Satellite images from outer space have revealed the possibile existence of large groundater reserves under the Arabian Desert, located in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The discovery is good news for the water-scarce Middle East, but environmentalists are cautioning that the water should be used sparingly and wisely.
The news was made public by Apollo Space Program veteran Dr. Farouk El-Baz at a lecture in Dubai,organized by the Emirates Environmental Group on Tuesday.
El-Baz said space images revealed the possibility of large groundwater reserves under some of the driest places on Earth.
The revelation is very recent and has not been verified by other sources.
“The discovery is very significant,” ‘Abd A-Rahman Sultan, the Amman-based project director of Friends of the Earth Middle East told The Media Line. “It might reduce the costs that the UAE, Saudi Arabia and other countries from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are laying out for desalination of water for domestic and agricultural use.”
However, he warned the water was not renewable and should be used carefully in an area as dry as the Gulf. The precipitation rate in the GCC contries is very low, at about 100 mm a year, on average.
“To make sure those waters are sustainable, you have to use them for domestic water supply to reduce the costs of desalination. It should not be used at all for agriculture. It can be used for limited purposes in industries like bottled water and the food industry.”
Both the quantity and the quality of the newly discovered water has not been verified.
The waters still need to be checked for quantity, salinity and other factors to ensure it is clean and drinkable.
Sultan said the reliability of the images depends on how accurate the analysis of the data was, but he estimated they were accurate.