TITLE:
An Analysis of Renewable Water Sources in Saudi Arabia
AUTHORS:
Nashmi H. Alrasheedi
KEYWORDS:
Renewable, Energy, Solar, Basin, Resources, Distillation, Fog, Collector
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.3 No.4,
December
18,
2014
ABSTRACT: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is located in a very harsh natural desert
environment with no rivers or lakes and an average yearly rainfall of less than
100 mm. The country is under extreme water shortage conditions. KSA utilizes
conventional (natural) and unconventional water resources to satisfy the ever
increasing water demand. The purpose of this paper is to analyze two approaches
to obtaining fresh water from renewable water resources, namely they are
seawater distillation using solar energy and gathering liquid water from fog.
In order to conduct the study for seawater distillation a solar still basin has
been designed, manufactured and tested in selected day for saline water in
month of April, 2012. The solar still consists of insulated metal box with
channels. Pyramidal glass covers attached to the basin at an angle (=45°), and the basin
area of the still is 0.25 m2 and filled with 6 liters of seawater.
The average daily output was found to be 3.924 liters/day. Further, to
harvesting water from fog a Standard Fog Collector (SFC) was designed and
manufactured in Asir region with locally available materials and imported mesh.
This SFC was installed in April 2012. The site was chosen based on topography
and altitude and data from April 2012 to March 2013 were obtained. Measurements
with the SFC were made for region with 3200 m elevation. The results indicate
that the average water production was 6.225 L/(m2·day) over the studied period
and the highest average water production was recorded in December 11.20 L/(m2·day).
The highest water collection was 20 L/(m2·day) and recorded in Jan. 05, 2013 at
Rayda site, and furthermore for the same site, the best average water
production of 10.52 L/(m2·day) was obtained in winter three months period
namely (December, November and January).