Ohlsson (1998) distinguishes the water resource itself from the social resource. A society facing an increasing scarcity of resource can survive without necessarily see its prosperity suffering. How? By mobilizing its "social resilience" according to Ohlsson (1998) or its " ingenuity "by Homer-Dixon (1995). In this sense, the scarcity of water is not the same as poverty in water. Consumption of water and the needs it induces are dependent on technology and procurement. To illustrate this distinction, let's talk about Qatar. Referring to Fahad Al-Attiya (2011), Qatar has only two days of water reserve, 90 % of the food is imported, and farmers only cultivate less than on 1% of the land.
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| (Go Nomad, 2014) |
Energy is the key factor here.
The question is: How could Qatar survive? "We have no water whatsoever. Simply because of this gigantic, mammoth machine called desalination. Energy is the key factor here. It changed everything. It is that thing that we pump out of the ground, we burn tons of, probably most of you used it coming to Doha. So that is our lake, if you can see it. That is our river. That is how you all happen to use and enjoy water. This is the best technology that this region could ever have: desalination." Al-Attiya(2011)
Is there a sustainable solution?
We understand that Qatar need energy. The country does not have freshwater but
it has a competitive advantage being its solar energy potential due to the fact that Qatar is sunny 300 days out of 365. This is how Qatar mobilize its "social resilience"
and its “ingenuity ". That renewable energy allowed the country to fulfil
the water it needs. Al-Attiya (2011) argued in his TedTalk, "we will probably put 1,800 megawatts of solar systems to
produce 3.5 million cubic meters of water. And that is a lot of water. "
[ Want to Know More? ]
Leif Ohlsson, 1998, Managing Water Scarcity.
Thomas Homer-Dixon, 1995, Population and Development Review, p. 588-589.
Fahad Al-Attiya, 2011, Arab Food water and the big Landgrab that wasn't
Fascinating topic and interesting perspective on relative resource strength. Do you know what type of desalinization technology they want to pursue? I am curious as to how Qatar and other petro-states respond to increased demand for and usage of renewable resources.
ReplyDeleteThere are many desalination techniques. Qatar mainly use, the following four:
ReplyDelete1-- MSF (Multi Stage Flash) 97.9 %
2-- Reverse Osmose ( since 2011) 20 to 30 %
3-- VC (Vapour Compression) 0.7%
4-- MED (Multi Effect Distilllation) 0.9 %
Regarding how Qatar and other petro-states respond to increased demand for usage of rentable resources: Growing needs raises the question of security of supply, climate change, the sustainability of the energy system, all of which must be understood in the light of economic issues (competitiveness energy).