Plugging the supply gap

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Children playing in a reservoir in Iraq. Fresh water is at a premium across much of the Arab world.

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Girls jumping into a swimming pool of natural water. Rapid population growth is adding to the pressure on regional water supplies.

"The aim of the AWA is to create professionals to deal with the water-related issues in the Arab world. Water shortage is a major issue in the Arab world as it will increase due to climate change," says Dr Rachael McDonnell, senior scientist at the academy.

McDonnell says the AWA's goal is to tackle the water issues in the region and also to offer courses on water management to develop expertise at a regional level.

But she cautions that making accurate predictions on the effects of climate change in the region was difficult due to lack of data. "Global warming could cause severe water issues in the Middle East. The biggest problem when tackling this issue is the lack of technical data relating to the troubles global warming could create to water resources. Currently only Yemen and Oman are getting more rainfall as a result of changes in the Monsoon system," says McDonnell.

The AWA says it will give education on an executive level to decision makers and professionals, and will act as a platform to conduct research on water-related issues. The academy will compile a database of research on water in the MENA region.

AWA will provide free postgraduate degrees in water-related fields through affiliations in local universities, and it plans to offer graduate field research and organise training programmes for scientists, environmentalists, technologists and policymakers.

The ultimate aim is to develop a scientific workforce to effectively manage the region's water assets. "There are already plenty of people in the region with MBA's. Our plan is to provide short executive education courses to train people in the industry and this will allow us to develop a community of people who know about water problem solving," says McDonnell.

Sustainable solutions

On current trends, with high population growth and increasing levels of development, the gap between supply and demand for water resources will continue to grow, particularly in Saudi Arabia and in the UAE, with issues such as water depletion and deterioration of quality, especially in shallow groundwater aquifers, a growing concern both for consumers and policymakers.

Consequently, the role of desalination in alleviating water shortages was a hot topic at WaterTech.

Desalination technology has developed to a level where it can serve as a reliable source of water at a price comparable to water from conventional sources, as constantly improving technologies are bringing about lower costs, making desalination technology increasingly attractive relative to other alternatives.

But Murad believes that the region needs to set up alternative sources for water rather than just relying on desalination as a slam-dunk solution to all the region's water supply problems. This view was echoed by Mark Sutcliffe, programme assistant at UNESCO, who believes that Middle Eastern countries should put in place emergency water management systems rather than relying on desalination alone.

Sutcliffe says it would be a mistake for the region to put all its eggs in the same basket. He says: "The Masder initiative is a massive undertaking but other projects in the Emirates are not sustainable. The question is how will the authorities manage to meet the water demand if something goes wrong with the desalination?"

"The region does not have conventional water resources to meet the growing demand," he adds.

WaterTech 2008 highlighted the problems facing the region but the delegates present were generally optimistic that solutions will be found, particularly since there is a growing realisation that technologies need to be introduced over the short-term - before the taps in the region really do start to run dry.

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