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Saudi Arabia experiences water scarcity issues. To help fight this problem Saudi Arabia has implemented a water management strategy, a desalination plant, to create more freshwater available for use. This plant uses the Red sea and Persian Gulf to create more freshwater for the country. Water scarcity means there is not enough fresh water available to meet the demands of the people and the environment. Here is a smaller breakdown: Physical – There is physically not enough water. Economic – There is a lack of economic capacity, Investment, or there is a lack of technology. Saudi Arabia is located in Southwest Asia and is surrounded mainly by desert with very few pools of water in its mainland (see Figure 1). Because of this environment, Saudi Arabia faces widespread water scarcity.
This also means that many residents have very minimal access to water, are typically on water limits, and are frequently in a drought. One of the causes of the water scarcity issue is the unsustainable pumping of water from underground aquifers for agricultural uses. Because agriculture accounts for 85% of the groundwater it means that the usage of this water is badly managed especially because the groundwater is also the source for household water. Saudi Arabia is the third-largest consumer of water per capita and is one of the largest agricultural producing countries in the world so the water supply gets affected a lot, especially with the added problem of Saudi Arabia’s climate, meaning the water scarcity issue is a lot worse than many other countries that are big water consumers, for an example, see Figure 3 and view the differences between the US and Saudi Arabia even though the US is a larger consumer of water per capita than Saudi Arabia is. Desalination is the process of separating dissolved salts from saltwater or brackish water. Its purpose is to create usable water for human consumption, agriculture, irrigation, etc. To see a quick summary of the process of desalination, see Figure 4.
To discover how effective these Desalination plants are, research will be undertaken to find out factors that will determine its usefulness to the problem, water scarcity. An estimation of 97% of water is salt water and the rest is fresh water. But over ⅔ of the Earth’s freshwater is locked in ice and snow which means less than ⅓ of our freshwater is available to us. Because desalination removes the salt from water for consumability it means more of our freshwater becomes created, so the quality of the water gets improved, and the desalination plant in Saudi Arabia is improving access to water for Saudi Arabians. Desalination negatively affects the environment. For example: pulling water from the ocean can harm marine life by destroying their habitat. Some desalination plants also return the separated salts back into the ocean which makes the water a lot saltier which can damage marine ecosystems by killing marine life that can’t handle really salty water or causing the water to be concentrated and foggy so the sun can’t reach plant life in the water which means food chains end up collapsing. Desalination also requires a high amount of energy so if fossil fuels are used as the energy source there would be an increase of greenhouse gases released into the environment. One of the negatives of desalination is the cost. For a 1 billion dollar desalination plant, it costs approximately $2000 to produce enough water for an average family of five for a whole year. That means if we divide 34.27 million (approximate population of Saudi Arabia which is always increasing) by 5 we get 6854000.
Times that by $2000 and we got $133,708,000,000 for the cost to supply everyone in Saudi Arabia with water. This information cannot be 100% accurate though because water usage differs for certain people like farmers, etc. You also have to take into account how much money it takes to get fuel for the desalination plant. For this to be long term, this water management strategy is quite expensive. Desalination effectively supplies Saudi Arabia with water, even with its downsides like cost and effect on the environment. With improvement to Saudi Arabia’s water management and the running of a high energy using water management strategy, the water scarcity issue may begin to resolve. To further help and improve the water scarcity issues, Saudi Arabia could implement the recycling of wastewater for use as a water strategy as well as desalination, so Saudi Arabia doesn’t have to largely rely on an expensive and environmentally affecting water management strategy.
By recycling wastewater you get benefits such as a cheaper cost, less environmentally harming water management strategy, and is a proven effective strategy. With this implemented as well as Saudi Arabia learning how to better manage their water the water scarcity issue faced may begin to be relieved.
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