IJESD 2016 Vol.7(1): 46-51 ISSN: 2010-0264
DOI: 10.7763/IJESD.2016.V7.739
DOI: 10.7763/IJESD.2016.V7.739
Scenario Based Regional Water Supply and Demand Model: Saudi Arabia as a Case Study
Abdulaziz A. Alhassan, Alyssa McCluskey, Anas Alfaris, and Kenneth Strzepek
Abstract—Saudi Arabia, although energy rich, is poor in its
water resources. The country is part of the arid region where
there is no access to any form of fresh surface water. Saudi
Arabia resorted to the energy intensive seawater desalination
for municipal use to support groundwater resources that is
being strand by agricultural activity, putting a significant strain
on the country's water-energy-food nexus. This paper uses
population and agricultural trends to build futuristic water
demand scenarios, and proposes a set of variations on
population growth and agricultural policy. The paper matches
those demand scenarios to variations of supply scenarios by
altering the contribution of desalination. Exploring the effect of
these variations on policy options assists in estimating the
possible ranges of resources needed, either as groundwater
withdrawals or as energy requirements for desalination,
enabling decision makers to make better-informed sustainable
decisions.
Index Terms—Water resources, supply and demand, groundwater, desalination.
A. A. Alhassan and A. F. Alfaris are with the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at KACST and MIT, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: alhassan@mit.edu, anas@mit.edu).
A. McCluskey is with the University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309 USA (e-mail: alyssa.mccluskey@colorado.edu).
K. Strzepek is with the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (e-mail: strzepek@mit.edu).
Index Terms—Water resources, supply and demand, groundwater, desalination.
A. A. Alhassan and A. F. Alfaris are with the Center for Complex Engineering Systems at KACST and MIT, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (e-mail: alhassan@mit.edu, anas@mit.edu).
A. McCluskey is with the University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado 80309 USA (e-mail: alyssa.mccluskey@colorado.edu).
K. Strzepek is with the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (e-mail: strzepek@mit.edu).
Cite: Abdulaziz A. Alhassan, Alyssa McCluskey, Anas Alfaris, and Kenneth Strzepek, "Scenario Based Regional Water Supply and Demand Model: Saudi Arabia as a Case Study," International Journal of Environmental Science and Development vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 46-51, 2016.
General Information
- ISSN: 2010-0264 (Print); 2972-3698 (Online)
- Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Environ. Sci. Dev.
- Frequency: Bimonthly
- DOI: 10.18178/IJESD
- Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Richard Haynes
- Managing Editor: Ms. Cherry L. Chen
- Indexing: Scopus (CiteScore 2022: 1.4), Google Scholar, CNKI, ProQuest, EBSCO, etc.
- E-mail: ijesd@ejournal.net
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