Strategic Water Reserve: New Approach for Old Concept in GCC Countries

Abstract

1. General background In the last three decades, rapid population growth and accelerated socioeconomic development in the GCC countries were associated with a substantial increase in water demands, which have escalated from less than 5 billion cubic meter in 1970 to about 26.778 billion cubic meter in 2005. These demands have been driven mainly by agricultural consumptions and by rapid urban expansion. Efficient sustainable and integrated development and management of water resources requires water policy reforms with emphasis on supply and demand management measures and improvement of the legal and institutional provisions. Due to the deterioration of non renewable aquifers, all GCC countries rely on the desalinated water as a main source for domestic water supply. It has been argued that the best long-term solution for the water crises in the domestic sector is to build a network of large-scale desalination plants. The problem facing the GCC countries is the vulnerability of desalination plants to pollution and emergency conditions. The maximum stored water in the ground reservoirs and distribution network is enough only for 24 hours except Sudia Arabia and Kuwait, which is 3 and 5 days respectively as shown in Figure (1). So, in any crises or emergency condition the stored water will not be enough to cover the demand. Also, the production of desalination plants is constant and the demand is not constant. Figure 1; Storage capacity for emergency water in GCC countries.

Full text

1
Strategic Water Reserve: New Approach for Old Concept in GCC Countries
Dr. Mohamed A. Dawoud
Manager, Water Resources Department, Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi, P.O. Box 45553, Email:
mdawoud@ead.ae
1. General background
In the last three decades, rapid population growth and accelerated socioeconomic
development in the GCC countries were associated with a substantial increase in water
demands, which have escalated from less than 5 billion cubic meter in 1970 to about
26.778 billion cubic meter in 2005. These demands have been driven mainly by
agricultural consumptions and by rapid urban expansion. Efficient sustainable and
integrated development and management of water resources requires water policy
reforms with emphasis on supply and demand management measures and
improvement of the legal and institutional provisions.
Due to the deterioration of non renewable aquifers, all GCC countries rely on the
desalinated water as a main source for domestic water supply. It has been argued that
the best long-term solution for the water crises in the domestic sector is to build a
network of large-scale desalination plants. The problem facing the GCC countries is the
vulnerability of desalination plants to pollution and emergency conditions. The maximum
stored water in the ground reservoirs and distribution network is enough only for 24
hours except Sudia Arabia and Kuwait, which is 3 and 5 days respectively as shown in
Figure (1). So, in any crises or emergency condition the stored water will not be enough
to cover the demand. Also, the production of desalination plants is constant and the
demand is not constant.
Figure 1; Storage capacity for emergency water in GCC countries.
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
Kuwait Qatar Bahrain Sudia
Arabia United Arab
Emirates
Reserve (Days)
The possible alternatives for reserving fresh water sources for emergency and peak
demand conditions are 1) to increase ground reservoirs and distribution network storage
capacity or 2) using groundwater aquifer storage and recovery system (ASR). It has

2
proved that increasing the capacity of the ground reservoirs and network is very
expensive and not environmental friendly. One of the good solutions is to store this
water in the groundwater aquifers.
Unlike surface ground reservoirs, the water can not be reserved for more than 48 hours,
otherwise it will become stagnant water and not suitable for domestic use. ASR systems
allow for multi-year storage keeping water protected in good quality. Usually, wells can
be located where most needed and because wells require little land, the costs of large
land acquisitions are avoided. Moreover, large water volumes can be stored
underground, decreasing the need for surface reservoirs construction with no
environmental effects when compared with surface reservoirs.
2. What is Aquifer Storage and Recovery?
ASR is a proven way to safely store excess water underground when it is available, and
recover that water for use when supplies are short. For fuller utilization of desalinated
water, and hence further cost reduction, greater water storage capacity is required. To
this end, aquifer storage recovery (ASR) could be used. This is a system that has been
in use in the USA since 1984. It has been developed to improve the use of water supply
and water treatment facilities. The system involves the use of injection wells for the
underground storage of treated drinking water in a suitable aquifer when the capacity of
water supply facilities exceeds the demand, and its subsequent recovery from the same
well to meet seasonal, peak, emergency or long-term demand as shown in Figure (2).
ASR may be used to store surplus water in this way. Also where electricity from a dual-
purpose plant is in low demand ASR can be used to inject desalinated water into the
aquifer as shown in Figure (3). Such seasonal storage may amount to millions of cubic
meters through a single well, compared to a few hundred stored in conventional ground
or elevated storage tanks to meet demand variation. Aquifer storage recover is low cost
where a suitable aquifer is available, since land requirements are minimal.
Figure 2: Aquifer storage and recovery system.

3
Figure 3: Typical aquifer storage and recovery operating schedule.
It has been shown that by making more efficient use of existing water supply systems,
ASR can reduce capital costs by 50% to 90%. However, this system has not yet been
used on wide range within GCC countries, although it has been tested in Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Oman. In each of these countries it has been planned
in conjunction with desalination facilities to provide a strategic water reserve for
emergency supplies while also meeting other secondary objectives such as seasonal
peak demands, recharging brackish water reserves, and salinity intrusion control. In
June 1993 there were approximately 60 ASR projects in operation or under
development in the USA. Treatment of the recovered water is generally unnecessary
apart from disinfection. There is some evidence that ASR results in the elimination of
the undesirable by-products of chlorination.
3. GCC countries experience in ASR
The concept of strategic water reserve in GCC countries is not new. Artificial recharge
for the groundwater aquifer system was first tried in Kuwait by Parsons in 1964. A
recharge basin in Rawdhatain depression was used to collect the surface run-off during
the occasional rainstorm and then seeped to aquifer system by gravity. Another test in
the same place was carried out during 1972-1973 by injecting desalinated water in two
wells for 27 days. Further efforts wad done in mid 1990’s to investigate the potentiality
of inject the fresh water in Dammam limestone formation in Sulabiya. 4.3 Million Gallon
was injected during a period of 30 days. The results were not conclusive and suggested
limited storage and recovery potential.
IN United Arab Emirates (UAE), the first proposal was submitted to the government by
the United State Geological Survey (USGS) and National Drilling Company (NDC) in

4
1998 to. It was proposed to inject 220,000 Gallon a day for 200 days in the Eastern
Region near Al Ain City. The proposal was not accepted due to the cost and limitation of
the availability of fresh water. A pilot test has been carried out in the western region
near Madient Zayed, started in 2002, to inject 2.5 million gallons a day of desalinated
water through five injection wells and infiltration basin. On the other hand, in 2003, after
the construction of pipeline for Qedfaa desalination plant in Fujairah, a detailed
feasibility study was done and a pilot test carried out in Al Shwieb area. Both pilot
projects proven an efficiency of about 85%.
In Qatar, a feasibility study for large scale artificial recharge schemes was to evaluate
the injection of desalination water in Rus and Umm er-Radhuma formation during 1992-
1994. The study concluded the potentiality of building up groundwater reserves in both
aquifer systems.
3. Abu Dhabi Emirate Case Study
3.1 The present storage Capacity for Emergency
Abu Dhabi Emirate many relay on the desalinated seawater/brackish groundwater as
main sources for domestic supply. The total present desalination capacity is about 635
MIGD as shown in Figure (4). Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority (ADWEA),
which is responsible for providing water and electricity for the emirate, uses many
desalination techniques to produce water including Multi Effect Distillers (MED),
Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Multi Stage Flash (MSF). The main technology used is
thermal desalination using MSF because it is a very efficient system that produces high
quality water (2–150 mg/l TDS) in large quantities and has a low risk of bacterial or
pathogenic contamination. At each desalination plant, there are water storage tanks for
back-up use. The size of potable fresh water tanks at the desalination plants varies from
0.2–0.4 Mm3. The total amount of storage at all plants is 1.51 Mm3 which is less than
one day’s production as illustrated in Table (1). The arid climate in the emirate results in
increased consumption in the summer months. Production reflects this increased
summer demand. In the winter months of January and February, production declined
slightly and then gradually increased through the spring months of March and April.
Production for the hottest summer season from May through August shows another
gradual increase. Thereafter, the production attained constancy until the end of
December.
Table 1: Present Storage Capacity (2007).
Company Storage capacity (Mm3)
Umm Al Nar Power Company 0.45
Bainounah Power Company 0.14
Al Mirfa Power Company 0.11
Emirates CMS Power Company 0.23
Gulf Total Tractable Power Company 0.32
Al Taweelah Power Company 0.23

5
Figure 4: Daily Abu Dhabi Desalination Capacity.
39 MGD
15 MGD
630 MGD
101
MGD
TOTAL
Abu Dhabi
Dubai
Al Ain
UAN
ADPS
Mirfa
Shuweihat
Lulu Islan
d
Units I & II Unit IV Wathba
ShoubaisiRamah
Dhabiya
Abu Al
Ab
y
a
d
Tarif
IPS-1
Madinat Za
y
e
d
Liwa
Wa
g
an
A
j
ban
Jurf
Sila
PS1
PS2
Al-Maha
Wathba
Palace
Samih
S Shoib
S B Yass
G A
y
esh
Air
p
or
t
Jebel
14
5
M
G
D
228
MGD
Taweelah
UWEC
Hill To
p
Gha
y
athi
Adla
102
MGD
F
ebruary 12, 2006
Mussaffah
Al-Saa
d
Unit III
Sweihan
1
16
60
00
0
m
mm
m
1
14
40
00
0
m
mm
m
1
12
20
00
0
m
mm
m
1
10
00
00
0
m
mm
m
9
90
00
0
m
mm
m
8
80
00
0
m
mm
m
6
60
00
0
m
mm
m
5
50
00
0
m
mm
m
P
Pu
um
mp
pi
in
ng
g
S
St
ta
at
ti
io
on
n
(
(P
PS
S)
)
D
De
es
sa
al
li
in
na
at
ti
io
on
n
P
Pl
la
an
nt
t
P
Pr
ro
op
po
os
se
ed
d
P
PS
S
U
Un
nd
de
er
r
C
Co
on
ns
st
tr
ru
uc
ct
ti
io
on
n
/
/
P
Pr
ro
op
po
os
se
ed
d

6
During the peak summer season, all the water that is produced is directly consumed,
but in winter there is excess production. This excess is used for the irrigation of
landscaping in public spaces throughout the Abu Dhabi Emirate (Shams El Din et al.
1997). An alternative would be to store this excess water in aquifers during the winter
months and recover it when needed. To maintain an uninterrupted supply during times
of emergency (natural disasters, industrial accidents, war and other crises), the emirate
needs to have long-term storage capacity equivalent to at least 1 year’s fresh water
demand. Two sites were selected and two pilot projects ware carried out starting 2002.
The first one is in Al Shweib in Eastern Region and the other is in the Western Region
as shown in Figure (5).
In the eastern region project water from Qedfaa plant was injected in the shallow alluvial
aquifer system. The results of the study indicate that ASR is a viable alternative for
augmenting the depleted aquifer (Dawoud 2007). The second project was located west
of the highway between Madinat Zayed and Meziyrah. It was designed for an infiltration
capacity of 500 m3/h and recovery capacity of 750 m3/h. A shallow to medium-deep
aquifer north of the Liwa Crescent was selected as the study area for the following
reasons: (1) existence of a large natural fresh groundwater lens (salinity less than 1,500
ppm, partly meeting the TDS-limit of the international World Health Organization
drinking water standard (1,000 ppm), (2) sufficient lateral extension and aquifer
thickness, (3) sufficient depth of groundwater table, (4) relatively homogenous lithology,
(5) far from already existing well fields and (6) favorable hydrochemical conditions. This
study has clearly shown that the recharge of desalinated water into and efficient
recovery from an existing freshwater aquifer are feasible on a large scale (GTZ 2002).
4. Conclusions and Recommendations
All GCC countries relay on the desalinated water as a main source for domestic water
supply. The maximum capacity of emergency reserve in the surface ground reservoirs
and distribution network ranges between 5 to 2 days. This storage can not cover long
period crises and increasing the storage capacity using surface reservoirs is costly and
not environmental friendly. Groundwater storage using the artificial recharge technique
is a promising tool for strategic water reserve in all GCC countries. Storing the fresh
water in groundwater aquifers is more save and more reliable and fixable for use in
terms of time and location. It is recommended to carry out more extensive studies to
evaluate the feasibility of artificial recharge schemes.

7
Figure 5: Location of two ASR projects in Abu Dhabi Emirate.