Water-resource facilities and management strategy for Oman

Catastrophic floods and prolonged periods of drought are the main 'water' c hallenges facing Oman. So the inhabitants have had to resort to ingenious w ays of utilising the available-water resources, such as through building fa laj systems and the optimal selection of suitable crops, but nevertheless w hen exposed to extremely-dry weather conditions, temporary and even permane nt migration is still the only option left to some of those adversely affec ted. The water problem has been compounded as a result of the rapid economi c development of Oman since the beginning (in 1967) of the extraction there of crude oil in commercial quantities. During this period, the general hea lth 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 dema nds placed upon natural groundwater resources (i.e. fresh-water aquifers) h ave 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 su pplies needed. However, desalination is relatively expensive and energy int ensive! So a programme of better water-resource management is being impleme nted. This has required the collection of meteorological data for many regi ons of Oman. It is realised that the construction of darns 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 undergr ound aquifers. Also the possibility of utilising images taken from Earth-or biting satellites for the exploration for ground-water fracture-zone aquife rs is being considered in order to try to locate substantial resources, whi ch have failed to be detected by conventional drilling methods, because suc h water is often at great depths (exceeding 1 km). (C) 1998 Published by El sevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.