Page 140 - IJES Special Issues for AIEC2016

40 © Sherif, Shalaby, and Altan 2016 | Towards the Second Sustainable City
solution for the water scarcity problem around
the world. Others had some doubts about the
efficiency of the treatment process since it is
very costly due to the costs of collecting
wastewater, construction and operation of
treatment plants, water networks from
collection patches and to final consumers, and
finally, the most important factor, the energy
required to operate those treatment facilities.
Some groups of researchers were completely
against the use of treated water, as it may have
very serious health implications on the people
who use of it.
Among all the scientific discussions, the
Estidama vision addressed a very feasible
solution that can be applied in RAK. The plan
was to encourage the use of treated wastewater
in industrial, landscape irrigation, and toilet
flushing in commercial and industrial buildings.
It will not be used for any residential or
agricultural uses to avoid any health risks.
Regarding efficiency of the process, the strategy
was to set a new regulation that investors in
new developed industrial areas should have
their own treatment plant inside their plots. The
case is not general; it specified that if an
industry’s daily fresh water consumption
exceeds a certain level, then this facility should fixtures’ and appliances’ flow rates. The UPC
have its own treatment plant to treat the water
before discharging it into the wastewater
network. This will ensure that the wastewater is
of a certain quality before it reaches the main
governmental treatment stations. Certain indus-
trial activities are required to have their own
treatment networks, such as food and pharma-
ceutical industries, which consume huge
amounts of fresh water and produce high
Figure 10: The approved water fixture flow rates by the UPC (UPC, 2010)
Science Target Inc. www.sciencetarget.com
quantities of wastewater. Simple treatment
processes can be implemented onsite, and small
tanks and pumps can redirect this treated water
to be used again in the same facility for
landscape irrigation and toilet flushing. Other
pre-treated wastewater is collected for a final
treatment process, which is handled by the
government, to generate water for landscape
irrigation, golf courses, and public toilet flushing
in the whole emirate. These practices have
resulted in huge savings in daily water
consumption. This strategy is still very new, and
hopefully more savings will be achieved in time.
This practice was very successful in achieving
many benefits, including fresh water savings in
consumption rates, reducing the charges of
water networks, reducing the construction costs
of huge treatment plants, and reducing the
yearly utility bills for investors. If RAK can
adopt such practices, there will be great savings,
as it depends mainly on industrial activities as a
source of income. The industrial sector
consumes huge amounts of the emirates’ share
of fresh water, which can be saved or at least
reduced by substituting it with onsite treated
wastewater. Another strategy that is applied
now in Abu Dhabi, which was delivered also
with the PRS system, is controlling water
publishes a list of the allowable flow rates to be
used in any new project that is being
constructed in Abu Dhabi. This practice helps to
achieve water savings in water consumption on
a smaller individual scale, which will be
welcomed by the public because these savings
will be reflected on their monthly utility bills.