The need to efficiently improve the use of water in the household, industrial and agricultural sectors should be Saudi Arabia's thrust to achieve balance in supply and demand, according to Dr. Mohammed A. Al-Zahrani, an associate professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM). Al-Zahrani presented Sunday a research program on the topic of water resource management for the Kingdom at the 1st KFUPM Annual Research Day organized by the university's Deanship of Scientific Research (DSR). Al-Zahrani said that while government and the private sector have been undertaking the development of more water supplies, including the establishment and improving the efficiency of desalination plants and other sources of water, the management to avoid wasteful, uneconomical, inefficient uses of non-renewable resources should seriously be the focus too. The Kingdom has no rivers and is one of the driest regions in the world; water is basically obtained from four sources, namely, non-renewable groundwater from the deep fossil aquifers, desalinated water, surface water, and renewable groundwater from shallow alluvial aquifers. “Saudi Arabia faces the problem of maintaining sustainable water resources; a situation that is expected to worsen as a result of increased demand and limited renewable supplies; our great concern is how water management can help solve the imbalance between the supply and demand,” Al
