UAE's fresh water supply drying up

21 April 2010
The natural water resources of the UAE will decrease by 16 per cent in the next decade, requiring the second-largest build-up of desalination plants in the world, a new forecast says.

The UAE's water resources per person are already the second smallest in the Middle East after Kuwait's. But demand is soaring, with the country expected to increase desalination capacity by 76 per cent by 2016, to 14.1 million cubic metres a day, says an estimate by Nomura Securities, the Japanese investment bank.

The UAE's multibillion-dollar expansion of desalination capacity over six years is second only to Saudi Arabia's, and about equal to the combined increase of Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain.

Most of the water consumed in the UAE - 82.8 per cent - is used in agriculture, a practice that experts in the country have criticised. But in the future, industry, which today accounts for only 1.7 per cent of water consumption, could be one of the main users.

"We believe the main factor determining future demand for water is likely to be industrial usage," Nomura analysts said in their outlook. "In most MENA countries it is less than 50 cubic metres per capita, substantially lower than the [Group of 8 countries'] average of 450 cubic metres."

The UAE is investing heavily in water-intensive basic industries including metals and petrochemicals as part of efforts to diversify its economy away from oil exports.

The country is already one of the biggest consumers of water in the world in spite of its scarce resources, with per capita consumption in Abu Dhabi alone at 550 litres a day, according to a study by the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi.

The UAE relies on desalination to supply 98 per cent of its water, Rashid Ahmed bin Fahad, the Minister of Environment and Water said last year.

Nomura's report came after a forecast last month by Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Company that showed water demand in the emirate alone increasing by 70 per cent by 2016 from last year's levels.

Industrial projects will account for 9.9 per cent of the increase, it said.

The country's huge consumption of water was not surprising, given that most of the water is produced as a by-product of heat from the country's power stations, said Hans Altmann, the regional director for Techem, an international metering and water management company.

The cost of building the power stations to keep up with electricity consumption is huge, Mr Altmann said, but the marginal cost of producing water was insignificant.

"If you want to eliminate the root cause of this problem, it's energy and where it's consumed: the air-conditioning," he said. "Due to many things, we don't have any incentives to save water."

But the almost complete reliance on desalination presents additional strategic risks, Mr Altmann said. "The total water reserve in the UAE is only five days. This is well known," he said. "It's a matter of national security."

Abu Dhabi and Dubai have both announced plans to expand water storage.

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