The underground water in the uae area and their quality, distribution Case Study

The underground water in the uae area and their quality, distribution and their effects in plantation - Case Study Example 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 h ighest 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. ... 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 unde r 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