H E Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada (fourth right) and Kahramaa President Eng Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari (third left) with other panellists during a roundtable discussion at Qatar Economic Forum, yesterday.
Doha: Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) has planned to adopt new technology to ensure further water security in the country.
“Kahramaa is conducting a feasibility study on a project to inject water for recharging aquifer which is expected to launch after FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022,” said Kahramaa President Eng Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari.
According to an international report, artificial recharge can be done through injection of water through wells. This method often is applied to recharge deep aquifers where application of water to the land surface is not effective at recharging these aquifers.
Al Kuwari was speaking at a roundtable discussion entitled ‘Hydro Innovation: Solving the Global Water Crisis,’ held at Qatar Economic Forum, yesterday.
The panellists included H E Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada.
“The issue of water is getting more critical worldwide especially in our region. I would like to emphasise on importance of right policy for a particular geographical region,” said Dr. Al Sada.
He said that the problems and challenges are not equal for all countries of the world in provision of water, therefore they need specific policies, strategies and plans for specific region.
Eng. Essa bin Hilal Al Kuwari said that Qatar also has challenges in providing water like other countries of the world which do not have natural resources of water like rainfall, lakes, and limited underground water.
“We have oil and gas which gave us power to solve water problem in the country,” said Al Kuwari. He said that realising the issue of water problem in the country, the government of Qatar invested a lot to solve this problem.
To meet the water demand, he said, “We built Water Security Mega Reservoirs, the largest single reservoir in the word at a cost of over $5bn in phase 1. It is functioning and fulfilling demand of water from residential side.”
“The second solution which is under study and we may go for it after FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 is ‘injection of aquifer itself,’ but it will not solve the problem of water for food security.”
He said that Kahramaa is working on another solution which is treated water, a source of water which could be used for beautification, agriculture, producing fodder and construction purposes.
“We have succeeded in providing treated water. Now we have huge production of fodder for animals using treated water. Most of the beautification works at gardens are irrigated using treated water. The Public Works Authority (Ashghal), which is running big construction sites is also using treated water.”
He said that Kahramaa is working hard to scale up the uses of treated water and soon it will cover the whole country.
