Known for its relevant cities such as Dubai, skyscrapers and extravagant objects, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become a world power due to its economic power and geopolitical influence, but also its impressive technological proposals.
If there is something that this country unfortunately lacks, it is water, a resource that has become even more valuable than Venezuela’s own oil and other nations.
Due to high temperatures and the great problem that climate change represents, projects such as drones that plant clouds to create artificial rain and the extraction of drinking water that works with solar energy have previously been carried out.
Driven by great need, the Arabian Peninsula nation’s new strategy is to generate a new supply of said resource in the middle of the desert. The decision seems to be made in order to ensure supply for critical areas and its operation is quite interesting.
Strategic water storage in the Liwa Desert
Worries about water scarcity in the UAE are over, at least for emergency situations and it is all thanks to the new project “Strategic Water Storage and Recovery System” (Strategic Water Storage and Recovery System).
According to Dar’s official report, the country is implementing this new tactic to guarantee survival in the face of drastic changes in temperature and the scarcity of a vital resource for humanity.
It is about invest 450 million dollars in the initiative to build “a freshwater reservoir with a volume of 26 x 10⁶ m³” at a depth of 80 m underground.
The water will be transported through specialized pipes and would be crucial for critical areas where there is not much supply or are prone to shortages, considering that 90% of the nation is dependent on desalination plants.
Mainly, they would be located in the Liwa desert, Al Dhafra. The aquifer also has the capacity to use infiltration basins to store excess water desalinated.
The proposal has been carried out after carrying out the corresponding tests on “30 multilevel observation wells and 315 recovery wells”, while an in-depth analysis of the behavior of 105 specific wells for pressure, electricity and temperature was carried out.
Thanks to this, when it becomes possible, the system itself will have the possibility of send water to major cities like Abu Dhabi. At the same time, with the ability to “change recharge and extraction rates in real time” to adapt to any situation and prevent failures along with protections such as impermeable rocks.
There are 26,000 million liters of water that are being strategically positioned in the subsoil and it is estimated that around 100 million liters per day would be obtained from the aforementioned artificial recharges.
Considering that UAE consumes at a general level about 6,000 million liters per dayis something that could alleviate the worry of running out of this resource. It is sad, but at the same time interesting to see how advanced countries manage to solve problems using the technology at their disposal.