January 28, 2020
Mohammad Al-Saidi, PhD - Research Assistant Professor, Center for Sustainable Development, Qatar University
If you open a map showing land topographies around the world, the Middle East is deprived of the green color throughout. The region is extremely dry, mostly hyper-arid with low levels of rainfall and water flow. There are some exceptions such as in Sudan, coastal areas or riverbed and deltas. Indeed, supplying growing populations with enough food is a major future challenge, which has so far been met through increased food imports. Arab states have been replacing local water scarcities through virtual water. This is an invisible water type referring to water embedded in the imports of agricultural products. However, is there a sustainable option to increase local food production despite extreme water scarcity? The answer is yes, and many overlooked water types that can be utilized.
In a recent paper I co-authored, we, from the Center for Sustainable Development at Qatar University, described how lesser-used water resources – marginal water – can foster sustainable agriculture in Arab states of the Gulf region. These include treated domestic wastewater – often called treated sewage effluent or TSE, produced water – water used in oil and gas industry as well as water of different salinity levels. The use of these resources is technologically possible, but such utilization for food production is at its infancy in most of the MENA Region.
In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, TSE resource is underutilized. According to one study, on a GCC-wide average, only around 56% of TSE is treated, while only 43% of the treated TSE in the region is being recycled. This makes only 1.8% of total water supply. Using this resource for edible agriculture requires a high level of treatment and water quality monitoring. Similar to recycling TSE for drinking – a common practice in some countries such as Singapore, the use of TSE for direct food production is not an option currently. Such uses are rarely accepted by people in the Arab region due to health, psychological or religious factors.
However, once quality, control and public trust are established, it is possible to use treated wastewater on a large scale. Even without formal regulation, most countries in the wider region that are water-scarce people use TSE or even untreated wastewater that finds its way into river streams used for irrigation. However, in the GCC region, the most common use is for forage cultivation and landscaping. Plans for other uses exist as well.
TSE can be used for groundwater recharge, in district cooling plants or for the cultivation of drought tolerant plants (xerophytes), particularly native species. Here, district cooling is a more energy-efficient cooling system using chilled water provided to houses in a whole district through a single cooling plant. This cooling technology is on the rise in the Gulf region. The key issue is how to increase the use of TSE in pace with the increase of the number of (technology-heavy) treatment plants. Often, infrastructure is lacking for delivering water from the treatment plants to the right use purpose, in the right site and at the right time. For this, significant investments in pipelines are needed. Alternatively, a careful planning through co-locating and optimizing sites of agricultural production projects and treatment plants is possible. In fact, if you examine the maps of some major cities in the GCC, you can discover huge, new lakes of treated wastewater with some of the water evaporating while awaiting future utilization.
Building blocks of food security in GCC countries include domestic production. Here an example from Qatar’s food sector planning documents. The use of marginal water can be seen as an important instrument within the pillar of domestic production.
Depending on final use, TSE that still contains some salinity can be used. For example, ‘produced water’ – a salty water type produced as byproduct from hydrocarbons’ productions - has been used for irrigation in California. It is produced in huge amounts in oil and gas activities in the Gulf, and it can be used for algae cultivation – after some treatment. Algae is another widely available resource in the region, that can be used to increase food production. Microalgae have some potential use as fish feed. Growing algae for its protein content can be a component of aquafeed for aquaculture.
In fact, fish production has a good potential to meet future food demands in the region. There are many combinations of terrestrial (e.g. seawater or saline groundwater water for halophytes’ growth) and marine agriculture (e.g. fish farms). Many GCC countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia and Qatar) have developed many hectares of aquaculture ponds in the Red Sea or the Gulf. They can use these to grow fish, shrimp and seaweeds. The latter can be used for human food but also for industrial applications – e.g. for growing hydrocolloids or for water cleaning. All these combinations show that it is possible to incorporate overlooked marginal water resources and use native plants or those resistant to drought or salt.
The challenge will be to scale up marginal water applications in a cost-effective and replicable way. First, awareness about these options need to be strengthened while governments can update infrastructure and water quality regulations. Second, the unsustainable use of water resources has to be controlled. Alongside dwindling groundwater resources, the desalinated water is also used for irrigation in many GCC countries. Often, freshwater (whether desalinated, pumped from underground or treated) is so cheap to farmers that they have no incentives to consider marginal water resources.
Finally, it is time to develop consistent and comprehensive national food security plans that incorporate different water types and uses. It is not only about having formal plans. One needs to ensure implementation. Beyond importing food, a development of local sustainable agriculture is possible. Using out-of-the-box ideas and lesser-used options (marginal water) means making the best of a bad (scarcity) situation.
This article is largely based on a paper by J. Jed Brown, Probir Das and Mohammad Al-Saidi: Sustainable Agriculture in the Arabian/Persian Gulf Region Utilizing Marginal Water Resources: Making the Best of a Bad Situation, in Sustainability 10(5), 1364.
