Water resources critical factor in Saudi progress
Sunday 14 February 2010 (29 Safar 1431)
Roger Harrison I Arab News


ONE of the tragic ironies of living in a desert is the floods. Ample water to wreak havoc, as it did Nov. 24 last year when it thundered uncontrolled into eastern Jeddah killing scores and wrecking property, yet not enough to sustain life throughout the year. In short, too much water in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Given the climatic conditions, no reliance can be placed on even fairly regular delivery of manageable quantities of rainwater, with the possible exceptions of parts of the Asir highlands in the south-western corner of the Kingdom.

Accessible resources of water are available from the Kingdom’s 11 main aquifers. However, no one knows the volume stored there but two things are known. The rate that water recharges this ancient fossil water is one percent or less than the rate at which it is extracted and that the aquifers are finite.

The Kingdom’s mean annual surface runoff has been estimated at more than 2 billion cubic meters per year. The Kingdom’s aquifers have an estimated combined mean annual recharge of nearly 1 billion cubic meters per year. According to the World Resources Institute the renewable groundwater and surface water resources overlap, i.e. the entire renewable groundwater resources originate in recharge from wadis. This means that total renewable water resources are about 2 BCM/year. Surface resources and renewable aquifers are concentrated in the west and southwest, where rainfall is higher.

Saudi Arabia has one of the highest per capita potable daily water use rates in the world at about 102,000 liters annually or 286 liters daily in 2008. The Kingdom has over 30 government-operated desalination plants and their combined production reached 1.1 BCM by 2007. By the end of 2009, the Kingdom was producing in the order of 1.7 billion cubic meters of water per year making it the largest producer of desalinated water in the world.

Saudi Arabia is growing rapidly, both in terms of population and industrialization. Modern water pumping and irrigation technology together with increased urbanization and agricultural activity, have significantly increased the demand on its water resources. The population in the countries of the Arabian Peninsula almost doubled between 1970 and 1990, from 17.8 to 33.5 million. A UN estimate in 1994 suggested that in Saudi Arabia it was expected to reach 40.4 million by 2025. Currently at about 28 million and with a population increase of about 4 percent per annum, it is currently set for 50.35 million by 2025. That puts tremendous pressure on the existing dwindling water resources and the government to exert control on the demand and supply side of water consumption and production.

A few of the water use figures from the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) secretariat illustrates the point. In 1990, domestic consumption was 1,508 million cubic meters (mcm), Agriculture 14,600 mcm and industrial 192 mcm. Ten years later those numbers had risen to 2,350 mcm, 15,000 mcm and 415 mcm respectively. Agriculture has not increased much. Domestic use though rose more than 55 percent and more than doubled. Based on the population estimate of 40.4 million. ECWSA estimated the consumption by 2025 would be 6,450 mcm domestic, 16,300 mcm agricultural and 1,450 mcm industrial. Population growth figures suggest 50 million plus, not 40 million.

Saudi Arabia then is potentially facing an acute, though use-specific, water shortage.

The largest consumer of water is agriculture at around 90 percent. All of it is either fossil water from aquifers, some wastewater — either raw or minimally processed or runoff and surface water.

Half the Kingdom’s drinking water is desalinated seawater and about 40 percent is from groundwater. The balance comes from surface water (9 percent) and one percent is reclaimed wastewater.

The Kingdom can and is building desalination plants to address drinking and industrial use, but the use of non-renewable resources such as the aquifers will eventually become a major problem if withdrawal continues at the current rate. The ECWSA figures indicate that agricultural use is increasing at a modest rate, but the very fact that the reserves are being used for the production of food that could be imported with no drain on the country’s natural resources is a subject few wish to discuss.

It seems almost inevitable that there will be a restructuring of the balance between domestic/industrial consumption and agricultural use. The former is essential to the development of the Kingdom, creation of jobs for Saudi nationals and generation of new industrial bases such as mining to provide a viable alternative to oil as income. There has long been a national requirement for food security and it was written into the five-year economic plans that were the basis for Saudi development. However, 2025 may well see that changed radically.

One example illustrates the decisions that will have to be taken over the next 15 years or so. The Kingdom has the largest integrated dairy facility in the world, at over 35,000 heads of cattle. It takes about 1000 liters of water to produce 1 liter of milk. Most if not all that water comes from groundwater — a non-renewable resource — and is used to grow the water-hungry fresh fodder for the herd. A hidden element in this process is that most of the irrigation systems used to grow the fodder are spray based. Up to 40 percent of the water leaving the spray never gets to the roots of the plants it is meant to nourish and is lost through evaporation. Thus, the 1000 liter figure is probably very much higher in the climatic conditions of the Kingdom.

Milk can be imported — either as liquid or powder. By importing it, the water that was used to produce it is imported as “virtual water” — that is, it was used outside the Kingdom in an area that is water rich to produce the milk. This releases the Kingdom’s water to find use in industry and for domestic consumption — both of which use far less water, and therefore slow down the extraction rate from aquifers to a level nearer to the recharge rate. In turn, this will extend the life of the natural reserve.

Decisions over water use and distribution of resources are political. However, the physical realities of demography, declining resources and climate change are all going to play a part in the shaping of a new approach to the use of water in Saudi Arabia between now and 2025 and perhaps encourage a reassessment of national policy.


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