The country needs to focus on reducing public demand for water rather than simply spending billions of dollars on building more desalination plants, a top government official says.
"Most of the strategies so far have focused on supply," Mohammed Dawoud, the manager of water resources at the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency, said yesterday. "Desalination is very costly. It is not sustainable to simply increase expenditures."
UAE residents use about 550 litres of water each per day, making the country among the world's largest per capita consumers of water. But that water comes at a hefty price.
One cubic metre, or 1,000 litres, costs about US$1.70 (Dh6.24) to produce through desalination, Mr Dawoud said. The UAE's natural potable water resources are the second smallest in the Middle East after Kuwait's.
"We need to increase our demand management system to reduce the amount of investment required for future supply," he said. "Water is not a free good. It is a costly good. We should keep it safe."
Possible ways to reduce demand include using showers that require only 9 litres a minute, compared with the standard 12 litres, and public awareness campaigns to change the behaviour of residents. People who use excessive amounts of water could also be charged tariffs, Mr Dawoud said.
Desalination capacity is expected to rise by 76 per cent by 2016, to 14.1 million cu metres a day, Nomura Securities, the Japanese investment bank, estimated in a report published last month.
This will be driven largely by the rise in industry in Abu Dhabi, which at present only makes up about 1.7 per cent of water consumption.
"We believe the main factor determining future demand for water is likely to be industrial usage," Nomura analysts said in the report. "In most MENA countries it is less than 50 cu metres per capita, substantially lower than the [Group of Eight industrialised countries'] average of 450 cu metres."
The largest consumer of water by far, at between 70 and 82.8 per cent, is agriculture and the irrigation of green spaces and parks, according to estimates from official bodies including the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority.
Mr Dawoud said crop farming was an important area in which demand could be reduced by using large greenhouses, where water could be more efficiently used, rather than watering plants in open fields.
The environmental impacts of increasing the number of desalination plants could also be devastating for the Gulf.
Thermal desalination plants in the UAE require about 10 cu metres of raw seawater to produce one cu metre of drinking water. Two cu metres of brine, a sludge in which salt is highly concentrated, are produced and 7 cu metres are used in the cooling process, Mr Dawoud said.
The country produces about 4.2 billion cu metres of desalinated water per year, a process that creates an estimated 8.4 billion cu metres of brine, which can kill wildlife by increasing the salinity of the sea where it is dumped.
The narrow opening of the Gulf means water is only flushed out completely once every eight or nine years, which is too slow to respond to the rising salinity caused by dumped brine. The damming of rivers in Iran has also slowed down the Gulf's fresh water replenishment.
Mr Dawoud said the conservation of water was ingrained in the Islamic belief that people had a duty to take care of the environment. "We should conserve water as part our religious character. It is critical."
bhope@thenational.ae
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
COMPANY PROFILE
Initial investment: Undisclosed
Investment stage: Series A
Investors: Core42
Current number of staff: 47
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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Price: base / as tested: Dh382,000
Engine: 5.6-litre V8
Gearbox: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 428hp @ 5,800rpm
Torque: 560Nm @ 3,600rpm
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India: Kohli (c), Rahul, Shaw, Agarwal, Pujara, Rahane, Vihari, Pant (wk), Ashwin, Jadeja, Kuldeep, Shami, Umesh, Siraj, Thakur
West Indies: Holder (c), Ambris, Bishoo, Brathwaite, Chase, Dowrich (wk), Gabriel, Hamilton, Hetmyer, Hope, Lewis, Paul, Powell, Roach, Warrican, Joseph
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The five new places of worship
Church of South Indian Parish
St Andrew's Church Mussaffah branch
St Andrew's Church Al Ain branch
St John's Baptist Church, Ruwais
Church of the Virgin Mary and St Paul the Apostle, Ruwais
Our House, Louise Candlish,
Simon & Schuster
RESULT
Arsenal 2
Sokratis Papastathopoulos 45 4'
Eddie Ntkeiah 51'
Portsmouth 0
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
SPECS
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VEZEETA PROFILE
Date started: 2012
Founder: Amir Barsoum
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: HealthTech / MedTech
Size: 300 employees
Funding: $22.6 million (as of September 2018)
Investors: Technology Development Fund, Silicon Badia, Beco Capital, Vostok New Ventures, Endeavour Catalyst, Crescent Enterprises’ CE-Ventures, Saudi Technology Ventures and IFC
THE SPECS
Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
Transmission: seven-speed dual clutch
Power: 710bhp
Torque: 770Nm
Speed: 0-100km/h 2.9 seconds
Top Speed: 340km/h
Price: Dh1,000,885
On sale: now
Specs
Engine: Dual-motor all-wheel-drive electric
Range: Up to 610km
Power: 905hp
Torque: 985Nm
Price: From Dh439,000
Available: Now
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5