Dr.Mohammed Saleh Al.Ansari

Desalination Situation in Gulf Cooperation Council

August 1, 2010

Desalination Situation in Gulf Cooperation Council
Asian Journal of Water, Enviro and Poll, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 11-19
Desalination Situation in Gulf Cooperation Council
Dr Mohammed Saleh Al.Ansari
drmohammedsalehalansari@hotmail.com
Received July 23, 2007; revised and accepted March 22, 2008

Abstract
The imbalance between available water resources and the demand for water, the current desalination practices, and the future of desalination in the Gulf region are discussed. The importance of recycling wastewater for agricultural use is highlighted and the need for further research on MSF technology, in order to bring down costs, is stressed.
Politics and water are nowhere more indissoluble than in the Middle East. Indeed, fictional bestsellers have been written about the likelihood of wars sparked off by very real water shortages. Such expectations have fed the vivid imaginations of writers and politicians alike.   In Hague, a World Wide Symposium to discuss the outcome research on the water issue tackled different hubs and cores that can be briefly summarised as follows:
1. Some 1.2 billion people (about 20% of the world’s total population) lack drinking water.
2. Some 3 billion people (about 50% of the world’s population) do not receive any of the benefits of wastewater treatment facilities.
3. Some 3.4 million people die from infection and disease caused by contaminated water, and half of this number is estimated to be children.
4. The world’s population is expected to increase to 8 billion by the year 2025 (with respect to 6 billion now).  Sixty percent of the population will live in towns and cities with a quota of less than 1700 cubic meters of water per day, and this is the danger line.
5. Some 97.5 % of the water is within the five continents and it is unusable. Of the    remaining 2.5%, two thirds is snow or is frozen as ice and only 0.1 % can actually be utilised.
6. Some 70% of the available water is used for agricultural purposes and 10% is for domestic and industrial use.
7.  Of the available water, domestic and municipal use is expected to increase to 40% and agricultural use by 17%. 
Keywords:
Arabian Gulf, GCC countries, water resources, desalination, wastewater recycling, desalination research,  the Middle East.

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