Going Dutch

Both suffer from a scarcity of freshwater and both have had to address the infrastructure challenges thrown up by rapid development.

Although the Netherlands is a water-rich country, where it rains four out of every twenty days, it has to rely on groundwater sources to service the country’s water needs, as the rivers that flow through it are too polluted, having previously passed through Germany, Belgium and France.

With two thirds of the country lying below sea-level, the Netherlands is also vulnerable to flooding, like many of the Gulf states.

The country’s famous dikes were built to reclaim land that otherwise would lie under floodwater.

Groundwater is often brackish to salty as a result.

Land reclamation at sea is another area where similarities can be found: Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport is located on territory that used to belong to the North Sea, so too the Port of Rotterdam expansion.

And in the years that followed the Second World War, the Dutch had to rebuild vast swathes of the country’s infrastructure in a building frenzy not unlike that currently taking place in the Middle East.

Knowledge transfer

This all means that the Netherlands has developed great expertise in producing and treating water, and in installing water-related infrastructure in challenging locations and under pressure.

It is, therefore, well placed to offer advice and guidance to countries in the Gulf region that are looking to develop their water and wastewater systems.

To facilitate this transfer of knowledge, the Netherlands-Gulf Region Water Platform (NGWP) was set up last year.

The umbrella group gathers water companies, equipment suppliers, non-governmental organisations, research centres, as well as government departments into a one-stop shop for Dutch water expertise.

It has a permanent office in the UAE.

At the end of January, the Dutch minister for foreign trade, Frank Heemskerk brought a delegation to the UAE to discuss bilateral economic ties and to promote the NGWP.

At a roundtable meeting in the Dubai Chamber of Commerce, Heemskerk said Dutch equipment manufacturers have developed innovative technologies that could provide solutions to the emirate’s mission to address the lack of available water, while consultancy companies from the Netherlands could give pointers on how to reduce overall water usage and make supplies to stretch further.

Participants heard how the average per capita daily water consumption in the Netherlands has been cut from 250 litres to 120-140 litres through improved water demand management, such as public awareness campaigns and efficient metering.

Other savings have been made possible by leak detection and surface and groundwater management.

Non-revenue water accounts for just 2% of the country’s total water output, compared to 11% in the UAE, and as much as 50% in other areas of the Middle East.

The message the NGWP hopes to give is that similar efficiency gains are achievable in the Middle East, and changing consumption patterns by raising consumer awareness, combined with technical adjustments to toilets and showerheads in both new and existing buildings, will most likely reap the biggest results.
 

The idea of raising utility tariffs was debated at length, but in the experience of Dutch utility companies this has limited impact as water bills are small compared to other expenses in life.

Smart metering and staggered tariff structures were said to be more effective in making customers consider how much water they consume.

The shift towards the privatisation of water utilities and the use of concessions does not favour conservation so water authorities have to take the lead in effecting change, and they need to act now as some concessions work on a take-or-pay basis, which could mean utilities are left paying for water that is not used, Abdul Rahman Saif Al-Ghurair, the first vice chairman of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce was told.

The Netherlands has also undertaken to ensure that its scarce and expensive potable water is not used for purposes that do not require high quality water.

As a result, water reuse is booming in the country, with big industrials, such as Dow Chemical, using grey water as process water.

The nature of development in the UAE and elsewhere in the region presents an ideal opportunity for decentralised wastewater treatment, with water then reused for irrigation and air conditioning.

Developers need to be taught the value of effluent so that they will understand the need to install the latest water reuse technology, it was agreed.

New markets

The main objective of the NGWP is to foster new markets for Dutch water companies in the Gulf because business opportunities back home are now few.

The infrastructure in place in the Netherlands is robust and is expected to be more than sufficient to meet the country’s water needs for at least the next 50 years.

Dutch firms are already very experienced at working in the Middle East, though, and have been involved in projects such as the Sulaibiya wastewater treatment plant in Kuwait; the Palm Jumeirah and Palm Jebel Ali developments in Dubai; and water supply projects in Umm Al-Quwain in the UAE and Amman in Jordan.

The NGWP is part of the Netherlands Water Partnership, an independent body set up by the Dutch private and public sectors to coordinate water activities overseas.

It has also established a similar platform in Turkey.