Wednesday, June 12, 2013

WATER - Qatar's Solution to Aquifer Drying Up

"Could Agriculture Bloom in the Desert?  Qatar Works to Invent an Innovative Oasis" PBS Newshour 6/11/2013

Excerpt

GWEN IFILL (Newshour):  Next, we continue our weeklong look at food security and how climate change is affecting what we produce and how we eat.

Tonight, special correspondent Jon Miller reports from the tiny Middle Eastern nation of Qatar on inventive ways to get the most out of water in the desert.

It's part of our series “Food for 9 Billion,” in partnership with Public Radio International's "The World," Homeland Productions, American Public Media's “Marketplace,” and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

JON MILLER:  Every day, hundreds of tanker trucks line up at the Mazrouah pumping station outside Doha, in the tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar.  They start rolling in at 6:30 in the morning and keep filling up until 10:00 at night.

Their cargo is not oil or gas, the resources that have given Qatar the highest per capita income in the world, but water from an underground aquifer that's quickly drying up.

JONATHAN E. SMITH, Qatar National Food Security Program:  We have got about two years left of an adequate supply, a usable supply of high-quality freshwater in this particular aquifer.

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