News: Dubai builds world's largest water reservoirs

Dubai began constructing the world's largest pre-stressed concrete drinking water reservoirs.

The three giant rectangular reservoirs, each with a capacity of 60 million imperial gallons (roughly about 240 million litres), are being constructed in the Mushrif area of Dubai and will cost US$168.6m. The aim to cope with the increased demand for water boosted by multi-billion dollar property projects in the emirate.

The three giant Mushrif reservoirs will:
• Cover a total area of approximately 165,000 square metres
• Measure 372 metres x 169 metres and will be 5.6 metres deep
• Consume 270,000 cubic metres of concrete
• Use 27,000 tonnes of reinforcing steel

The Earl Thomas Reservoir serving San Diego in California currently holds the record as the world's largest pre-stressed concrete drinking water reservoir with a capacity of 35 million gallons.(More)

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) consumes more water per capita than any other country in the world with the exception of the United States and Canada. Lacking natural water sources to meet the demand, the Emirates use desalination. Dubai alone has an installed desalination capacity of 188 million gallons per day (MIGD). (More)

To cope with the energy demanded its these massive desalination plant, the UAE has recently decided to switch to nuclear energy. (More)

More Dubai related posts.

This post was written as follow-up to "World Water Day: One billion people without clean water".

Picture courtesy venturea.com (as I did find pictures of the UAE reservoirs!)
News source: The Road Daily