MEED's Wastewater Treatment and Reuse Conference 2008 is set to open its doors on Nov. 24 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Abu Dhabi, UAE. The two-day conference will be an active forum for anyone with a vested interest in the Gulf region's wastewater treatment and reuse industry. The opening keynote address will feature an analysis of the current resource situation in the Middle East and the realities of meeting growing demand, presented by Rashid Ahmad bin Fahad, Minister of Water & Environment, UAE. Water and politics have become inextricably linked in the Middle East and potable water scarcity is a topic that has been keenly discussed for many years, so much so that water has been described as being the new oil in terms of its future importance in the region. Edmund O'Sullivan, chairman of MEED Events, said “the rapidly expanding Gulf economies are presenting increasing demands upon the already scarce supplies. Existing infrastructures are also coming under pressure and some industry experts have estimated that up to 40 percent of all supply is currently lost in transit. What is often less well understood is that growing demand and increased water usage results in increasing quantities of wastewater being created that needs to be treated.” “The recent events, as witnessed in the Jumeirah area of Dubai, of beach areas being polluted by raw untreated sewage have ably demonstrated what can happen when the quantity of wastewater created outstrips the capacity to cope and treat it. With Gulf economies investing increasingly large amounts to upgrade their infrastructures, new opportunities are continuing to be created for both domestic and international companies in the wastewater and reuse industry, especially in areas like Saudi Arabia.” Regional population expansion is also leading to an increased demand for power in the region and, despite the introduction over the last decade of membrane technology, desalination remains a very energy intensive process of creating potable water. As water desalination in the Middle East has been calculated to be responsible for approximately 75 percent of the world's total capacity, and regional power generation is also in need of large-scale investment to meet demand in the near future, the opportunity to reuse wastewater makes both environmental and economic sense. MEED was the first conference organizer to identify the tremendous growth and potential of the regional water treatment industry.
