring together all decision-takers. It is a model that has been successful in the petroleum and education sectors.
Saudi Arabia has been developing and implementing water law, institutions and strategies for a number of years. In 2001, MOWE was set up, bringing together water resources management and water service delivery responsibilities within one institution. However, many institutions have a mandate for aspects of the Kingdom s water sector, and there is less coordination among them, which creates problems for planning and management of the resource. In addition, no mechanism for coordinating water planning and management across sectors exists.
There is a need to set up a mechanism for integrated coordination and planning among agencies. Collaboration on development of the agricultural and water strategies demonstrates the willingness of sector agencies to recognize that joint work is essential, and this collaboration should be continued, particularly in arrangements for joint planning, monitoring and regulation of water resources. MOWE has been working with NWC to implement the Strategic Transformation Plan. It is expected that this will be completed by 2020, with responsibility for service provision in all larger urban agglomerations turned over entirely to NWC.
A new comprehensive water law in Saudi Arabia is expected to be passed in 2013. Water data bank is going to be finished soon, which will be the backbone for the future water management and governance in Saudi Arabia. Groundwater assessment for the major aquifer is going on in order to be able to plan for future demand.
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