Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. The water supply in UAE has a system to get water from a variety of locations, including groundwater (aquifers), surface water (lakes and rivers), conservation and the sea through desalination. The water is then, in most cases, purified, disinfected through chlorination and sometimes fluoridated. Treated water then either flows by ... More >>

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes. The water supply in UAE has a system to get water from a variety of locations, including groundwater (aquifers), surface water (lakes and rivers), conservation and the sea through desalination. The water is then, in most cases, purified, disinfected through chlorination and sometimes fluoridated. Treated water then either flows by gravity or is pumped to reservoirs, which can be elevated such as water towers or on the ground (for indicators related to the efficiency of drinking water distribution see non-revenue water). Once water is used, wastewater is typically discharged in a sewer system and treated in a wastewater treatment plant before being discharged into a river, lake or the sea or reused for landscaping, irrigation or industrial use. Continuity of water supply in UAE is taken for granted, but is a severe problem in many developing countries, where sometimes water is only provided for a few hours every day or a few days a week. It is estimated that about half of the population of developing countries receives water on an intermittent basis. Drinking water quality has a micro-biological and a physico-chemical dimension. There are thousands of parameters of water quality. In public water supply in UAE systems water should, at a minimum, be disinfected—most commonly through the use of chlorination or the use of ultra violet light—or it may need to undergo treatment, especially in the case of surface water. Water supplies in UAE service providers, which are often utilities, differ from each other in terms of their geographical coverage relative to administrative boundaries; their sector coverage; their ownership structure; and their governance arrangements. Seawater desalination. Water supply in UAE from ground, almost 90% of groundwater in Abu Dhabi Emirate is saline, in some cases up to eight times as much as seawater. Brackish groundwater is mostly used for the irrigation of date palms which are relatively salt-tolerant. Recharge dams have been built on wadis in order to prevent flood water to flow into the sea, recharging it instead to aquifers. Unplanned and uncontrolled groundwater withdrawals, especially for agriculture and forestry, total over 2,000 million cubic meters per year and have resulted in declining groundwater levels and quality. Groundwater recharge; Artificial groundwater recharge with desalinated seawater has been piloted in 2003 near the Liwa Oasis and construction of large-scale recharge facilities has begun in 2008. Recharge will occur during summer when the desalination plants generate surplus freshwater. The majory service of water supply in UAE is sanitation. << Hide