Characterizing water resources and trends of sector wise water consumptions in Saudi Arabia

Shakhawat Chowdhury*, Muhammad Al-Zahrani

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

121 Scopus citations

Abstract

Understanding of water resources and trends of water consumptions is important to offer sustainable water resources management strategy. In this research, water resources and trends of water consumptions in Saudi Arabia were investigated. The non-renewable groundwater reserves were estimated to be 259.1–760.6 billion cubic meters (BCM) with an effective annual recharge of 886 million cubic meters (MCM). The total internal renewable water was estimated to be 2.4 BCM/year. Approximately 1.4 BCM/year of runoff is collected by 302 dams. The country produces approximately 1.06 BCM desalinated water annually. The wastewater treatment plants treat approximately 0.73 BCM/year of domestic wastewater from which 0.33 BCM is recycled. The water demand in 2009 was 18.51 BCM in which 83.5% were for agriculture. From 2004 to 2009, agricultural water demand was decreased by 2.5%/year, while the domestic and industrial water demands were increased by 2.1%/year and 2.2%/year, respectively. Between 1999 and 2008, domestic water subscribers were increased by 22.7%, while the annual domestic water consumption was increased from 1391 (609–2164) to 3818 (1687–7404) m3/subscriber. The industrial water demands were increased from 56 to 713 MCM/year between 1980 and 2009. Following characterization, nonlinear equations were developed to predict the domestic, industrial and agricultural water demands. The predicted water demands were within 1–10% of the historically reported values. The findings might be useful in understanding water sources, water demands and identifying new sources for sustainable water resources management.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)68-82
Number of pages15
JournalJournal of King Saud University, Engineering Sciences
Volume27
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 2015

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2013

Keywords

  • Trends of water use
  • Water demands
  • Water resources
  • Water resources management

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
  • Materials Science (miscellaneous)
  • Fuel Technology
  • Fluid Flow and Transfer Processes
  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

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