doi: 10.7763/IJESD.2016.V7.739
Scenario Based Regional Water Supply and Demand Model: Saudi Arabia as a Case Study
alhassan@mit.edu1
,
A. McCluskey2 , ,
K. Strzepek3
- 1the Center for Complex
- 2the University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder
- 3the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global
Abstract
Saudi Arabia, although energy rich, is poor in itswater resources. The country is part of the arid region wherethere is no access to any form of fresh surface water. SaudiArabia resorted to the energy intensive seawater desalinationfor municipal use to support groundwater resources that isbeing strand by agricultural activity, putting a significant strainon the country's water-energy-food nexus. This paper usespopulation and agricultural trends to build futuristic waterdemand scenarios, and proposes a set of variations onpopulation growth and agricultural policy. The paper matchesthose demand scenarios to variations of supply scenarios byaltering the contribution of desalination. Exploring the effect ofthese variations on policy options assists in estimating thepossible ranges of resources needed, either as groundwaterwithdrawals or as energy requirements for desalination,enabling decision makers to make better-informed sustainabledecisions.
Keywords
- Water resources
- supply and demand
- groundwater
- desalination
How to Cite
alhassan@mit.edu, A. McCluskey, A. F. Alfaris, and K. 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. https://doi.org/10.7763/IJESD.2016.V7.739
Copyright & License
Copyright © 2016 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).