“Environment”: It includes stopping violations of drilling wells and selling illegal “underground”

8 initiatives to reduce water waste in Abu Dhabi

"The surface aquifer in some areas in Abu Dhabi has been depleted, as a result of excessive pumping from it."

Razan Al Mubarak

The Environment Agency in Abu Dhabi said that it is implementing eight initiatives to conserve water and reduce its waste, and is working with the concerned authorities to come up with innovative solutions to conserve groundwater, especially since the desalinated water storage capacity in the emirate is low.

She pointed out that regulating the use of groundwater, stopping violations of drilling wells, and illegal sale of groundwater, are among the solutions available to conserve groundwater.

In detail, the Secretary-General of the authority, Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, told "Emirates Today" that the initiatives include a licensing system for drilling wells, and the regulation of obtaining them, whether for companies or people, and the authority has established a system that allows submitting licensing applications online, and an electronic system for registering drilling contractors. .

She added that "there is also an initiative to improve the drilling system, and another to educate land owners and contractors to stop drilling wells without a license, and the illegal sale of groundwater by farm owners," explaining that "the authority has started a series of intensive inspection visits to farms across the emirate, to monitor violations Selling groundwater and applying laws to violators.

And Al Mubarak continued, “The surface aquifer in some areas in Abu Dhabi has been depleted, as a result of excessive pumping from it, and in some other cases, all usable water (fresh and brackish) will be exhausted within the next decade, so a project was launched to identify and protect the drained areas, and prevent Digging new wells or replacing old ones with new ones in depleted areas where the quality of groundwater is deteriorating, and its levels are rapidly declining, and the decline in some areas may reach more than five meters annually.

She pointed to an initiative to provide sufficient information on the locations, quantities and quality of water, and a groundwater assessment project is being implemented, through the operation and management of wells, some of which carry electronic monitoring devices, in addition to stations equipped with meteorological monitoring devices.

She explained that these stations are distributed in different parts of the emirate, and vary in density according to the diversity of water activities, to form the so-called permanent network for monitoring groundwater.

Al Mubarak said: "The authority, in cooperation and coordination with its partners, including the National Drilling Company, is conducting necessary research on groundwater resources and the quantities available in the emirate, and establishing a database on groundwater, including quantities and plans that show the locations of water resources."

She pointed out that “there are three initiatives related to raising awareness of the importance of groundwater conservation, strengthening partnership between the public and private sectors, and improving the efficiency of groundwater use in forests. Wasting water and increasing salinity.

Al Mubarak added, "The authority works side by side with the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority and the Farmers Services Center, regarding water uses in agriculture, stressing the importance of strengthening partnership between the public and private sectors, because the responsibility to find the necessary solutions to the groundwater problem and reduce waste is not on The responsibility of the government alone, but the participation of the private sector and civil society institutions.”

She pointed out that the authority seeks to encourage more efficient use of water resources and promote positive behavior patterns in institutions to conserve water, and has recently launched a guide to help institutions rationalize their water consumption.

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