DEAD SEA, Jordan, 3 June 2004 — Saudi Arabia will need a capital investment averaging nearly $2 billion per year for the next 20 years in order to meet projected water demand. This figure assumes a net reduction from 286 liters a day to 250 liters per day consumed per head of population.
Loay Al-Mussallam, deputy minister for planning in the Ministry of Water and Electricity (MOWE), gave the figure during a review of Saudi Arabia’s efforts to bridge the gap between future supply and demand. He outlined the main objectives of the MOWE as providing access to clean water for all at a reasonable price, connection of sanitary services to all households and safe disposal of wastewater to protect the environment and water resources.
Al-Mussallam said that there were considerable challenges to overcome apart from water scarcity. Rapid demographic growth, which he said was at three percent, and a huge investment requirement needed to build a vast infrastructure. Over the next five years, Saudi Arabia will require 4,500 kilometers of new pipeline for freshwater transport and over 22,000 kilometers for wastewater disposal pipes.
Complementing developments in the distribution system for fresh and waste water, Al-Mussallam said there were already efforts to initiate a countrywide conservation program. He saw four areas in which real reductions in water loss could be made. At the public domestic level, reducing leakage in households, issuing free conservation kits — 1.5 million of them — and a public awareness campaign. At the government level, tariff restructuring is under consideration.
Leakages, Al-Mussallam said, at a conservative estimate account for 25 to 35 percent of water loss in Saudi Arabia. “Most of the supply is lost before reaching consumers,” he said, “and a full operational audit will be conducted shortly in four major cities by international organizations.” Private and public partnerships he saw as one way of reducing water loss to the target of 10 to 15 percent. “However, we lack clear figures for unaccounted-for water,” he said.
Giving details of the public awareness campaign, Al-Mussallam said the campaign would be “comprehensive and continuous throughout the year.” The campaign will “raise awareness about high water usage, low tariff and the high cost of production.” Saudi Arabia, he said, has the lowest water tariff and the highest cost of water production in the world. The print and electronic media will be the main carriers of the message, backed up by exhibitions and road shows and even a children’s story books.
“Responding to water demands using the hydrocentric approach alone to solve water security is dangerous,” said Professor J.A. Allen of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies Water research Group. He suggested that in many cases, local problems could be solved by global solutions.
Focusing on the technical and scientific solutions is often overridden by social and political considerations. He identified three areas where effective non-hydrocentric approaches can make real differences to water-scarce economies in demand management: Soil water (water trapped in useable surface soil but too dispersed to pump); “virtual water;” and socio-economic development that allows politically feasible reallocation of water.
“Soil water can be used to grow food but as it can’t be transferred between areas,” he said, “it is hard to put an economic value on it as water.” He said “virtual water” — water used to grow commercial crops in one area and sell and transport to a water scarce area — held few risks for politicians and was profitable and socially invisible. “If one ton of grain that requires 1000 tons of water to grow is transported from a water rich to a water scarce economy,” he said, “then the recipient economy is spared the economic and, more importantly, the political stress of mobilizing 1000 cubic meters of water.”
He thought that all this needed a governmental or policy initiative — not a technical solution involving capital investment. Professor Allan said that in water scarce regions such as the Middle East and North Africa, there was a heavy concentration on productive efficiency but that this was a much lower priority for the outsider. “However, production and distribution efficiency is a No. 1 priority in MENA — it has no apparent political price and is popular.”
