Underground water in UAE and Their Quality, Distribution and Their Effects in Plantation - Case Study Example

Underground water in United Arab Emirates Water is one of the significant resources that has fundamental influence on thelivelihoods of people in many parts of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Over centuries, settlement and civilization patters in the U.A.E has been under the influence of water availability and distribution pattern. The arid climate of the U.A.E is the primary cause of many challenges that face the inhabitants of the different part of the Emirates. Similar to other countries in the Arab peninsula, U.A.E face a massive challenge in providing sustainable supply of water for the use in various facets of the economy. The need for water in agriculture, domestic and industrial use remain the primary areas where significant volumes of water are necessary to run the economy of U.A.E not to mention sustaining the livelihood of about 1.4 million people living in U.A.E (Heard-Bey 98). Because of poor quality water in most underground water sources, U.A.E have to contend with desalination of water as show in appendix A. While U.A.E has the least number of rainfall in the, a characteristic of many nations in the Arab Peninsula, the Emirates have the highest number of water use. The amount of water use per-capita in the U.A.E is the highest as compared to any part of the world. Despite the high rate of water use in U.A.E, there demand for water outstrips the supply given that U.A.E has less surface water. The primary source of water in the U.A.E is underground sources, which contribute to meeting the demand of water for domestic, industrial, and agricultural use. The underground water sources provide the highest amount of water from well such as one figure 1 depicts. Even with water quality being low due to salts, underground water remain significant resource. Distribution The U.A.E, made of seven Emirates, has significant deposits of ground water that contributes to the highest source of water across the seven Emirates with no river networks. The distribution of ground water makes it one of the massive natural resources in the country as compared to other sources of water. As compared to other neighboring countries, the U.A.E has many main aquifer systems that are responsible for holding the underground water that U.A.E residents extract from wells and other underground extraction techniques (Heard-Bey 102). While the U.A.E have a varying landform, there are several aquifers. Appendix B shows a representation of the main aquifer system in U.A.E that provide underground water sources. In the U.A.E, the primary aquifer system that determine the distribution of underground water consist of alluvial aquifer system, the Batinah coastal plain aquifer, and the deep carbonate aquifer system. The alluvial aquifer system is made of sand, cobbles boulders, and pebbles and stores underground water of nearly 5,280 x 10 9 cm3. The second aquifer system—the Batinah Coastal Plain Aquifer—consist of course sand, boulders, and gravel. In this aquifer system, well sunk are shallow and allows drawing of water because water levels are high and often above the sea level. The third category of aquifer systems is the deep carbonate aquifer system. This system has thick carbonate rocks that stretch across the southern part of Abu Dhabi. This aquifer demonstrates the characteristics of a system under an artesian condition. Statistics from the U.A.E Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries reveal that all the seven Emirate have close to 76,000 sources of ground water. These wells produce water used for domestic purposes across the U.A.E. The cumulative production of water from these underground well totals to 137.5 Mm3. Most of the underground water sources have an age between 12,000 and 40,000 years pointing to water deposits that have taken long time to accumulate in the aquifers. Across the U.A.E, the main underground sources of water belong to three aquifers, which represent one of the factors that influence the distribution of underground water. Other factors that play a role in determining the distribution of ground water in U.A.E include the leakage of salty water from the aquifers into the fresh water systems, the slopes of the aquifer the influence the rate of water loss, and the number of associated local feeding areas. The feeding areas are zones that replenish the water in aquifers that reduce in volume due to underground seepage, as well as drawing from underground wells. The main distribution patter of underground water in U.A.E aligns with the major rock formation. The first rock formation is the fourth geological age, which is thought to have occurred between 12,000 and 40, 000 years ago. In areas with these rocks, such as Al-Hadid plains, the range or sedimentary sectors are between 20 and 50 meters. The range is about 600 meters in the desert regions where the rock formation holds water. The second rock formation is the occurred during the third geological age. These rocks are present in various parts of U.A.E such as Liwa and Al-Dhafra, which are oases regions (Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage 7). The aquifers in these regions contain fresh water because the feeding point seat in areas that have direct contact with rainwater. In these regions, the aquifer have thickness between 100 and 200 meters. In addition, the same rock formation occur in Al-Dammam, Umm Al-Raduma giving rise to well such as those in Liwa and Al-Wajn. In these regions, the thickness of the sedimentary sectors have a thickness between 260 and 550 meters. Rock formation of the second geological have limited amount of water because they have small depth. This rock formation exist in areas such such Al-Wasi, and Thamama have this rock formation, but the wells here have limited use because they are shallow and cannot store considerable amount of water. Equal important, the formation of the first geological age rock represents the most young rock formation in U.A.E. these rock formation, in areas such as Sir Bani Yas, have the least use because of their shallow depth. The demand for water in the U.A.E has led to overdrawing of water for us in various sectors. The excessive abstraction of water in U.A.E has led to depletion of water that go towards meeting the demand of agriculture where irrigation forms the mainstream of food production (Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage 7). The depletion of water in the U.A.E region stems from the excessive demands for water coupled with slow rate of recharge of underground aquifers. The decline of water levels has led to lowering of water quality as well as allowing intrusion of saline water into underground water reservoirs. The quality of water There is no doubt that U.A.E has large deposits of underground water in various regions. However, the quality of water underground water sources has been declining because of several reasons. The first reasons for the low quality of water in U.A.E has been the depletion of water resources. Because there is high demand for water, most of the U.A.E underground wells have less water than before making it possible for saline water to enter into aquifers (Nouh 32). The issue of depletion thus has made most of the water become saline and less suitable for use. With the intrusion of water into groundwater, most aquifers are now saline and of low quality. In many wells with low quality water, seawater intrusion is the significant contributor for loss of water quality. Uncontrolled disposal of oil-field brine has also led to increase of salinity in many wells in the U.A.E. Between 1964 and 1985, many areas such as Bu Hasa Camp experienced tremendous increase in salinity making the levels of salinity triple. The primary reasons for the increase in salinity has been the disposal of brine in pits close to the regions. Ground water from other regions such as Liwa aquifer indicate that the water no pollution, but water from Miocene clastic aquifer tested with high levels of aromatic compounds. The impact of nitrates on underground water has increase the levels of contamination of water in the U.A.E. The WHO recommend at most 10mg per liter of nitrate-nitrogen in water, but there are areas with high levels of nitrogen. For instance, U.A.E areas such as Wad Al Bih, Madinat Zayed have high levels of nitrate-nitrogen (Nouh 32). The high levels of nitrate-nitrogen in these areas have a close correlation between the areas and the use of nitrogen fertilizers in farming. With many shallow water ground water being near agricultural lands, some of the ground water have high levels of nitrates that has reduced the quality of water in U.A.E. Appendix C indicate the presence of nitrate ion in water per liter across the entire U.A.E. Effect of underground water on plantation Even with the dependence of U.A.E on oil and tourism for revenue, the seven emirates regard agriculture as a primary source of food for its population. For many years, the local inhabitants of U.A.E has practice agriculture using irrigation from surface water and underground water. However, the low quality of water has made plantation less favorable because poor water quality do not promote ambient growth of crops under irrigation (Nouh 36). Even with the scarcity of water, the poor quality water has created the need for desalination process, which is often expensive and not sufficient to meet all the needs for quality water for use in irrigations. Being that agriculture consumes significant volumes of water; the process of desalination has become expensive and has many times placed excess constraints to farming. The economics of applying the desalination process in areas such as U.A.E has brought sharp attention to the impact of poor quality water in areas where such water remain viable sources of water for farming and other domestic use. The ultimate impact of poor quality irrigation water has been on the production of crops. Research work on the impact of saline water on crops in the U.A.E reveal that most irrigation farms using saline water experience a lack of optimal crop growth. Because of saline condition, most of the crops show impairment that delayed of crops. Such impact on the crop production has made some farmers abandon well because of high rates of salinity that constrict farming. With some well become excessively saline, farmers have abandoned such wells in favor for other wells that have small concentration of salts (Al-Ansari 1018). Evidently, there irrigation in U.A.E has come under the influence of negative factors such as increased salinity in areas with wells that have high levels of salts. Works Cited Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. Water Heritage in the UAE. Abu Dhabi, 2012. Al-Ansari FM . Effects of underground saline water of the UAE on seed germination, seedling growth and chemical constituents of Prosopis tamarugo. Pakistan J. Appl. Sci. 2(2002):1018-1021. Nouh, Mamdouh. An Overview for the Water Resources of the United Arab Emirates. Proceedings of the 1st Technical Meeting of Muslim Water Researchers Cooperation (MUWAREC).Malaysia, 2008 Appendix A: Desalination of water for irrigation Appendix B: Main Aquifer system Appendix C: countour map showing nitrate ion in water per liter. Read More