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Terminal Paper
On
“Water-security challenges in Saudi-Arabia”
International Islamic University Islamabad.
TABLE OF CONTENT
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ABSTRACT: _____________________________________________________ 3
INTRODUCTION: ______________________________________________ 3
LITERATURE REVIEW: ________________________________________ 4
ANALYZING THE SUSTAINABAILITY OF WATER REUSE
ALTERNATIVES: ___________________________________________ 7
RECOMMENDATIONS: ___________________________________ 16
CONCLUSION: ________________________________________ 16
REFERENCES:_______________________________________ 17
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ABSTRACT:
Water is inevitable part of our lives and is a lifeline of a country, it is essential for the country in
fact for individual survival, availability and sustainability of water is essential to satisfy the
continual increase in water demand, however, to meet the water demands countries are relying
and adopting methods that are posing threat directly and indirectly to human survivability as they
are contribute in worsening climate conditions, disturbing the balance of the eco-system, and
food security issues etc. so this paper will highlight the unsustainability and catastrophic nature
of these methods and will provide the sustainable and eco-friendly solution to overcome the
water scarcity challenges facing by Saudi-Arabia.
INTRODUCTION:
The water scarcity is a burning issue of the 21st century, as the water is the perquisite for life, and
is counting among those physical conditions without which life is impossible, but contemporary
situation of the world presents a very hazardous picture of world, the water security condition is
worsening with each passing year posing a great threat to the human survivability. Water scarcity
by definition means the difficulty of access of fresh water, however, around five- six years ago
the amount of the people that are affected by the water scarcity is around between 1.2- 1.7 billion
and this amount is now increased drastically, and it was predicted that in 2025, every 1 in 3
people will be affected by the water scarcity. On the basis of water availability for our own
understanding we can divide the world into two categories, one group includes those countries
the most part of which are consist on deserts, having limited water resources 18 such countries in
the world has been identified having arid or semi-arid type of climate ( dry climate) doesn’t have
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moderate amount of the precipitation (rainfall) located at western coast, in the second category
we put those countries that has sufficient water resources as well as have the moderate amount of
the precipitation, these countries involve the south Asian region countries that are located at
equator, this uneven pattern of rainfall has maintain a balanced wind cycle.
The contemporary issues that related to water scarcity problems enlisted are: the population
(which like a giant snow ball is getting bigger and uncontrollable), secondly, the climate change
mainly because of the industrialization, global warming increased carbon dioxide gas emission,
pollution etc. the states are struggling to manage this problem but the situation still is not under
control but is seen to produced its harmful consequences in other areas of life like the water
scarcity has also contributed to the food security. This paper is going to examine the overall
whole process that contributed to the water scarcity as well as propose the sustainable and
environment friendly solution to the issues Saudi-Arabia is facing.
LITERATURE REVIEW:
The water scarcity is the growing problem and the cause of which is mostly ranges from every
man-made thing, from climate change to poor governance, increasing population growth are all
the contributing factors in the water scarcity.
On a worldwide parameter the water consumption per capita of Saudi- Arabia lies at third
number and to fulfill the growing demand at industrial level, for household use they relied
heavily on the desalination techniques, other water reuse techniques as well as on the non-
renewable ground water, as to carry out the desalination method the fossil fuels is used creating
environmental problem as well as the deplete the non-renewable resources and in order to make
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the process both economical and fuel efficient is to invest on the water management sector as
well as on the sewage system (Kajenthira, Siddiqui & And.comon,2012). But the issue raise
here is the quality of water and the health problem associated with the water cleaned through
such process, however using fossils fuel to for such process results in worsening the climate
changes, the author led emphasis on the increasing on the global temperature which will
automatically increase the precipitation level and such conditions for the already dried states are
devastating (Nicola et al., 2015).
Then another challenge arises because of the water and energy security challenge is the Food
security is an threat arising and the water scarce states the prominent of them Saudi- Arabia has
taken an initiative what they call it as the “virtual- water trade” and the main aim lies behind
pursuing this policy is to lessen the use of the ground water which is used before for agricultural
purposes as well as decreasing the water consumption in producing crops that is used as
livestock food thus minimizing the ground water consumption as well as the author also
emphasize on importing, meat, chicken through virtual trade thus which will automatically
results in a great impact on the minimum water usage, agricultural investments by Saudi in other
countries has meet with the violent riots and authors mention the certain steps on how to
minimize such situation, and feasibility and longevity in food production and water conservation
and this is what Saudi should strive for (Grindle, Siddiqui & Anadon, 2015).
Then ground water consumption increases because of the quality of water, it is estimated that the
around the world the ground water usage is around 800 kilometer cubic annually (Shah et al.
2000), the consumption at this rate is dangerous, and most often the ground water depletion
viewed from the perspective of depletion of the amount of ground water present in an aquifer but
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there is another perspective that is the quality of the ground water and this angle is neglected
mostly (Konikow, Kendy, 2019).
All these conditions want to adopt policies to conserve the water and especially for those
countries located in the arid or semi-arid climate type, like the Saudi-Arabia management of
water is needed a lot, investments on water management system are what most needed as
compared to the find alternatives (Alkolibi, 2002). water scarce country needed to move towards
the adoption of policies regarding management of water so that they will not regret in the future
as well as the same goes for the water sufficient or those states having excess water because the
future climate conditions are very threatening.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK:
Green theory based on the eco-centric approach, according to it the healthy ecosystem is
essential for human survival, and it is bases of the solutions of the Saudi-Arabia’s water-scarcity
concerns as the green theory help us in highlighting the faulty methods that perpetuates cycle of
water-scarcity challenges and help in resolving by putting in order those bits and pieces and
chunks that needs contemplation and that is why it is employeed as the basis of this research
paper.
To validate my argument, I used descriptive (Qualitative) data instead of quantitative data, as the
concerned topic is betterly explain in the light of qualitative data and provide an extensive
understanding and comprehensive analysis to answer the present question in this paper.
The data is incorporated through comprehensive and analytically discourse analysis of secondary
sources i.e., Journal on environmental management, journals on global warming, articles related
to food security and global warming, books,
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Water reuse methods adopted by Saudi is prove quite useful in meeting the water demands but
instead of improvements in this area we witness that water scarcity is worsening with time in
Saudi-Arabia which has a lead in water reuse plants installation as an alternative to meet the
demand and investing heavily on it but what are the causes that keep contributing in the water-
scarcity, below is the question which this research paper will address as we proceed further.
ARE THE ALTERNATIVES ADOPTED BY SAUDI-ARABIA TO MEET WATER
DEMANDS SUSTAINABLE?
ANALYZING THE SUSTAINABAILITY OF WATER REUSE
ALTERNATIVES:
The Saudi-Arabia is the driest country having arid climate with low precipitation excluding the
Asir province the climate of which is influenced by the monsoon, contributed to the about 60%
of the rainfall per year, and extreme hot weather during daytime and cold nights of the country.
Such extreme weather conditions in addition to the growing population at a faster pace has made
difficult the secure water availability as well as the Saudi-Arabia initiatives as of Neom project
such project needs greater amount of water.
The green theory has an eco-centric approach, and according to it the modern practices in the
societies has bring harm to the globe the advancement in technological field and in economics
has brought enormous challenges to the environment and in real to us. Green theory opposes
human domination over nature, it believes that the practices and methodologies employeed by
humans for advancement brings growth at the expense of the environmental health and is bit of a
cycle human damages environment on the name of development and advancement and in reality
endangering its own survival like what we will witness in case of Saudi-Arabia that only focuses
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on fulfilling today’s need at the expense of future, Saudi has launched program to attain self-
sufficiency in the agriculture sector and mostly for irrigation they depend on the shallow ground
water which is depleted with time, because of the excessive use of the ground water, normally
aquifers recharge through rainfalls but when the consumption rate surpass the recharge rate the
aquifer depleted, this is what happened in the case of Saudi-Arabia. And because of the climate
change the most extreme weather conditions Saudi-Arabia is facing, has affected the country’s
rainfall rate decrease the country’s water availability amount, sometimes the ground water
remains of no use because of the inflow of saline water that contaminate the fresh water and so it
is of no use, excessive ground water utilization also causes the land subsidence as the force
responsible for holding the rocks is water and as a result of the excessive extraction of ground
water, no water left to hold the rocks in their position, the real life example of which is the south
western area of the California where excessive extraction of ground water for agriculture
purposes has led towards the land subsidence, the water scarcity automatically has affected on
other sphere activities, and as Saudi is a rich country it is compensating the issue of water
scarcity through adoption of technologies, installing water cleaning plants and has focused and
adopted various water reuse methods and also paying great attention to the water management
system and investing greatly on the infrastructure of the water system, as well as through the
Virtual trade, to lessen the pressure on the water sources of the Saudi and for this purpose they
also get area on other countries to grow those crops like that are used for livestock feed (like
alfa alfa) and other water intensive crops but Saudi has leased land in such countries(like
Arizona, Sudan, Ethiopia etc.) where the climate change has affect the rainfall and also facing
water issues creating another area of concern for Saudi in near future as well as the poor
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Source:” https://www.usgs.gov/special-topic/water-science-school/science/land-subsidence?qt-
science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects”
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governance is one of the biggest problems in the water scarcity and question now arose on the
sustainability of the methods employeed by the Saudi-Arabia.
Among the other methods there is a dominating method Saudi-Arabia heavily relied on, that is
desalination that is a very costly method and contentious, the desalination can be done through
two ways: through thermal desalination (traditional method) and the other is Reverse osmosis
(as shown in the figure mentioned below), but why these alternatives to fulfill the water demands
are not sustainable, there are number of reasons. In thermal desalination the sea water is being
heat up through some energy source as a result the water vapors formed then these water vapors
are cool down and condensed into the fresh water (Aral et al., 2011) but this process has led huge
burden on the country both in environment and economic terms, in economic terms because of
this process high energy requirements, as it is depends on which type of energy source is being
used, the source of energy that is mostly used for this process like in case of Saudi it is the fossils
fuel (a non-renewable energy source) that is used to produce the energy to run the thermal
desalination process, the unregulated exploitation of which is going to produced huge economic
concerns for Saudi in near future, and on environmental front because of this desalination the
huge amount of the carbon dioxide is being produced which is estimated to further increase in
the upcoming years and this increased level of carbon dioxide causes the global warming as the
carbon dioxide act like a thick blanket in the earth’s atmosphere entrap the heat waves inside the
earth coming from the sun to earth, leading to increase the earth’s temperature so what are the
dangerous consequences of the increase temperature, the one of most important is the
disturbance of the normal water cycle, as the temperature rises the precipitation level decreases,
and evaporation rate increase making recharge of aquifer difficult, and secondly the glaciers
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melting, because of the increased temperature the ratio of the glaciers melting surpasses the ratio
of the snow fall or rainfall through which the balance is maintains, causes rise in the sea level
and this rise in the sea level will affect the fresh ground water availability as the increase in the
sea level causes the
Source: “https://puretecwater.com/reverse-osmosis/what-is-reverse-osmosis”
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Source:”
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330180828_FABRICATION_OF_SALTWATER_EVAP
ORATION_SYSTEM_In_Fulfilment_of_the_Requirements_of_the_Subject_ME_425-
Methods_of_Research_in_Mechanical_Engineering_Prepared_By/figures?lo=1”
saline water inflow into the freshwater aquifers left it of no use as the freshwater aquifer is now
contaminate with the saline water and so cannot be used for agricultural purposes, drinking
purpose etc.
Another disadvantage of this thermal desalination is the huge amount of brine produce as a by-
product through this process, proper disposal of this brine (highly concentrated salt solution),
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usually brine is disposed back into the sea water increases the salt amount in the sea, as the brine
is denser than sea water it usually sinks in the bottom, and it causes the rapid decrease in the
oxygen level serve as a threat to the marine life.
The another way of desalination is the Reverse Osmosis, but before discussing about the reverse
osmosis, we need to understand the Osmosis first, it is a naturally occurring process in which a
solution with less concentration of solute tend to move towards the solution containing higher
concentration of the solute through semi permeable membrane that allows some of the molecules
and atoms to pass, this process occurs in plant, in human kidney etc. the same method is used for
water purification with little changes in its procedure, in Reverse osmosis the water with higher
concentration of solute by applying pressure (and for this pressure again energy source is used
the source of which is fossils fuel mostly) is moved towards the solution with low concentration
of solute through semi-permeable membrane results in decrease contamination level and water is
pure and ready for reuse. The main drop back in this method is the inability of this process is to
make it free from the chemicals that are organic in nature including various solvents and dissolve
gases, pesticides.
Another problem with these desalination plants as they are contributing mainly in global
warming is the production of blue-green algae (commonly known as cyanobacteria), as blue-
green algae love warm temperature and the contemporary climate condition (which are further
exacerbated by the fossils fuel consumption) provide them favorable conditions for the
production, and blue-green algae usually forms colonies in the fresh water, one of the
disadvantages beside destroying the water organisms as they utilize oxygen, shut off the sunlight
and they can choke the water pumps of the desalination plants. Blue-green algae produce deadly
poisons and as they are easily grow in the water treatment plants, if ingested by the humans they
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can produce poison that can badly affect the lungs, liver, brain causing diseases the remedy of
which is not available yet, so making the maintenance of these treatment plants costly as well
generating deadly health concerns, there are methods (which are biological and chemical
methods) introduce to control the production of these blue-green algae but are very costly and
has limitation as these methods cannot be utilize in the large waterbodies. But through nano
particles (specifically comprise of carbon and metal nano particles) blue-green algae can be
destroyed.
Water reuse processes is highly used to deal with water scarcity in the Saudi-Arabia, but the
unsustainability of the methods adopted for the water reuse and non-eco-friendly nature of these
processes are further exacerbating the problem, Saudi water needs are fulfilled through water
reuse processes (in case of Saudi it is desalination as country heavily dependent on it).
So, there is a need of sustainable water reuse method as current practices will never going to
provide sustainability because damaging consequences on environment through these methods
the Saudi-Arabia is cultivating at the expense of environmental damage, green theory advocates
that it is possible to maintain both economic growth as well as environmental protection and so
“SOLAR DOME” can be used an advance method for water desalination, this solar dome is
made up of the glass, having height of 25 meters, the water from the sea is transferred through
glass pipe into the dome, water through its flow along the pipe absorbs sunlight (uses sunlight as
a source of energy) and when entered into the dome, an array of parabolic mirrors directs the
solar rays onto the dome, this then heated the sea water in the dome, water then evaporates,
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highly pressurized steam is then allow to flow and condenses into fresh water, which is then
channel to reservoirs and irrigation channels, this solar dome has capacity to produce the 30,000
cubic meters approximately per hour, this method is not only economically friendly, but also
environment friendly as it is one-hundred percent carbon free, as far as the brine is concern it
contain substances that are of good used like in lithium ion batteries, in grit for roads, in
detergents, fertilizers etc.
Water management techniques which are very essential for irrigation, the installation of drip and
sprinkler irrigation, land leveling and proper lining of canals, as water reuse processes and water
conservation both are needed to counter the water scarcity problem.
FINDINGS:
• The water reuse methods adopted by Saudi- Arabia are not sustainable as the process
have harmful consequences that are threatening to the human survivability as these
methods keeps perpetuating the vicious cycle that has devastating effects on humans and
on nature.
• There is a need to change the water reuse methods having carbon free nature so that it did
not contribute to further deteriorating the climate conditions (eco-friendly water reuse
methods).
• Good governance is what needed most.
• Management of ground water is essential, and investment on infrastructure of water-
management system is needed.
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• unawareness on this issue is what that has led the situation to such a point.
• Stop the plantation of crops and tress that require great amount of water like avocado etc.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
There are other steps that Saudi-Arabia and other water scarce states needs to focus on while
dealing with water scarcity.
• The awareness regarding water- scarcity is very essential.
• Commercialization of water is essential so that the water cannot be waste.
• The off- grid water from the air by using sunlight can be an effective alternative that
individuals in the society can used for their fresh water supply.
CONCLUSION:
Humans want to grow infinitely, without knowing that at what cost. Just like in case of
Saudi-Arabia for the continued survival and for the growth they have relied on the methods (
unsustainable and non-eco-friendly in nature) that are contributing in their own destruction
by keeping this vicious cycle perpetuate, and such practices has been witnessed around the
world in many countries that relies on such damaging methods to meet their demands that are
threating to their own survival as the healthy and balance ecosystem is what essential for the
healthy human life, humans are connected with ecosystem, but at international and domestic
level we observe the lack of awareness, ineffective efforts and lack of coordination on this
issue as the global environmental problems like one mentioned in the paper water scarcity is
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not limited to Saudi-Arabia, majority of the states facing the same issue and in some the
situation is quite deadly so such problem needs the global solution.
REFERENCES:
• Kajenthira, A., Siddiqi, A., & Anadon, L. D. (2012). A new case for promoting
WASTEWATER reuse in Saudi ARABIA: Bringing energy into the WATER
EQUATION. Journal of Environmental Management, 102, 184-192. doi:
10.1016/j.jenvman.2011.09.02.
• Nicola, E. D., Aburizaiza, O. S., Siddique, A., Khawaja, H., & Carpenter, D. O. (2015,
May/June). Climate change and water scarcity: The case of Saudi Arabia [Review of
book Annals of global health]. Annals of Global Health, 81, No.3(2214-9996), 342-353.
Retrieved May 4, 2021, from file:///C:/Users/co0ol/Downloads/1-s2.0-
S2214999615012217-main.pdf.
• Kajenthira Grindle, A., Siddiqi, A., & Anadon, L. D. (2015). Food security AMIDST
water scarcity: Insights on sustainable food production from Saudi Arabia. Sustainable
Production and Consumption, 2, 67-78. doi: 10.1016/j.spc.2015.06.002.
• Konikow, L. F., & Kendy, E. (2019). Ground water depletion: A Global problem.
Ground Water Depletion: A Global Problem, 317-320. doi:10.1007/s10040-004-0411-8
• Alkolibi, F. (n.d.). Possible effects of global warming on agriculture and water resources
in Saudi Arabia: Impacts and responses. Retrieved May 08, 2021, from
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1015777403153.
• Baba, A., & Baba, A. (2011). Climate Change and its Effects on Water Resources: Issues
of National and Global Security. Springer.
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