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Saudis Worry as They Waste Their Scarce Water

(New York Times) - Craig S. Smith Saudi Arabia sits atop one of the world's smallest reserves of water. Yet Saudi Arabia wastes plenty of its scarcest resource: fountains spew, swimming pools slop over, and irrigation sprinklers seem to spray everywhere, letting water evaporate into the dry desert air. Muhammad al-Qunaibet, a hydrologist and government adviser, estimates that the country uses 6.34 trillion gallons of water a year for agriculture, but says that only a third of that is replaced through rainfall. The rest simply disappears. "I've had to lower my pumps 100 meters in the past 10 years," said a local wheat farmer who taps into subterranean reservoirs. In some places, a quart of potable water costs more to produce than a quart of oil.
2003-01-28 00:00:00
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