Department of Soils, Water, & Agricultural Engineering
Ministry of Regional Municipalities & Water Resources

“Water for Sustainable Development – Water for the Future We Want”
By:
Dr. Ralf Klingbeil
Regional Adviser Environment and Water, Sustainable Development Policies Division (SDPD),
United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN ESCWA),
Beirut, Lebanon
Phone: +961 1 978508, email: Klingbeil@un.org
Keywords: water, sustainable development, SDGs, Arab Region, MENA
On the occasion of the World Water Day 2015 we are celebrating water: Water and sustainable development - the theme of this year’s World Water Day. We are celebrating water as “the core of sustainable development”, “the key to sustainable development, playing “a central role in creating the future we want”. - “Without water there is no dignity and no escape from poverty.”¹
At global, regional and national levels, water, its availability and accessibility in sufficient quantity and adequate quality has become a central element of concern for any progressive socio-economic development of our societies. Without the sustainable use of water there is no long term sustainable perspective for our development and prosperity.
While our region is currently facing many challenges, the challenge of water for sustainable development has been highlighted since many years and continues to pose one of the biggest obstacles to our longer term development perspectives. Over the years the region has seen enormous technical advancements that allowed developing technologies for groundwater abstraction from deep aquifer reservoirs. Many of these reservoirs have been replenished with fresh water long before current civilizations. Ancient groundwater that has allowed us to develop irrigated agriculture and engage in large scale agro-business developments provides specific economic benefits. Technologies have allowed us to develop desalination in its different forms to increase local water supplies under natural conditions of limited surface and groundwater that did not provide sufficient volumes of fresh water to sustain our ever increasing demands.
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But technical developments came at a price: Large scale abstractions from non-renewable groundwater have led to a substantial drop of groundwater levels over large parts of the region. The abstracted ancient groundwater has been put to direct economic benefit – mostly for few individuals, not necessarily for the society at large. Now it is gone. Foregone opportunities. Emptied like a bank account that our ancestors had invested in for the future of ours.
Could we have used the water, invested the water for wider socio-economic benefits of our societies? What will the future look like when all our water accounts are empty? How sustainable is this? Over the years most of our cities became more and more dependent on a product water; a water produced by desalination plants that consume large amounts of conventional energy, contribute substantially to our individual CO
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footprints and come with other environmental “side effects”. Discharged brines and additives cause severe impacts on our coastal and marine environments. We have made us dependent on centralized desalinated water for domestic water supplies. Today we have serious concerns that algae bloom or other human made interventions might interrupt the intakes of our plants and we may not have sufficient water “in stock” to overcome such periods of shortage or “scarcity”. How sustainable is this?
The presentation will review the current status of water and its multiple contributions to sustainable development with examples from different parts of the region. It will discuss the latest developments in the global process from the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the post-2015 development agenda and the future Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), its targets and indicators with a special focus on challenges related to water resources management, water supply and sanitation.
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¹
United Nations Secretary-General, 2014. Statements by the United Nations Secretary-General on the occasion of World Water Day,
2000-2014. www.un.org/en/events/waterday/2014/sgmessage.shtml
.
“Sustainable Development and Water Quality”
By:
Dr. Jeffrey Layton Ullman
Asst. Professor, Dept. of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, University of Florida
Email: jullman@ufl.edu
While improvements in water quality have been made in many regions, water quality remains a critical issue across the planet. Degradation of water quality threatens drinking water sources around the globe, imparting critical barriers for social and economic development. Even in locations where safe drinking water exists, considerable deterioration of ecological systems threatens fish and wildlife. Thus, it is vital to continue to improve water treatment facilities, promote conservation practices for agriculture and land management, and encourage development of innovative methods to protect water quality. However, the number of potential contaminants is large and growing, making it increasingly difficult to reach water quality goals. Emerging contaminants, such as pharmaceuticals and other trace organic contaminants, make the challenge even more daunting. This talk will discuss water quality issues around the world and highlight some of the research that Dr. Ullman has conducted to better understand contaminant behavior in the environment, as well as the evaluation of different management options that can be employed to promote sustainable development .
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“Sustainable Reuse of Treated Wastewater for Agriculture”
By:
Dr. Ahmed Al-Busaidi and Dr. Mushtaque Ahmed
College of Agricultural & Marine Sciences
Department of Soils, Water and Agricultural Engineering,
Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 34, Al-Khoud123, Muscat, Oman e-mail: ahmed99@squ.edu.om
To cope with the water shortage, it is necessary to adopt water-saving agricultural countermeasures and look for alternative resource that can replace fresh water such as treated wastewater. Usage of wastewater in agriculture is an age-old practice in many North African and Middle East countries. However, there is lack of systematic information on the subject, particularly on issues such as farmer’s needs, preferences and practices related to health and environmental impacts.
This study contributed to the existing knowledge on urban treated wastewater reused for agriculture in selected countries MENA region by identifying means to optimize wastewater reuse by taking into consideration various parameters such as return to farmers, groundwater quality, and impacts on soil and groundwater. The main goal of the project was to minimize the amount of treated wastewater to be thrown away or disposed, maximize the area under irrigation by conjunctive use of groundwater of varying degree of salinity, and maximizing the net return to farmer.
Moreover, the project assessed the current practices of the farmers in agricultural areas where wastewater is reused for crops irrigation and to optimize the reuse in areas where conjunctive use of groundwater is an alternative, while taking into consideration the agronomic, environmental, and economic components. Good data was found when treated wastewater was used without any side effect in soil and plant parameters. Treated wastewater supported plant growth by adding extra nutrients to the soil compared to groundwater. However all tested samples (soil, water and plants) were physically, chemically and biologically analyzed and all of them were found to be within international standards.
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“Water Desalination & Sustainable Development”
By:
Dr. Hasan Abdellatif Hassan
Associate Professor, College of Engineering
Department of Petroleum and Chemical Engineering,
Sultan Qaboos University
Email: hasana@squ.edu.om
Demand for fresh water in the world in general and in the gulf countries in specific is continuously rising. To coop with this rising demand more desalination plants are being built. Sea water is withdrawn and desalinated either by thermal processes (MSF and MED) or via membrane processes (RO). The brine solution containing salt at concentration twice that of the original one along with other chemicals such anti-fouling, antibacterial, and anti-scaling agents are discharged to the sea. This represents a real threat to the sea and its marine life especially in the coastal region. In addition the brine from thermal desalination processes is returned to the sea at high temperature endangering its marine life. This presentation will highlight desalination and its consequences on environment, sea water, and marine life.
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“Water on Life Support”
By:
Dr. Slim Zekri
Associate Professor, Head of Department of Natural Resource Economics,
College of Agricultural & Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University
Email: slim@squ.edu.om
In many parts of the world domestic and urban water is subsidized by public authorities. In Oman urban water users pay only 37% of the cost which reached $5.4/m
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. The current subsidy to fresh water is estimated at $314 million/year, not including the wastewater sub-sector (PAEW, 2011). The sustainability criteria require that rent from non-renewable resources to be totally invested in human made capital and not to be spent on consumption items. Furthermore, the flow of natural renewable resources should be non-declining over time. The presentation proposes a plan to target the subsidy to the low income users and implement a price policy that discourages wasteful use of desalinated water. This could be achieved by a tiered pricing based on economic status and the number of residents in the household. This will result in a monthly individualized household allocation. To discourage wasteful usage, inefficient water users will be charged a price higher than the full cost. The revenue collected from higher tier water users will be invested in promoting water use efficiency programs. The presentation also presents the way to achieve sustainability through reduction, reuse and recycling of water in an urban context such as use of grey water to flush toilets and garden irrigation. Finally, the establishment of a water market between farmers and the water utility should be considered to reduce the need for seawater desalination.
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