New research centre to filter water data that will shape Abu Dhabi’s future

With more than 45 projects under way, a new research centre is helping Abu Dhabi to lead the way in innovation in the fields of clean-water production, water management and climate-change studies.

Launched in March, the Institute Centre for Water and Environment (iWater) consolidates years of research work carried out at the Masdar Institute for Science and Technology in the capital.

Research carried out by the 37 core faculty at the centre is expected to provide the hard data that will influence important decisions for Abu Dhabi and the rest of the country.

The information will help answer questions such as how to manage dwindling groundwater resources, which are the best technologies to employ in meeting the rising demand for drinking water and how to adapt to expected changes to the global climate.

Attempts to predict the effects of man-made climate change in the country and the wider Arabian Gulf are still filled with uncertainty as the there have been no in-depth local studies.

Professor Taha Ouarda is the head of iWater. His research focuses on developing models to predict the future availability of water resources, as well as the behaviour of other environmental and health factors.

He said changes in climate are expected to affect a range of variables, including temperatures, rainfall, humidity, wind levels and dust.

"Understanding all of those variables and how climate is going to affect them in the future is at the heart of sustainability for Abu Dhabi and the UAE," he said.

Changes in the physical environment will have an effect on energy and water use, said Prof Ouarda. Better understanding of these factors also allows the country to assess the potential to generate renewable energy.

In 2012, Masdar officially launched the UAE Solar Atlas, a tool to inform decisions about the country's potential to generate solar power, developed by scientists at iWater and colleagues at the Institute Centre for Energy (iEnergy).

The experience, said Prof Ouarda, showed the value in developing local modelling expertise.

When the atlas was being developed, models used in Europe and North America, where there is less suspended dust in the air, were used to make predictions about the UAE's solar potential.

This meant that an initial version of the atlas "overestimated the solar potential by up to 40 per cent".

These early stages of the project showed the risks in simply borrowing "off-the-shelf tools that have been developed in other places", said Prof Ouarda.

"If we want to proceed in the right way, we need to develop our tools locally so that they integrate the local characteristics and they meet the local needs," he said.

"It does not mean that we should not be looking at what is being done outside ... but we should not adopt them blindly."

Since autumn last year, the two centres have been working to create a solar atlas for Saudi Arabia, while a similar evaluation of the UAE's wind resources is to be launched this summer.

Another key focus for the centre is encouraging innovation in water production. The UAE produces most of its drinkable water through thermal desalination technologies, where seawater is heated and effectively distilled.

New approaches rely on the use of pushing water through membranes to filter out impurities. A key issue is the accumulation of debris on the membranes, known as fouling, and improving ways to manage the process or clean the membranes.

"That is a topic where we have a team over here that is actually one of the leaders worldwide," said Prof Ouarda. "This is at the heart of developing new techniques in desalination that are based on membrane technology, rather than thermal techniques."

Of the 10 patents filed by core iWater faculty, several are about designing new types of membranes to filter water. Faculty are also investigating new ways to treat and reuse sewage effluent to deal with solid waste.

The centre offers affiliated students the chance to obtain degrees in water and environmental engineering, chemical engineering or materials science. About 60 per cent of students are foreign but the aim is for half to be Emirati in the near future.

Once they have graduated, students do not have to wait long for jobs, said Prof Ouarda.

"They are very much sought-after by the government agencies and the industry," he said.

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