Water is scarce in arid Saudi Arabia. Now the king has hired a team of German scientists to search for groundwater trapped in aquifers beneath the massive kingdom’s sands. Their pioneering work could provide solutions for other desert countries.
[...]
Finding Fossil Groundwater
German geologist Randolf Rausch, 59, as been working for GTZ International Services, part of Germany’s federal GTZ development agency, in Riyadh for the last six years. The Saudi king has hired him and his visitors, who are from the Technical University of Darmstadt, to search for water in the desert. By drilling holes up to 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) deep, conducting pumping tests, and applying complex measuring techniques and computer models, they are trying to find out how much fossil groundwater remains stored between layers of rock beneath the Arabian Peninsula.
The Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ) in the eastern German city of Leipzig is also involved in the large-scale project. “Using the supercomputers at the UFZ,” says Rausch, “we can simulate groundwater currents from the last ice age until today.”
His two guests, Christoph Schüth, 47, and Andreas Kallioras, 34, made careful preparations for the assignment. They tested the measuring equipment and probes with which they can measure moisture in the soil, as well as the movements and age of water, on the grounds of an abandoned airfield near Darmstadt.
[...]
In Saudi Arabia [...] there are pressing, existential questions to be addressed. How much water is left in underground aquifers? And what is the best way to use the precious resource to ensure that the country will be able to supply its growing population with water for as long as possible?
