Water-resource facilities and management strategy for Oman

Catastrophic floods and prolonged periods of drought are the main [`]water' challenges facing Oman. So the inhabitants have had to resort to ingenious ways of utilising the available-water resources, such as through building falaj systems and the optimal selection of suitable crops, but nevertheless when exposed to extremely-dry weather conditions, temporary and even permanent migration is still the only option left to some of those adversely affected. The water problem has been compounded as a result of the rapid economic development of Oman since the beginning (in 1967) of the extraction there of crude oil in commercial quantities. During this period, the general health of the population has improved, the average family-size has grown, and the mean life-expectancy has increased. Also, as the economy has prospered, the number of immigrant workers has risen to become today approximately 25% of the total population. Thus the requirement for more reliable supplies of potable water has increased substantially and is still growing. The demands placed upon natural groundwater resources (i.e. fresh-water aquifers) have become excessive: seawater intrusion has occurred into some fresh-water aquifers as a result of the over-extraction of ground water and, in others, the aquifers have simply dried up. The Government has resorted to the use of desalination technologies for producing the additional potable-water supplies needed. However, desalination is relatively expensive and energy intensive! So a programme of better water-resource management is being implemented. This has required the collection of meteorological data for many regions of Oman. It is realised that the construction of dams across the wadi watercourses, to harness flash-flood water during storms, has the potential for reducing the need for the non-sustainable over-exploitation of underground aquifers. Also the possibility of utilising images taken from Earth-orbiting satellites for the exploration for ground-water fracture-zone aquifers is being considered in order to try to locate substantial resources, which have failed to be detected by conventional drilling methods, because such water is often at great depths (exceeding 1Â km).