Alternative water management scenarios for Saudi Arabia

The socioeconomic future of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will to a large extent depend on the successful matching of its extremely limited water resources with demands for water primarily determined by population growth. This paper reviews and roughly quantifies the demand and supply parameters and then proceeds to analyse four scenarios for water resources management according to four different strategies. The multiobjective approach uses the goal programming algorithm, and the most significant output parameters appear to be the notional ‘water sector cost’ and the rate at which non-renewable groundwater will be mined and exhausted, thereby endangering the Kingdom’s water security.