Communities in Al Najd area have always had farming practised on a small scale one way or the other. In the 1980s, farmers obtained water by digging wells. But it was limited due to the high cost of diesel as there was no electricity. So the farms almost disappeared except for a few. Later, in the 90s, the farms started using renewable energy — windmills to draw water from the bore well and solar power for lighting at night. The electricity connection changed the area in a big way.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources has declared Al Najd the agricultural development area consisting of the wilayats of Thamrait, Al Mazyouna, Shaleem and Al Halaniyat Islands and Maqshan.
Interestingly, Dr Khalid bin Salim al Mashaikhi’s PhD Dissertation in 2011 evaluated groundwater recharge in Al Najd aquifers using hydraulics, hydrochemical and isotope evidence. Today he is the Assistant DG for dams affairs and is also in charge of Al Najd agricultural development area.
A closer look at the study area and the mountain range shows that the area covers about 89,000 sq km.
There was a need and concern to know about the aquifers of Al Najd area as there were reports stating there are about two to three aquifers.
“We wanted to know if the aquifers were connected or whether they had the same source; we also wanted to know if the aquifers were renewable or whether it was fossil water,” said Dr Khalid, whose PhD looked into these questions and the ministry accepted him as a candidate to conduct the research.
Water is indeed one of the main components of this project.
“We hope to work together with the people from the community, the government sector, and hopefully, we will succeed in the end,” said Dr Khalid.
Looking at Al Najd area, the existence of underground water might not be realised — there is an opportunity and challenge at the same time.
“It is fossil water in most of the area, but part of this can be renewable as freshwater is coming through floods. It mostly comes from the wadis of the northern part of the mountain area in Dhofar,” he explained.
He added that various studies had been done previously to assess the amount of water. The hope is that, in the future, to enhance the amount of water, there could be different levels of development such as dams to recharge the groundwater in the area.
“People feel that when there are formations of small lakes in the flooded area, the aquifer will be recharged. It is not so; the water cannot seep through because these aquifers are under pressure. The pressure of the aquifer and the surface probably reach about three to four bars. But the pressure on the top is probably around .2 to .3 bars. So it cannot work. In this case, we have to focus on the south area near the mountains to recharge the aquifer to avoid losing water in the desert ending up being evaporated,” Dr Khalid said.
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