Assessment of Urban Water Quality, Al-Lahyan Water Treatment Plant, Al-Baha, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Saudi Arabia globally has one of the highest freshwater stresses, which leads the country to adopt the sustainability use of freshwater strategy [1]. The country's freshwater demands in 2021 were about 15.6 billion cubic meters (BCM), according to the KSA statistical book, which was prepared by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) [2]. These demands were distributed as following: 73.2% for agricultural demands, 22.8% for domestic demands and 4% for industrial demands. The freshwater resources of domestic demands consisted of about 64.8% desalinated water, 32% groundwater [GW] (treated and untreated) and 3.2% surface water (treated and untreated) [2]. This situation forced MEWA to set a directive of providing about 90% of the national urban supply by desalinated water by 2030 [1].Al-Baha province is located on the southwestern border of Saudi Arabia. It is considered as the smallest