Approaches to achieve sustainable use and management of groundwater resources in Qatar: A review

Abstract

The global demand for clean water is growing due to the decreasing of natural renewable water resources. With increasing public awareness of the limitations of groundwater resources, the needs for protection and remediation of groundwater are gaining significant importance. However, groundwater is highly depleted due to unsustainable use of groundwater. This implies the importance of sustainable use and management of groundwater resources. Although the groundwater in the State of Qatar is not used as drinking water for the public, it is widely used for agricultural, domestic and recreational projects. The high salinity concentrations of the groundwater are due to the stress from agriculture, urban development and climate change. This paper reviews the hydro-geochemical characterizations of Qatar's aquifer. In addition, it highlights the opportunities in the current groundwater management practices to achieve a sustainable groundwater use in Qatar such as assessing and monitoring the groundwater quantity and quality. In this review article, the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response framework was used to analyze the water resource system in Qatar; begins by describing the causal chain from driving forces of impacts and finally state the responses. As the main driver was the intensive use of groundwater for agriculture irrigation, this causes high pressure on groundwater abstraction and deteriorate the state of the groundwater environment in term of quantity and quality, which has an impact on the food and water supply demands. Therefore, the final response highlights the need for the enhancing the rainfall infiltration to the aquifers, recharging the groundwater aquifers using treated sewage effluent or desalinated water development of groundwater treatment techniques, the use of efficient water irrigation practices, the reuse of treated wastewater for irrigation and the development of certain water-use tariff structures and awareness campaigns for farmers.