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Actions and Technologies Used by Saudi Arabia in Solving the Country’s Water Problems

As water consumption continues to overwhelm Saudi Arabia’s water resources, management of water use has become a challenge for both the government and citizens. While the challenge of supply has been hurdled, the continuous supply of good quality water to Saudi citizens at a minimum cost still has to be resolved. The availability of adequate supply of clean water has for long been affected significantly by aging infrastructure and in recent years, by the effects of climate change.

Statistically, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) consumes 263 liters per capita everyday, but with great potential to constantly increase at twice the average on a per person (per capita) basis on a global scale. Obviously this is troublesome for an arid country like Saudi in which the adverse impact of climate change has been straining water reserves.

The KSA Launched the Qatrah Program to Curb Water Usage

The country launched the Qatrah program in March 2019 as a way to mandate citizens to greatly reduce their water use based on goals. Such goals include reducing the citizens’ daily per capita consumption of water to 200 liters by the year 2020; down to 150 liters by the end of year 2030. The program also launched campaigns to raise awareness of the water crisis faced by the country; and of the need to protect not only the natural resources but also the infrastructures and industries that rely greatly on adequate supply of water.

Although the KSA has been successful in providing water throughout the entire country by investing in desalination technologies and storage tanks, water demand continues to increase to which consumption has been projected to 12.3 MCM per day in 2040. As it is, the agriculture sector takes up a huge part of the water supply, while the process of desalination is expensive.

As the Kingdom’s water issues are becoming more persistent, the country’s National Water Corporation has to consider the emerging innovative technologies and creative solutions for producing, distributing, managing and regulating water usage.
One such technology recommended is the Smart Water Management System, which can be used in buildings where water is temporarily stored in huge underground tanks of the buildings

How Does the Smart Water Management System Work?

Many of Saudi Arabia’s large buildings already have mechanically controlled water system that makes use of the Smart Water Management tech. The system allows the regulation of water flowing to water tanks located at the top of the buildings coming from the huge underground tanks below.
Through the utilization of LoRa communication technology, the smart water management system is able to control the above ground tanks’ water levels.

The LoRaWAN sensors gather and relay the data just in minutes to the building administration in charge of the water systems inside the area. If the said sensors found any malfunctions in the mechanism that affect water flow like a defective pump, or if there is a shortage in water, it immediately sends an emergency signal.

The system can also measure specific important quality metrics constantly and sends a warning signal to the building’s manager if something exceeds safe levels affecting the quality of water. The smart system records all water quality parameters for long periods of time, and any persistent irregularity in quality could cause the system to automatically stop the water distribution system of the building.

The automated texhnology sends out an emergency signal  automatically signifying that the water pump was intentionally disconnected due to quality issues. Once the problem has been solved, it can be reconnected to resume the building’s water distribution operations.

In most cases in Jeddah, building administrators call a reliable tank cleaning company like to inspect and clean water tanks to remove the elements affecting the quality of water.

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