DUBAI, May 24 (IPS) - Authorities and environmentalists worried about water scarcity in the Middle East have a new ally - religion.
Plans are underway in Qatar to install water meters in mosques in order to keep a track on consumption, whose levels in the Middle East is among the highest in the world.
This relationship is not new -- Islam has always advocated the prudent use of water and other natural resources. But the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation has launched this drive in a bid to prevent wastage and encourage conservation. Similar meters will be installed at all government buildings.
''This is aimed at making people aware of the importance of water conservation since it is a precious natural resource in Qatar,'' said Khalid Al Mansouri, director of the Water Supply Network.
All mosques have large washrooms to facilitate the performance of 'wazu', the mandatory washing of hands, feet and other parts of the body before prayers.
Often, several mosques receive water coolers donated by charitable worshippers to provide cool drinking water. But the usage of water, or of the number of people entering the mosques in between prayer times is not monitored.
Nearby residents also use large quantities of water from these washrooms for their personal purposes like cleaning vehicles. Passing motorists, low-income workers -- who cannot afford refrigerators -- and children fill bottles from the coolers for drinking.
The Qatar water corporation hopes that the installation of these meters would make it possible to at least statistically track usage levels.
''It is good to hear that such moves are in the offing,'' said an 'imam' (male prayer leader) of a mosque in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates. ''We have no meters as yet, but we hope that by reiterating the lessons preached by our Prophet, we will instill the need to conserve this precious resource in the minds of worshippers.''
Islamic teachings stress the need to conserve water. In fact, the Arabic word for water, 'ma', appears over 60 times in the Koran. The sustainable use of water depending on values such as fairness, equity and concern for others is a recurring concept too.
Several 'hadith' or sayings of the Prophet Muhammed, stress this principle, according to the book 'Water Conservation through Islamic Public Awareness in the Eastern Mediterranean Region'.
There, book authors S Atallah, M Z Ali Khan and M Malkawi draw attention to several such 'hadith', including one where the Prophet emphasises that a person should not waste water even if a running river is at hand.
At the same time, they point to misinterpretations of some Islamic concepts that touch on precious water.
''Prophet Muhammad said that people are partners in water, grass and fire. This hadith is being used against water-pricing policies intended to reduce water demand," they wrote.
"Some people claim that water should be supplied free of charge as it comes freely from the sky or from groundwater aquifers," they added. "This is an inaccurate interpretation."
This partnership permits use of all elements of life and if one does not respect the implicit partnership, the person may lose his or her rights," they said.
Water consumption in the Middle East is so high that in the UAE, it exceeds 378.5 litres per person everyday, compared to the international standard of 189 to 265 gallons daily. The annual growth rate in water use is of eight to 10 percent.
A study by the Federal Environment Agency states that from around 630 million gallons per day in 2000, consumption is expected to reach 2.3 billion litres this year -- and climb to 4.7 billion gallons in 2010.
Equally alarming is the fact that as water consumption is increasing, groundwater levels are falling. They have been dropping at a rate of one metre every year for the past 30 years.
The estimated annual recharge for groundwater in the UAE is 20 million cubic metres, while the rate of groundwater extraction has been around 880 million cubic metres a year.
''Our water levels are under pressure because of three main reasons - rapid population growth, expanding agricultural and industrial sectors and climatic conditions,'' said Essam Al Muhairi, a researcher at a Dubai-based desalination company,
In Dubai, one of the seven emirates in the UAE, alone, water supply is 210,000 cubic metres per day and is projected to rise more than three times to 660,000 cubic metres per day by 2020.
Demand from irrigation and greening requirements is 180,000 cubic metres per day, and is expected to jump to 560,000 cubic metres by 2020, said a Dubai municipality official.
Elsewhere in the region, Saudi Arabia's demand has risen from one million to about 5 million cubic metres per day over the last 25 years. By 2030, water consumption is expected to hit 12 million cubic metres a day.
Consumption of drinking water in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states - the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait -- rose from 1.9 billion cubic metres in 1958 to 3 .9 billion cubic metres in 1999. The volume of potable water consumption would total 8.8 billion cubic metres by 2010. To meet this growing demand, governments in the region are turning towards desalination.
The six GCC states have collectively spent more than 40 billion U.S. dollars on building around 550 seawater desalination stations over the last 25 years.
They include around 393 plants in Saudi Arabia, 98 in the UAE and 34 in Kuwait - these provide nearly 85 percent of the Gulf region's drinking water.
''The oil-rich Arab states - Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - make up five of the nine countries with the least water per capita. In the UAE, the cost of buying one litre of petrol and a litre of water is almost the same,'' said Essam.
In a discussion on water in Arab world held in Sharjah in May, experts warned that the value of water per capita in the region - now 833 million cubic metres per year) is already far below the international benchmark of 1,000 cubic metres per year.
(*This story is part of IPS Asia-Pacific's Asia Water Wire, a news and information package around water issues in the region.) (END/2005)IPS
