Developing A Sustainable Water Resources Management Assessment Framework (SWRM-AF) for Arid and Semi-Arid Regions

Abstract

The rapidly growing world population highlights the need for evaluation methods like indicator-based water sustainability frameworks (IBWSFs) to assess and improve water resources management (WRM) practices. This is particularly important in arid and semi-arid regions (ASAR) where water resources are scarce. Furthermore, a particular IBWSF that fully fits the context of ASAR could not be found in the literature. Therefore, a sustainable water resource management assessment framework (SWRM-AF) has been developed, specifically tailored to evaluate water use in the domestic sector of countries with similar water conditions to those of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The first step in the process of developing the SWRM-AF is to create a conceptual SWRM-AF, which consists of four components (i.e., three pillars of sustainability: environment, economy, and society plus infrastructure) underpinned with 24 selected indicators. These indicators were chosen rigorously through an extensive literature review. Each indicator is provided with a brief description and justification. One contribution of this research is that, for the first time, every indicator is presented with clear and straightforward instructions represented by coloured-code tables to explain how to evaluate each. In addition, social indicators such as the ‘intervention acceptability’ and environmental indicators to tackle the impact of the desalination treatment plants have been included to form a more holistic framework applicable to GCC countries. The second step is to utilise the Delphi technique as a participatory method to refine and validate the conceptual framework. This technique employs an iterative questionnaire to achieve consensus, through which 60 expert stakeholders from the GCC countries were invited to assess each indicator across four components and assign their respective weights. This process, through two rounds, resulted in a final version of SWRM-AF consisting of 4 equal-weight components and 17 indicators. Also, it was found that indicators within the social, economic, and infrastructure components should carry equal weights, while indicators within the environmental component should be assigned different weights. Lastly, data about the water sector of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), which was selected as an example of GCC countries, were collected to give a comprehensive idea about the overall water situation. Then, an application of the final SWRM-AF to the WRM of the domestic sector of the KSA, focusing on its current practices and assumptions of possible future scenarios, is presented.