I admire water usage in Abu Dhabi, if not its source
Abu Dhabi sits on a large, and very deep sand spit, so there is no nearby natural source of fresh water. But, they have oil coming out their ears, so all the city's mains water is the result of burning some of the Emirate's oil to distill seawater. That's the less admirable bit since it emits a lot of carbon dioxide , but they have little choice apart from using solar stills, and its likely they looked at that pretty carefully before deciding to run the fresh water system on oil.
Anyway, water from the distillation plant tastes flat and horrible, so its first use is to flow through the many splendid fountains along the Corniche and in city parks.
This water, now aerated and nice-tasting is collected and filtered. Its second use is for drinking and washing in the homes, hotels and palaces of the city.
In turn, waste water collected from basins, showers and baths is again collected and treated to remove insolubles and microbes, etc. Its third use is to flush the city's toilets.
Sewage is collected and run through a conventional treatment works, but nutrients are not removed. This nutrient-rich effluent is then sent to a 'sand farming' area, where it is used to irrigate crops growing in large sand beds.
This all seems to be almost infinitely preferable to what goes on in the UK: waste water from every source is all mixed together and sent to the local sewage treatment works. Too big a flow, such as during a rain storm, for the works to handle? Never mind. Just bung the overflow, untreated, into the local river where it mixes with the fully treated waterworks outflow.This mixture then flows down the river to the next town, where the whole process repeats ad infinitum, or at least until the flow reaches the sea.
So, in summary, Abu Dhabi has its disadvantages as a place to live, but there's no question that its water is cleaner and nicer than here.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
