The United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) faces several water management challenges, including the scarcity of groundwater reserves, high salinity levels in existing groundwater, the high cost of producing drinking water, limited re-use of water, and limited collection and treatment of wastewater outside the urban areas. With water demand growing annually, the country’s water infrastructure is under significant pressure. There is an increasing need to invest in infrastructure and water efficiency technology to meet the future demand and to avoid a shortfall. However, budget cuts, as a result of falling government revenues due to low oil prices, have affected existing projects resulting in calls for proposals and more innovation. The government is managing the demand by investing in water efficient technology, energy efficient seawater desalination and in education. To address the high cost to the government has reduced subsidies for water and power since January 2015 and increased tariffs in 2016 and 2017.
Published by Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD), Environment 2030 forecasts that both fresh and brackish underground water from U.A.E. aquifer systems will be exhausted within fifty-five years if mitigation measures are not taken. The government has addressed this issue, by using waste treated water to increase the efficiency of water use for irrigation. In 2017, the Abu Dhabi Municipality reported that 76 percent of the water use in landscapes in treated water and plans to have all fresh water replace by treated sewage effluent by the year 2030.
The U.A.E. has one of the highest per capita water consumption rates in the world (550 liters per day). As a result, the government is working to reduce demand by educating youth, reducing cost by eliminating subsidies, storing water in aquifers, regulating groundwater extraction, and investing in new energy efficient sea water desalination. As the main source of drinking water is from desalinization, the capacity is expected to increase steadily over the next few years, contributing 96.5 percent of all water produced by 2019. By 2019, total production is expected to reach 2.19 bn cubic meters of water (up 205 mn on 2015 production projections). Currently, substantially all of the drinking water used in the Emirate is produced through thermal desalination, requiring the combustion of fossil fuel. Measures to find alternative energy-efficient ways to produce drinking water are being explored.
