Sustainable future for desalination plants unveiled

Dr Abu Baker Al Hakim has compiled the region's first data on water resource management.

Dr Abu Baker Al Hakim , a Sudanese PhD graduate in water resources from UAE University at Al Mamzar beach in Dubai. Pawan Singh / The National

ABU DHABI // A more sustainable future for desalination plants in the Arabian Gulf has been unveiled by a former UAE University student of water resources.

Dr Abu Baker Al Hakim, 43, a Sudanese who studied at the Al Ain university, graduated a few months ago and has compiled the region’s first data on water resource management.

“I worked during my Master’s on oil spills in the Gulf and that’s where everything began,” he said. “Desalination is the main interest of water resources in the Gulf so all things meet eventually to serve the desalination industry. From a water resources point of view, desalination is the only valid option for securing water resources in the Gulf.”

After two years of gathering regional data with Dr Walid El Shorbagy, head of the UAEU water resource department, he compiled research on the hydrodynamic evaluation of climate change and the effects of coastal effluent on the long-term circulation of the Arabian Gulf and its impact on desalination.

“At first, it was not clear whether the research would be beneficial in terms of applicability for the desalination industry,” Dr Al Hakim said. “But, eventually, when we got the results and we found out that we’ve done some work that’s never been done anywhere, I think that was a very important point for us and for the industry, as well as for the scientific community in terms of compiling all data in the Gulf.

“So it’s unique in a way that with the scarcity of the data available, we were able to materialise results and come up with a new approach to evaluate the impact of long term climate change on a very important and strategic industry.”

Regionally, desalination plants are mostly located along the coastline.

“This is mainly thermal desalination,” Dr El Shorbagy said. “It has some wastewater called brine which goes into marine water. It is at high temperature and high salinity so it has an adverse impact on marine life, to some extent it pollutes, and once the temperature and salinity change, this indicates physical pollution because marine species, algae, plankton and fish will not stand major environmental variation in terms of temperature and salinity.”

With a number of growing activities that require desalination plants, the practice is not slowing.

“The Gulf is abundant which allows for desalination growth without any constraints, as long as we have money to pay, regardless of anything, and whatever the demand is,” he said. “A lot of growing activities in the region correspond to major growth in water demands, not just in the UAE, but the whole Arabian Gulf countries. A moderate scenario would be around 13 per cent growth every year for demand for drinking water, which is mostly desalinated in Gulf countries. But there are more extreme scenarios.”

The research studies different desalination technologies that have the least harmful effect on the environment and are cost-effective.

“We wanted to study the impact not only today but in the future because it has to be planned from now,” Dr El Shorbagy said. “The climate change phenomena is also critical. A lot of studies indicate that they will result in temperature increase and a drop in precipitation so this will also impact salinity and [water] temperature.”

The UAE’s mostly shallow waters increase their salinity.

“We had to find the best technology between reverse osmosis (RO), MSF (multi stage flash) and MED (multi effect desalination),” he said. “In the UAE, the predominant one is MSF but RO is advancing.”

They found the most suitable method for the Gulf was MED.

“It’s not predominant but it’s growing,” he said. “MED is better because the quantity of brine generated is less than the other two processes so we produced maps on different locations with which technology was better.”

The researchers expect to be published next month.

“This is a step in the right direction to look for more environmentally friendly desalination techniques and approaches,” Dr Al Hakim said. “Maybe solar powered desalination plants, which is a new endeavour, as we can’t live without desalination so we have to think of other blends of technologies that can help provide the service of increasing water supply while using more environmentally friendly sources of power such as wind turbines or solar.”