Abu Dhabi: Farmers visiting and taking part in the Liwa Date Festival are being encouraged to register their wells in an effort to protect and preserve groundwater, a vital natural resource for the UAE.
Launched in 2016, the Groundwater Well Inventory Project is being run by the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD) with the organisation using the opportunity of the Liwa Date Festival to raise awareness on the programme and how farmers can sign up. The goal of the project is to register every well in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi by 2018, creating an official database of all wells.
“Groundwater is a vital resource for our country, and so it’s very important that we do all we can to preserve this resource and use it in a proper and planned way, especially when it comes to farming,” said Mattar Al Mansouri, inspector for groundwater at the EAD.
“The goal of our project is to register all the wells in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and so the Liwa Date Festival, which receives a large number of visiting farmers, is a great venue for connecting with farmers and to raise awareness on our programme and to have them sign up,” he added.
Al Mansouri said that the registration of the wells would help facilitate better planning for the farmers, which in turn, would benefit the emirate’s goal of maintaining it’s groundwater supplies.
“Each well that is visited and registered is given a unique identification number, and so we will easily be able to know where each well is located, and to whom it belongs,” he said.
“Other information that is also recorded in the system includes the quality of the groundwater, the levels of how much water there is, and how much of that water is being used.
“All of this information can then be used to map out a good plan, we can help the farmer better use and maintain his water expenditure, which will make the use of groundwater more sustainable for the future,” he added.
“We are here to help the farmers, we want to let the farmers at the date festival know about this important project, and to let us help them,” he said.
Al Mansouri said that the registration was also free of charge for the farmers.
“The process is all free, farmers do not have to pay for the registration, our inspectors visit the well and take down all the necessary information. The farmers just have to sign up to register their well in our database.”
The Liwa Date Festival is taking place in the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi Emirate, and is running until July 29. The festival is a celebration of the traditional and iconic fruit of the UAE.
Liwa Date Festival
Where: Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi
When: July 19 to July 29
Timing: 4pm-10pm daily
Admission: Free
