Water Resources in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Challenges and Strategies for Improvement

Baig, Mirza Barjees; Alotibi, Yahya S.; Straquadine, Gary S.; Alataway, Abed

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29274-4_7

Cited by 38 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The main crops in the region include barley, fodder, winter potatoes, greenhouse tomatoes, and palm trees, with rates of 27.1%, 35.3%, 45%, 47%, and 25% of the total area planted, respectively, in the country [52]. The main source of irrigation in the study area, for about 67.6% of the total irrigated area, is groundwater [45]. More than 20,000 artesian wells, which extract water from deep groundwater aquifers, are distributed in different geographical areas of the region [43].…”

Section: Description Of the Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of all the water used for agricultural purposes, 90% is supplied by groundwater aquifers [42]. Different key challenges are facing Saudi Arabia's water sector, including balancing food security and water security [43]; the increasing demand for water from the agricultural sector [44]; low irrigation efficiency [45]; population growth and the high consumption of water [46]; the scarcity of reliable data about ground water resources [47]; climate change [39]; water losses through leakage [43,48]; and the environmental consequences of desalination plants [49].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Adoption of Sustainable Water Management Practices among Farmers in Saudi Arabia

Alotaibi

Kassem

2021

Sustainability

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Promoting sustainable water management (SWM) practices among farmers is essential in order to ensure water sustainability. This study aimed to analyze patterns in the adoption of SWM practices by farmers at the farm level, and how their awareness regarding the causes of agricultural water pollution influence SWM adoption. Face-to-face interviews were conducted to collect field data using structured questionnaires from 129 farmers in the Riyadh region, Saudi Arabia. The results indicate that 38.8% of farmers had a high awareness of the causes of water pollution from agriculture. Approximately half of the farmers exhibited a high rate of adoption of SWM practices, most of whom adopted water quality and soil management practices. The findings reveal a positive association (0.37, p < 0.01) between SWM adoption and awareness regarding water pollution caused by agriculture, whereby the farmers with more awareness regarding the causes of water pollution from agriculture showed a higher level of adoption for 55% of the SWM practices. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the awareness levels regarding the causes of agricultural water pollution and cultivated crops significantly influenced the adoption of SWM by farmers. The findings and implications provide an understanding of the SWM practices of farmers, and offers insights for policymakers aiming to reformulate strategies and policies combatting water scarcity in Saudi Arabia.

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Section: Description Of the Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Adoption of Sustainable Water Management Practices among Farmers in Saudi Arabia

Alotaibi

Kassem

2021

Sustainability

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“…In Saudi Arabia, as an arid and semi-arid region, the groundwater is mainly stored in deep aquifers with variability in water quality (e.g., TDS), due to aquifer overexploita-tion and other human effects. The water demand in Saudi Arabia is satisfied by the non-renewable groundwater, surface water, desalinated water and treated wastewater sources [4][5][6] The groundwater contributes to more than 91% of the total water demand for all purposes [7,8]. The higher demand for groundwater is mainly associated with a decline in water level and degradation of groundwater quality.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neurocomputing Modelling of Hydrochemical and Physical Properties of Groundwater Coupled with Spatial Clustering, GIS, and Statistical Techniques

Benaafi

Yassin

Usman³

et al. 2022

Sustainability

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Groundwater (GW) is a critical freshwater resource for billions of individuals worldwide. Rapid anthropogenic exploitation has increasingly deteriorated GW quality and quantity. Reliable estimation of complex hydrochemical properties of GW is crucial for sustainable development. Real field and experimental studies in an agricultural area from the significant sandstone aquifers (Wajid Aquifer) were conducted. For the modelling purpose, three types of computational models, including the emerging Hammerstein–Wiener (HW), back propagation neural network (BPNN), and statistical multi-variate regression (MVR), were developed for the multi-station estimation of total dissolved solids (TDS) (mg/L) and total hardness (TH) (mg/L). A geographic information system (GIS) was used for the spatial variability assessment of 32 hydrochemical and physical properties of the GW aquifer. A comprehensive visualized literature review spanning several decades was conducted in order to gain an understanding of the existing research and debates relevant to a particular GW and artificial intelligence (AI) study. The experimental data, pre-processing, and feature selection were conducted to determine the most dominant variables for AI-based modelling. The estimation results were evaluated using determination coefficient (DC), mean bias error (MBE), mean square error (MSE), and root mean square error (RMSE). The outcomes proved that TDS (mg/L) and TH (mg/L) correlated more than 90% and 70–85% with Ca2+, Cl−, Br−, NO3−, and Fe, and Na+, SO42−, Mg2+, and F− combinations. HW-M1 justified promising among all the models with MBE = 1.41 × 10−11, 1.14 × 10−14, and MSE = 7.52 × 10−2, 3.88 × 10−11 for TDS (mg/L), TH (mg/L), respectively. The accuracy proved merit for the overall development of and practical estimation of hydrochemical variables (TDS, TH) (mg/L) and decision-making benchmarks.

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“…It also has the third-highest per capita fresh-water consumption in the world [23]. The Jeddah-Makkah-Taif area is the most water deficit area in the Western Region; in this area, desalinated water provides about 90% of domestic water needs [24]. In Taif, the growing concern of agricultural and landscaping in that region due to its unique soil compared to other KSA cities increases pressure on the limited water reserves, considering • The 'Water' Assessment field weight may stay as it is or increased: to encourage the utilization of wasted rainwater in that region, considering that KSA is an arid area and one of the world's driest countries that lacks permanent water-bodies, and uses its oil resources to provide potable water by operating its desalination plants.…”

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Adjustment of the Indoor Environmental Quality Assessment Field for Taif City-Saudi Arabia

et al. 2020

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Along with the global concern of the Environmental Assessment of Buildings, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) had recently used its system, Mostadam, to provide a suitable method to assess its buildings environmentally. Nevertheless, Mostadam still cannot be used for all Saudi Arabia regions without having misleading results, which is due to its various internal regions with their various characteristics. Taif city has its unique environmental characteristics, which affect all the environmental buildings’ assessment fields. This research aimed to adjust the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) field of Mostadam according to Taif characteristics. The research analyzed Taif characteristics that have an impact on the IEQ field, which are mainly related to the occupants’ different comfort needs and health requirements. Then, according to an analytical methods, authors proposed some changes to adjust Mostadam IEQ field according to these characteristics. The research resulted in an obvious difference between the resulted IEQ items weights and formulation versus the origin one of Mostadam, which proves the need for such adjustment to achieve a fair and trusted assessment to achieve the utmost credible assessment results when assessing buildings environmentally in Taif. It is recommended to adjust other assessment fields similarly later on, and then globally.

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Water Resources in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: Challenges and Strategies for Improvement

Cited by 38 publications

References 24 publications

Adoption of Sustainable Water Management Practices among Farmers in Saudi Arabia

Adoption of Sustainable Water Management Practices among Farmers in Saudi Arabia

Neurocomputing Modelling of Hydrochemical and Physical Properties of Groundwater Coupled with Spatial Clustering, GIS, and Statistical Techniques

Adjustment of the Indoor Environmental Quality Assessment Field for Taif City-Saudi Arabia

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