Water Provision Options Qatar - Book Report/Review Example

 Introduction: Although a litany of resources often spring to mind when one considers the needs humans have. The need of transportation requires fuel which in turn requires oil. The need for shelter requires building material which in turn requires material. The need for sustenance requires a well balanced diet; requiring food sources from around the globe. However, the most basic and fundamental building block of human life is of course water. As such, the burgeoning human population, loss of natural environments, and desertification that is taking place around the globe all have a profound impact upon the availability and quality of the water resources that can be leveraged (Zeng et al., n.d.). This particular analysis will be concentric upon comparing to water provision methods in an otherwise arid continent; Qatar. It is the hope of this author that be detailing the strengths and weaknesses of two approaches to water provision, the most appropriate, efficient, reasonable, and cost efficient means can be integrated as a means of providing the population with access to the most basic and fundamental resources required for life; liquid water. Information Concerning Water Provision With regards to the lack of water that the continent of Qatar currently must integrate with, the reader should understand the following points: Qatar exhibits the lowest overall level of rainfall of any of the 7 continents Qatarns exhibit some of the highest per capita water usage rates in the entire world Global climate change threatens to cut future rainfall even furtherin Qatar More specifically, with regards to the total per capita water usage that the average Qatar exhibits, studies indicate that this is in excess of 120 liters per day. As compared with over 66% of the rest of the world that uses 60 liters or less in any given day, this is a two fold increase per capita; thereby representing something of an insatiable demand for a scarce resource that is only growing scarcer. Moreover, when one looks at the current water storage facilities that exist within the major metropolitan cities of Qatar, these storage facilities are only operating at around 30-40% capacity; denoting the fact that the ability to store and retain water is negated by the incessant demands of the populace. This of course denotes the need for conservation as well as finding, utilizing, and exploiting further hydro resources within the continent. Background Although it may seem convenient to approach the water resource shortage in Qatar from purely a regional perspective, the fact of the matter is that water shortages, as well as overall purity of these water resources, is an issue that globally effects 780 million people. As has briefly been discussed within the introduction and regional information overview, two factors that continue to have a profound and noticeable effect on the existence of water shortage issues is the growth of the world’s population in tandem with the changes to precipitation that global climate change have affected. Due to the fact that many previously populated regions of the world have experienced a great degree of desertification, the extent to which the natural environment can continue to provide the ever increasing demands of the native population comes into question. Environmentalists and researchers are in agreement that unless fundamental changes are made with regards to the way the world’s water resources are utilized, within the next few decades the access to water will become a far greater issue than it is currently. Presentation of options As a means of ameliorating the regional/continental water shortage issues that are exhibited within the continent of Qatar, this author will recommend two specific and actionable options. Option 1: Tapping into ancient underground aquifers as a means of supplying the ever-increasing demand that has thus far been noted within the analysis (Mubako et al., 2013). Option 2: Utilizing Qatar’s vast coastline as a means of building and leveraging desalination plants. Requirement of options Each requirement is discussed in relation to the region including evidence (Why each requirement is important to that region) Cost Naturally, option 1 will represent the lower cost as all that is required is to perform a thorough GIS analysis of the subterranean landscape and locate the aquifers that are the most logical to leverage. As such, the economic cost of this first option would be concentric upon the piping, drilling, and integration of this network into the existing network. Option 2 however represents a much higher economic cost. This is due to the fact that the desalinization plants will need to be licensed, constructed, staffed, and brought online with the existing water provision system as well as the existing power system (Cooper et al, 2012). Moreover, the economic costs of such an endeavor go far beyond the creation of the desalinization plants themselves. Due to the fact that the process of desalinization requires an extraordinarily high level of electrical energy, the economic costs and toll upon the existing power system will be massive (Varghese et al., 2013). Environment With regards to the environmental impacts, option 1 has something of an irreversible effect on the manner in which these underground aquifers will be exhibited within the future. Due to the fact that almost all of the underground aquifers that are available to be tapped within Qatar can be defined as ancient water aquifers, these do not readily replenish themselves and once exhausted can take centuries or millennia of unmolested time in order to reconstitute (Saidi, 2011). As such, option 1 has a high environmental impact with regards to the existence of such aquifers well into the future if they are indeed tapped to a high level. Likewise, the environmental impacts of option 2 are concentric upon the environmental impact of constructing the desalinization plants as well as the environmental impacts realized by a rapid increase and/or spike in electrical energy needs that the system will need to integrate with. However, as compared to option 1, option 2 has the potential to continue to generate water at an undiminished rate over time (Biswas, 2009). This demand for a far greater supply of electrical energy that would be required to power these plants also has a negative environmental cost due to the fact that electrical production is inherently tied to CO2 generation and or the use of nuclear fuel to power the reactors that ultimately produce the power that would be used for the desalinization process. As such, when one traces the environmental costs of the desalinization process to its root end, other factors are discovered which must be weighed (Ying, 2008). Comparison of options As can be seen from the preceding information surrounding both of these options, it can be understood that a range drawbacks exist from both perspectives. However, with comparison to option 1, option 2 offers a more sustainable and long-lived approach to seeking to ameliorate the water usage needs of a growing and expanding society/continent without threatening to inalterably impact upon the existence and volume of ancient aquifers. Cost Naturally, although he economic costs of option 1 may initially be lower than the overall economic costs of option 2, the reader can and should integrate with the understanding that option 1 only offers something of a temporary fix; albeit one that may take several decades to fully deplete. As a result of this, even though the initial cost of option 2 are greater, these may be covered in the long term as option 1 would require continual investment to relocate the wells and drilling apparatus to new locations (Cooper et al, 2012). Environment With regards to environmental costs, it is the understanding of this author that both option 1 and option 2 have distinct and measurable negative environmental impacts. The negative impacts of option 1 are realized over time whereas the negative impacts of option 2 are instantly realized by means of the environmental destruction that is realized by the construction of the desalinization plants. Recommendation From the preceding analysis that has been reviewed, it can definitively be seen that option 2 represents the best choice. This is due to the sustainable nature of such an activity as well as the fact that the continent of Qatar necessarily has a much larger access to the resource of the coastline as compared to the resource of ancient aquifers from which to draw hydro resources. Conclusion- Ultimately, it is the belief of this author that a nation such as Qatar will experience the affects of key water shortages within the very near future. Luckily, the GDP and per capita income of the nation allows for the HDI to be quite high; as a result, the economy and government can integrate with the necessary expense in order to ameliorate the situation. Further, water desalinzation is the best option towards immediately seeking to recitify water shortages while at the same time protecting the environment. References Biswas, WK 2009, 'Life Cycle Assessment of Seawater Desalinization in Western Qatar', World Academy Of Science, Engineering & Technology, 56, pp. 369-375, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2013. Cooper, B, Rose, J, & Crase, L 2012, 'Does anybody like water restrictions? Some observations in Qatarn urban communities', Qatarn Journal Of Agricultural & Resource Economics, 56, 1, pp. 61-81, Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2013. Mubako, S, Ruddell, B, & Mayer, A 2013, 'Relationship between Water Withdrawals and Freshwater Ecosystem Water Scarcity Quantified at Multiple Scales for a Great Lakes Watershed', Journal Of Water Resources Planning & Management, 139, 5, pp. 671-681, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 March 2014. Saidi, S, Bouri, S, & Ben Dhia, H 2011, 'Sensitivity analysis in groundwater vulnerability assessment based on GIS in the Mahdia-Ksour Essaf aquifer, Tunisia: a validation study', Hydrological Sciences Journal/Journal Des Sciences Hydrologiques, 56, 2, pp. 288-304, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2013. Upton, C. 'MAN THE DIKES FOR CLIMATE CHANGE', 2007, Christian Science Monitor, 5 April, Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2013. Varghese, S, Veettil, P, Speelman, S, Buysse, J, & Van Huylenbroeck, G 2013, 'Estimating the causal effect of water scarcity on the groundwater use efficiency of rice farming in South India', Ecological Economics, 86, pp. 55-64, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 March 2014. Ying, J. "Tapping The Oceans." Economist 387.8583 (2008): 24-27. Academic Search Complete. Web. 11 Apr. 2013. Zeng, Z, Liu, J, & Savenije, H n.d., 'A simple approach to assess water scarcity integrating water quantity and quality', Ecological Indicators, 34, pp. 441-449, Science Citation Index, EBSCOhost, viewed 19 March 2014. Read More