ABU DHABI // Officials involved in Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Initiative have set a target for individual water consumption in the community of just 80 litres a day.
If achieved, the world’s first “carbon neutral” city would be one of the most water-efficient communities in the industrialised world.
The hope of officials is that leading by example will stimulate significant progress in creating more water-efficient communities elsewhere.
Statistics released by the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi this year revealed that residents here were the highest consumers of water in the world, using an average of 550 litres per person a day.
“In the Middle East we do use water very liberally,” said Lisa Henthorne, a technology adviser to the Masdar project. “We do not really have any water conservation measures in our domestic appliances and home applications.”
The Dh80.6 billion (US$22bn) Masdar development is expected to house 90,000 people by 2016. Most of its residents will work for companies based in the city involved in the search for renewable sources of energy or sustainable development technology.
“Every drop of water that is produced has an energy cost to it,” said Mrs Henthorne, who is also the global director of desalination technology at CH2M HILL, a global engineering, construction and operations services provider.
By “carbon-neutral”, officials mean residents and businesses based in Masdar will release virtually no carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through their daily activities, from driving to watching television. Excessive carbon dioxide emissions are believed to be the main cause of changes to the world’s climate, resulting in global warming and rising sea levels.
The plan at Masdar City is to harvest the sun’s energy to produce electricity, although officials admit production capacity will be limited since current solar energy technologies require a lot of space – something the 6.5 square km experimental city will lack. That means Masdar residents will also be asked to cut back significantly on their water consumption.
“Water leakage usually accounts for losses of around 20 per cent,” said Khaled Awad, the director of Masdar’s property development unit. “Our target is to reduce leakage to less than one per cent.”
He said using new technologies would help to reduce losses in the water distribution network, but residents would need to reuse water in a number of novel ways.
Masdar City would also have its own desalination plant, expected to have a capacity of 10,000 cubic metres of water per day, which is enough to fill four Olympic-size swimming pools.
The plant plans to produce two types of high quality water: one fit for drinking and one for personal uses such as showering and washing dishes.
Of the 80 litres of water each Masdar resident is expected to use per day, only half will be potable, desalinated water.
The remainder will be recycled water – the unused water from sinks, showers, washing machines and dishwashers that will be collected and treated.
This water, known as grey water, is not suitable for drinking and cooking, but is safe for things such as washing and toilets.
Mr Awad said the city’s sewage would be treated at another facility with a capacity of 5,000 cubic metres a day, and the water would be used to irrigate public parks and gardens.
Finally, the city plans to use a proven, old-fashioned method to reduce water usage: raising the residents’ water bills.
Mr Awad said he could not specify how much people who lived in Masdar would be charged for their water, but indicated that it would be more than residents of Abu Dhabi, who were currently charged one fil per litre.
The developers of Masdar also plan to install devices throughout the buildings to remind residents of how much water they are using. Taps and showers, for example, will be equipped with sensors that will stop the flow if a large quantity has already been used.
Residents would be able to get more water with the press of a button, but they would constantly be reminded that they should be frugal, Mr Awad said.
“You can still choose to consume a lot but it will not come without the knowledge of what impact this is having.”
Flats and offices will also have gauges that let inhabitants know how much water they’ve been using and how much it is costing them.
“As long as you have a number associated with consumption, people’s attitudes will change,” said Mr Awad.
Scientists believe climate change will make arid countries such as the UAE even hotter and badly affect the quality of the air, water and soil.
Environmentalists are concerned that the combination of artificial fertilisers and pumping diminishing groundwater reserves for agricultural use is having a detrimental effect on soil quality.
Similarly, the massive seawater desalination programme – up to 8bn cubic metres of water are produced in Abu Dhabi alone each year – is making the shallow seas of the region significantly saltier, adversely affecting the fragile ecosystems of mudflats and mangrove swamps.
There is another worrying consequence of the nation’s dependence on desalinated water: much of the CO² emitted here is created at the country’s many desalination plants, which are powered from gas and oil-burning generators.
Vesela Todorova