Contact us
[email protected] | |
3275638434 | |
Paper Publishing WeChat |
Useful Links
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Article
Water Demand Management Is a Must in MENA Countries… But Is It Enough?
Author(s)
Wael Mualla
Full-Text PDF XML 672 Views
DOI:10.17265/2328-2193/2018.02.002
Affiliation(s)
The Department of Civil Engineering, School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society, Heriot-Watt University, Dubai Branch, UAE
ABSTRACT
The majority of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries suffer from chronic imbalance between available water
supply and rising water demand. This imbalance is expected to worsen even further in the future as a result of sharp
population growth, rapid economic
development and climate change, unless major positive measures are implemented to augment water supply and manage water demand.
The supply management approach, on its own, practiced by many
countries in the region for so many years has so far demonstrated its inability
to bridge the “water gap” between available
water resources and rising water demand, as most traditional water resourced in
almost all MENA countries have been exploited (or over exploited), and the cost
of non-traditional water resources has become increasingly prohibitively high,
apart from its environmental impact. Demand management is regarded by many water experts in the region as the
answer or “panacea” for the water
imbalance problem. But, is demand management approach alone able to solve the
problem of water scarcity in the MENA region? In other words, if all demand
management measures have been fully implemented, would there still be gaps
between supply and demand that need to be filled with supply augmentation, andwill supply
management options still need to be part
of the solution? This paper tries to answer this question by reviewing several
works in this domain, particularly, recent studies by the World Bank [9-11].
It was concluded that, although water demand management measures should be
given the first priority, especially, in the agricultural sector where it has
the maximum impact, demand management on its own will not be able to bridge the
“water gap”, and supply
management options, such as sea water desalination and the re-use of treated
wastewater, will be part of the solution.
KEYWORDS
MENA countries, demand management, water scarcity, water gap.
Cite this paper
References