Document(s) 12 of 20

Abdullah bin 'Umar said, "I heard Allah's Apostle saying, 'All of you are guardians and responsible for your wards and the things under your care. The imam (that is, ruler) is the guardian of his subjects and is responsible for them and a man is the guardian of his family and is responsible for them. A woman is the guardian of her husband's house and is responsible for it. A servant is the guardian of his master's belongings and is responsible for them.' I thought that he also said, 'A man is the guardian of his father's property and is responsible for it. All of you are guardians and responsible for your wards and the things under your care.'"¹ This hadith indicates clearly the responsibility of governments to secure basic needs such as water for the people.

Understanding its duties, the government of Saudi Arabia, which follows the principles of Islamic law, or sharia, in all aspects of life, founded specialized water agencies for production, distribution, and treatment of water in the kingdom in the post–World War II decades. The Ministry of Agriculture and Water (MAW) was established in 1953, and was assigned the responsibility for water production to satisfy the required water demand in terms of quantities and qualities. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC) was established as a ministerial agency under the

I thank the Research Institute of King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals for the support provided to complete this study.

MAW in 1965, and then as an independent corporation within the MAW in 1974, to be responsible for construction, operation, and maintenance of desalination plants for drinking water production. The Water and Waste-water Authority (WWA) is an independent agency under the Ministry of Rural and Municipal Affairs to distribute drinking water and to collect and treat wastewater in different cities and towns of the kingdom.

More recently, the government has modified the past approach of increasing supplies to meet rising demand. To protect the community of interest that constitutes the traditional basis of Islamic customary water law, the government has taken several measures to protect the sustainability of aquifer systems and groundwater resources. Laws, regulations, and fatwa were developed, in accordance with Islamic law, to deal with water management issues, including measures to reduce national water demand and augment available water resources.

According to Islamic law and custom, water is to be used first for domestic purposes, then for animals, and lastly for agriculture. The Prophet (pbuh) mentions, among those "whom Allah will neither talk to, nor look at, on the Day of Resurrection:... A man who withholds his superfluous water. Allah will say to him, 'Today I will withhold My Grace from you as you withheld the superfluity of what you had not created.'"² Regarding animals, Allah's Apostle said, "He who digs a well in the desert when there is pasture around this well and when there is no other water nearby cannot prevent the animals from slaking their thirst at this well."³ and "One should not prevent others from watering their animals with the surplus of his water in order to prevent them from benefiting by the surplus of grass."⁴ In Saudi Arabia, industrial and recreational uses come fourth and fifth, respectively. The order of the last two purposes was ranked according to the application of Islamic customs in the country and through reasoning rather than from strict doctrine. This chapter describes Saudi Arabia's available water resources, and how demand is managed for different purposes according to Islamic law.

Available water resources

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has an area of about 2.25 million km2, most of which is located in arid regions. The available surface water and groundwater resources are limited, precipitation rates are low, and evaporation is high. The average annual rainfall is less than 150 mm in most of the country. During the last two decades, the kingdom has experienced comprehensive development in all sectors coupled with high growth rates in population and living standards. The annual national water demand has increased from 2,352 million cubic metres (MCM) in 1980 to about 27,239 MCM in 1990, and to more than 30,000 MCM in 1992 (table 1).

Conventional resources

The annual runoff in the kingdom is estimated to be about 2,230 MCM. There are 185 dams, with a total storage capacity of 775 MCM, for groundwater recharge and flood control.

Groundwater is stored in more than twenty layered principal and secondary aquifers of different geological ages (MAW 1984), with ground-water quality varying between sites and aquifers. Isotopic analyses show that the fossil groundwater in these aquifers is ten to thirty-two thousand years old. The estimated groundwater reserves to a depth of three hundred metres below ground surface are about 2,185 billion cubic metres with a total annual recharge of 2,762 MCM (Al Alawi and Abdulrazzak 1994; Dabbagh and Abderrahman 1997). The renewable groundwater resources are mainly stored in shallow alluvial aquifers and in basalt layers of varying thickness and width, which are found mostly in the southwest. These aquifers store about 84 billion cubic metres with an average annual recharge of 1,196 MCM.

Non-conventional resources

Thirty-five desalination plants have been built, at a cost of about US$10 billion, to produce potable water from sea water and raw groundwater along the Red Sea coast and the Arabian Gulf coast using the multistage flush system and reverse osmosis (Bushnak 1997, 93). At present, Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of desalinized water in the world. Annual water production has reached about 795 MCM and annual capacity will reach about 1,050 MCM by 2000.

Desalination unit cost is about US$0.70 or SR 2.6 per cubic metre (US$1 = 3:751 Saudi riyals, SR) for large-size desalination plant (Bushnak 1997, 93). About SR 3–4 should be added to the total water costs for transporting desalinated water to cities and towns. Thus, 1 cubic metre of desalinized water delivered to a house costs about SR 5.5–6.6.

In addition, it is estimated that about 1,000 MCM of wastewater were generated in the country in 1996, and this is expected to increase to about 1,500 MCM by the year 2,000 (Ishaq and Khan 1997). About 41 per cent of municipal wastewater is treated, and in 1997, about 185 MCM or 18.5 per cent of the treated wastewater was recycled for irrigating agricultural crops and landscape plants and for use in refineries.

Domestic water demand management

As discussed in other chapters in this volume, including those by Amery and by Kadouri et al., in order to prevent scarcity of water or to prevent it being controlled by one person, the Prophet (pbuh) endeavoured give to all people the right to water. This principle is particularly important for Saudi Arabia, with its limited resources and rapidly growing demand. The total population of Saudi Arabia has increased from about 7.7 million in 1970 to 11.8 million in 1990 and is expected to reach 19 million in 2010, if the present growth rate of 3 per cent per annum continues. Consequently, domestic water demand has increased from about 446 MCM in 1980 to about 1,563 MCM in 1997, and is expected to reach 2,800 MCM in 2010 (Al-Alawi and Abdulrazzak 1994; Al-Tukhais 1997). Hence the large-scale construction of desalination plants, which at present supply 46 per cent of domestic demand.

As noted in the chapters by Shah and by Atallah et al. in this volume, however, water conservation was also emphasized during the early times of Islam, and to reduce the domestic water demand in Saudi Arabia, several water control and conservation measures have been introduced. These include the following.

• In 1994, water tariffs were introduced to enhance the people's awareness of the value of water production. The tariff per cubic metre of potable water is US$0.04 (SR 0.15) for the first one hundred cubic metres, US$0.27 (SR 1.0) for the second one hundred cubic metres, US$0.53 (SR 2.0) for the third one hundred cubic metres, and US$1.07 (SR 4.0) for the fourth one hundred cubic metres. The water charges for a medium-sized middle-class family (six persons) living in a small house with garden (assuming water consumption of about 200 cubic metres a month), and with an average income of SR 4,000 a month, are less than SR 200 a month (US$55 a month). However, the charge for water is only a small fraction of the actual cost of water production and transportation, which ranges between about SR 1,120 and SR 1,320.

• Leakage control measures have been implemented to minimize water losses from water supply networks.

• Treated wastewater recycling has been implemented; for example, ablution water is recycled for toilet flushing at the two Holy Mosques at Makka and Al-Medina Al-Monawwarah.

• Highly saline water from Wadi Malakan near Makka is used instead of desalination water for toilet flushing at the Holy Mosque at Makka.

Irrigation water demand management

The cultivated area in the kingdom has increased from less than 0.4 million ha in 1971 to 1.62 million ha in 1992 (MAW 1992), and total consumption of irrigation water has increased from about 1,850 MCM in 1980 to 29,826 MCM in 1992 (table 1). The threshold increase in the agricultural area started after 1979. Because of its responsibility for making water available to the people for different uses, including irrigation as the third priority, the government gave financial support to farmers for well drilling and the introduction of modern and efficient irrigation systems. Extension services were also introduced to help farmers in proper scheduling of irrigation water to avoid excessive use. A preliminary as­sessment of the cost of water production for irrigation from wells with depths of less than four hundred metres was between SR 0.20 and SR 0.50 for large irrigation schemes.

Table 2 shows that non-renewable groundwater from shallow and deep aquifers supplied about 28,576 MCM in 1992 for irrigation use. This represented about 94 per cent of the total irrigation water use and 90 per cent of the total national water use in Saudi Arabia. The total number of drilled wells increased from about 26,000 in 1982 to about 52,500 in 1990, and hundreds or even thousands of production wells were thickly clustered in some agricultural areas. In several agricultural regions, excessive water pumping has resulted in negative effects on groundwater levels and on quality. Consequently, improvement of groundwater management and reduction in irrigation water consumption, especially for wheat cultivation, became essential for maintaining the long-term productivity and quality of the aquifers. Understanding this serious issue, the government, after consultation with leading Islamic scholars and with specialists in agriculture, economics, and water, took several measures and developed regulations to improve the management of water demand and to protect and conserve water resources.

Regulation of well drilling

"The Prophet said, 'A Muslim is the one who avoids harming Muslims with his tongue and hands. And a Muhajir (emigrant) is the one who gives up (abandons) all what Allah has forbidden.'"⁵ This means that the Muslim is forbidden by Islamic law to cause any harm to others including his community. Furthermore, the Prophet (pbuh) recognized that the ownership of wells or any other water source requires the ownership of a certain extent of bordering land or harim on which it was forbidden to dig a new well. This was to avoid any negative effects on the quality and abundance of the well.

Following this general Islamic trend, a royal decree was issued in 1980 to regulate well drilling and to protect aquifers from exploitation and pollution. Special permits must be issued in advance by MAW to drill or deepen any well, and drilling and deepening must follow approved designs and be carried out and under supervision of MAW. Well owners and the drilling companies face penalties for not observing this decree.

Reduction in wheat price supports

Saudi Arabia's largest crop is wheat, with a total of 907,309 ha or 56 per cent of the total cultivated area in 1992, while fodder crops, vegetables, and fruits accounted for 18, 7, and 6 per cent of the total agricultural area respectively. The wheat production of 4.25 million tons in 1992 far exceeded the predicted national demand of 1.22 million tons (MOP 1990), which hindered diversification of agricultural production and resulted in unnecessary consumption of large volumes of groundwater: in 1992, irrigation demand of wheat was 9,895 MCM or 33 per cent of the total national irrigation water consumption.

In 1993, the government reduced the area of wheat cultivation eligible for price support to 25 per cent of its previous size. This was to reduce wheat production to the level of the annual consumption, encourage farmers to diversify crop production, and reduce irrigation water consumption. The reduction in water use was projected to amount to about 7,400 MCM per year or 25 per cent (assuming a 75 per cent reduction in wheat area). In actual fact, the area under wheat dropped by about 325,000 ha between 1992 and 1994, and as shown in table 2, although the water supply from other sources remained constant from 1992 to 1997, the reduction in wheat production subsidies resulted in a drop from 28,576 MCM to 15,376 MCM in water pumped from non-renewable aquifers. This reduction positively affected groundwater levels and quality in different wheat areas in the kingdom. Field measurements of groundwater levels in deep observation wells in a large irrigation scheme in the Eastern Province have shown a recovery after reduction of the area under wheat of about 20–30 per cent from the drawdown recorded in previous years. Recently, the MAW announced similar positive effects on groundwater levels in other regions of the kingdom as a result of reductions in wheat cultivation.

Reuse of wastewater effluents for irrigation

Millions of cubic metres of wastewater effluents used to be produced and disposed of without reuse. This was not for technical reasons, but because it was not clear if the effluents were pure according to Islamic views, even after removal of impurities by proper treatment. After lengthy and deep investigations and discussions with scientists and specialists, a special fatwa on the matter was issued by the Council of Leading Islamic Scholars (CLIS) of Saudi Arabia in 1978. The fatwa (CLIS 1978) postulated that

Impure waste water can be considered as pure water and similar to the original pure water, if its treatment using advanced technical procedures is capable of removing its impurities with regard to taste, colour and smell, as witnessed by honest, specialized and knowledgeable experts. Then it can be used to remove body impurities and for purifying, even for drinking. If there are negative impacts from its direct use on the human health, then it is better to avoid its use, not because it is impure but to avoid harming the human beings. The CLIS prefers to avoid using it for drinking (as possible) to protect health and not to contradict with human habits.

This fatwa demonstrates the dynamic nature and wisdom of Islamic law when confronting the changing needs of the Muslim community. It was an important step toward the reuse of wastewater effluents for different purposes depending on its degree of treatment, such as drinking, ablution, removal of impurities, and restricted and non-restricted irrigation. At present, about nine thousand hectare of date palms and forage crops near Riyadh are irrigated using about 146 MCM of wastewater effluents. Wastewater is also reused for irrigating landscape plants, trees, and grass in municipal parks in several cities, such as Dhahran, Jeddah, Jubail, Riyadh, and Taif.

Other water demand reduction measures

The MAW has considered the introduction of water meters on farm pumps to help in minimizing overpumping and water losses. There is also the possibility of shifting of some fodder and cereal cultivation from zones of high irrigation water consumption to areas of lower consumption, thus saving considerable quantities of irrigation water. The MAW is active in improving public knowledge of the value of water conservation in the news media and in educational institutions.

Industrial water demand management

Although industrial water constitutes only a small portion of total demand, certain industries require special water qualities; and the environmental effects of mismanaging industrial wastewater represent a major hazard. Industrial water demand increased from about 56 MCM per year in 1980 to 192 MCM in 1990, and is expected to grow to about 500 MCM in 2010 (Al-Alawi and Abdulrazzak 1994, and author's estimate). The growing demand is satisfied mainly by costly desalination in some industries, especially food, although groundwater satisfies other types of industries. Industrial demand varies among regions of the kingdom. In some industrial plants, part of the effluent is recycled. However, uncontrolled disposal of wastewater has had negative effects on the environment and groundwater.

The following legislation and measures have been taken to improve industrial water demand management.

• To minimize industrial water demand, to maximize wastewater recycling, and to protect the environment, the government has established large industrial cities in different parts of the kingdom. Each city contains tens or hundreds of factories. Industrial wastewater is collected, treated, and recycled within each city at the plant level for industrial and landscape purposes. The industrial cities have specifications for the quality of the wastewater collected from factories.

• Closed water cycles have been introduced in industrial plants to minimize wastewater disposal, reduce groundwater pumping, and protect the environment. In this approach, wastewater is converted into good quality condensate by evaporation at low temperature under vacuum. This technology was introduced to large industrial plants in 1995 (Abderrahman 1997).

Conclusions

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has followed Islamic law, or sharia, in all aspects of life since its establishment about a hundred years ago. Sharia considers water as the main component of the sustainability of a nation's life and security. The government realized the problems created by the combination of arid climatic conditions, limited water supplies, and rapid growth in water demand, and introduced specialized agencies for water production and distribution, as well as regulations, measures, and fatwa in agreement with Islamic law to achieve effective water demand management in the interests of the community and its natural resources. This was implemented in continuous consultation with leading Islamic scholars and specialists in water, agriculture, planning, and economics. Examples of the regulations are the reduction in domestic water demand by the introduction of new water pricing policies, leakage detection and control measures, and promotion of public awareness of the value of water. Another example is the reduction of support to wheat production, which has resulted in a reduction in irrigation water demand of about 25 per cent. Furthermore, the fatwa permitting reuse of wastewater effluents especially for irrigation has resulted in the reuse of millions of cubic metres of treated effluent every year for this purpose. Recycling of treated industrial wastewater has been encouraged, and has been implemented by various industrial plants. Other measures have been introduced to control well drilling and to monitor water consumption at the farm level so as to avoid overpumping and to protect aquifers. Farmers are also encouraged to use modern irrigation systems and to adopt irrigation scheduling to minimize water demand. In all these ways, the experience of Saudi Arabia in using Islamic principles in water demand management has been successful in satisfying growing water needs and protecting water resources. This demonstrates that Islamic regulations are sufficiently dynamic, flexible, and reasonable to solve the challenges faced by Muslim nations in such vital issues as water.

Notes

¹ Al-Bukhari 2.18.

² Al-Bukhari 3.557.

³ Al-Bukhari 5550, in Hadith Encyclopedia.

⁴ Al-Bukhari 9.92.

⁵ Al-Bukhari 1.9.

REFERENCES

Abderrahman, W. A. (1997), "The Use of Closed Water Cycle in Industrial Plants in Saudi Arabia," in Proceedings of the Conference on Development and Environmental Impact, 21–23 September, Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs, Riyadh.

Al Alawi, M. and Abdulrazzak, M. (1994), "Water in the Arabian Peninsula: Problems and Perspectives," in P. Rogers and P. Lydon (eds.), Water in the Arab World: Perspectives and Progress, Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Al-Tukhais, A. S. (1997), "Water Resources and Agricultural Production in Saudi Arabia: Present and Future," in Water Resources and Its Utilization in Saudi Arabia: Proceedings of the First Saudi Conference on Agricultural Sciences, 25– 27 March 1997, College of Agriculture, King Saud University, Riyadh.

Bushnak, A. (1997), "Water Desalination and Wastewater Reuse: Review of the Technology, Economics and Applications in the ESCWA Region," Expert Group Meeting on Development of Non-Conventional Water Resources and Appropriate Technologies for Groundwater Management in the ESCWA Member Countries, 27–30 October, Manama, Bahrain. Economic and Social Commission of Western Asia (ESCWA)/UN, Beirut.

CLIS (Council of Leading Islamic Scholars) (1978), "Judgement Regarding Purifying Wastewater: Judgement no. 64 on 25 Shawwal, 1398 ah, Thirteenth Meeting of the Council of Leading Islamic Scholars (CLIS) during the Second Half of the Arabic month of Shawwal, 1398 ah (1998)," Taif: Journal of Islamic Research 17, pp. 40–41.

Dabbagh, A. E. and Abderrahman, W. A. (1997), "Management of Groundwater Resources under Various Irrigation Water Use Scenarios in Saudi Arabia," Arabian Journal of Science and Engineering 22 (special theme issue on water resources in the Arabian Peninsula), pp. 47–64.

Ishaq, A. M. and Khan, A. A. (1997), "Recharge of Aquifers with Reclaimed Wastewater: A Case for Saudi Arabia," Arabian Journal for Science and Engineering 22, pp. 133–41 (special theme issue on water resources in the Arabian Peninsula).

MAW (Ministry of Agriculture and Water) (1984), Water Atlas of Saudi Arabia, MAW, Riyadh.

——— (1992), Agricultural Statistical Year Book, vol. 7, MAW, Department of Economic Studies and Statistics, Riyadh.

MOP (Ministry of Planning) (1990), Fifth Development Plan, MOP, Riyadh.

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