Can Wastewater Save The United Arab Emirates’ Groundwater?
The hyper-arid United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a rapidly dwindling supply of groundwater, and that water is becoming increasingly saline.
Dubai is situated on the coast of the UAE.
With very little recharge and irrigation comprising 75% of groundwater use, natural water resources in this region are disappearing fast. PhD candidate Wafa Al Yamani works for the Environmental Agency of Abu Dhabi, which has contracted with Plant and Food Research in New Zealand to investigate using treated sewage effluent and groundwater for irrigating the desert forests along their motorways.
Sidr trees in the UAE forest.
The Desert Forests
The UAE desalinates all the water for their cities, so the tertiary treated sewage effluent from these cities could be a viable resource, replacing some groundwater for irrigation of the desert forests. These forests perform a wide range of ecosystem services from sand stabilization along all UAE motorways to harboring a great deal of biodiversity. There is also a cultural association with the forests. The original ruler of the UAE, Sheikh Zayed, embarked on a program in the 1970s of “greening the desert,” so the people see the desert forests as a legacy of their founder.
Infiltrometers were used to examine how the drip irrigation system worked.
Measuring Water Use:
Wafa and her PhD advisor, Dr. Brent Clothier, had a goal to minimize groundwater use and maximize value by quantifying the irrigation needs of the UAE’s five most important desert-forestry species. They also wanted to determine the impact of treated sewage effluent on forest growth and health. They used infiltrometers to examine how the drip irrigation system worked. Dr. Clothier says, “These soils have hydraulic conductivities of between 2 and 5 meters an hour. They are highly permeable desert sands. We can find out how wide the bulb (the wetted area underneath an irrigation dripper) is and how deep the water will travel by using an infiltrometer to look at the hydraulic properties of the soil.” Dr. Clothier has also developed software to predict water movement radially, with depth and with the time that the drippers are on. He comments, “We’ve now got a setup of two drippers per tree, and we will use that in the future for modeling how the trees are taking up water from the root zone.”
Researchers built dykes of 20 cm to stop surface redistribution of dripper water.
The scientists used a heat pulse method to measure tree water-use by comparing sap flow with evaporative demand (ETo). They used Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) to measure soil water content, and they have developed a “light stick” using light sensors to detect the shadow area of the trees to measure trees’ leaf area in order to predict the crop factor that will enable prediction of tree water-use from ETo.
Next week: Find out how Wafa and her team use infiltrometers to predict dripper behavior and how the treated effluent resolves salinity issues.
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