That’s the warning environmentalists have for the Gulf’s most flourishing group of states. Consider this – Abu Dhabi, the richest of the Emirates gulps down 550 liters of water per person per day. The world average is 180-200 liters. The water consumption is four times that of Europe.
It would have been okay, if UAE had plentiful water resources of its own. It doesn’t because it’s smack in the dessert and most of the water is ‘manufactured’ from sea water by expensive desalination plants.
Why does the UAE consume so much of water when it does not abundant fresh water resources to put a pitcher in?
Because being an oil rich region it can afford it through massive subsidization of its expensive desalination plants. 60 percent of water usage comes from desalinated sea water. It costs $18 million a day.
But desalination plants cannot protect groundwater resources indefinitely. As the region has got richer, so has the waste. Manicured lawns, swimming pools, huge decorative fountains etc are the luxuries a dry nation can hardly afford. These come from the rampant use of groundwater. There lies the looming danger.
Mohamed Daoud of the state-run Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi told Reuters,
“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.”
Even the age old and obsolete irrigation practices aren’t helping. Two-thirds of water consumption in the largest emirate of Abu Dhabi comes from agriculture. Farmers whose wells run dry are given desalinated water at subsidized rates from the government. As the old wells dry up, new ones are dug.
The government in UAE subsidizes most of the energy costs. But as long as the oil wells don’t run dry, it will continue to do so. But cracks are appearing.
Ayesha Sabavala, of London’s Economic Intelligence Unit reflects on the cost.
“The UAE was a net gas exporter before 2008, but now it has become a net gas importer.”
Desalination plants are run mostly on oil and sometimes on oil. Diversion of this finite resource will hit exports on which the oil rich states depend. Add to that the fact that excess water produced by the plants gets dumped back into the sea as there aren’t enough storage tanks to hold them. The cycle of waste gets completed.
There aren’t any immediate solutions in sight. Alternative power sources will take decades to setup. Changes in mindset look difficult to accomplish. The Gulf miracle is in increasing danger of turning into a nightmare.
