Impacts of climate change on the municipal water management system in the Kingdom of Bahrain: Vulnerability assessment and adaptation options

• Published in: Climate risk management Vol. 20; pp. 95 - 110
• Main Authors: Al-Zubari, Waleed K., El-Sadek, Alaa A., Al-Aradi, Mohamed J., Al-Mahal, Hameed A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 2018; Elsevier
• Subjects: Awareness; CO2 emissions; Desalination; Distribution network leakage; Natural gas consumption; Water saving devices; WEAP modeling; Natural gas consumption; CO2 emissions; Desalination; Awareness; Distribution network leakage; WEAP modeling; Water saving devices
• ISSN: 2212-0963; 2212-0963
• DOI: 10.1016/j.crm.2018.02.002

An assessment of the vulnerability of the municipal water management system to the impacts of climate change in the Kingdom of Bahrain, manifested by the increase in demands due to increase in temperatures, is conducted using a dynamic mathematical model representing the water sector in the kingdom. The model is developed using WEAP software and was calibrated and validated by historical matching utilizing data for the period 2000–2012. The model is used in the evaluation of the municipal water sector performance in terms of municipal water demands and their associated cost without and with climate change impacts scenarios for the period 2012–2030. The impact of climate change on the municipal water system is quantified as the difference between the two scenarios in three selected cost indicators: financial (production, conveyance and distribution costs), economic (natural gas asset consumption by desalination plants), and environmental (CO2 emissions by desalination plants). The vulnerability assessment indicated that the current municipal water management system in Bahrain is generally inefficient and associated with relatively high costs, which are expected to increase with time under the current policies and management approach focusing on supply-side management. The increase in temperature will increase these already high costs, and would exacerbate the water management challenges in Bahrain. However, these mounting challenges also present an opportune moment for Bahrain to review its current water resources management approaches and practices and to integrate climate change adaptation measures into its water planning and policies. In order to build an adaptive management capacity of the municipal water management system in Bahrain, a number of management interventions are proposed and evaluated, individually and combined, for their effectiveness in enhancing the efficiency of the management system using the developed dynamic model. These are: reduction of the leakage percentage in the municipal water distributions network and reducing per capita water consumption by raising water awareness among consumers and installing water saving devices in residential units. The evaluation results indicate that there is a large potential for reducing the municipal water demand and its associated cost, especially when all the three are combined; by the year 2030 it is estimated that the cumulative financial saving would be about US$ 2.9 Billion, the cumulative reduction in CO2 emission would be about 19.7 Million tons, and the preservation of the kingdom’s limited natural gas reserves would be about 4 Billion m3. In addition, a major reduction in desalination brine discharge to the marine environment and reduction of generated wastewater and their associated collection and treatment cost could be achieved from the implementation of these interventions. Adopting such management interventions will not only enhance the efficiency of the municipal water management system, but it will also help the Kingdom in its efforts in reducing its greenhouse gasses emissions. It is recommended that similar climate change vulnerability and adaptation analysis is extended to the whole water sector in Bahrain to include other major water consuming sectors (i.e., agricultural, industrial, and tourism sectors) and their sources of water (i.e., groundwater and wastewater) in Bahrain.