Effect of domestic water use on air pollutant emissions in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

The members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf have typically addressed water scarcity problems by building energy-intensive desalination plants. Few efforts have addressed water scarcity through metering, pricing, and other efficiency measures to reduce demand. This paper examines how decreased leakage in the water distribution system and decreased residential water use in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, could decrease air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions from desalination plants. We developed a probabilistic model to predict the effects of water use reductions on pollutant emissions from Abu Dhabi's major independent water and power plants, which use a combination of multi-stage flash distillation and multi-effect distillation to produce fresh water from seawater drawn from the Arabian Gulf. We examine three categories of scenarios for reducing water use: increasing the price signal to residential users, instituting demand management programs among residential users, and reducing water loss in the distribution system. Our analysis suggests that water conservation price incentives could reduce air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions by 1% to 5%, depending on assumptions about how households respond to the incentives. Demand-side management programs curbing per capita water use to levels typical of the Singapore or the UK would curb emissions by 10% or 11%, respectively. Reducing water loss during distribution from the current high level of 35% to 15% (similar to loss rates in other developed nations) could cut emissions by more than 3%. Overall, our analysis suggests that high per capita water use contributes to ambient air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in Abu Dhabi.