Oil rich Gulf countries face problems to provide safe drinking water to its masses中东地区的富油国家正在努力为其居民提供安全饮用水。由于人口增长，该地区的农业、工业和生活用水供应量一直在增加，而由于干旱和水库蒸发，世界上原本最缺水地区的水供应量呈逐渐减少趋势。尽管海湾地区在工业发展方面成绩斐然，但用水问题正日益严峻，并给政府带来挑战。地下水位不断下降和盐渍化使该地区情况颇为紧急。这些国家为富油国，拥有大量的石油美元。该地区的政府竭尽全力提供水源满足上述所需，但这些努力代价沉重，远非目前所取得的成绩相抵。政府在海岸设立水源脱盐项目。这些设施耗费了大量的能源，主要是石油供应，因为石油是该海湾地区最大也是最廉价的能源，而这也使该地区的碳足迹增加，导致了全球变暖问题。后来，大量的石油能源消耗在用管道或水罐将水源从工厂输送到人口聚集区这一过程中。由于对安全饮用水和卫生设备的需求增大，人口大规模涌入城市，以及印度、巴基斯坦、斯里兰卡、孟加拉国、马来西亚、印尼、菲律宾等南亚和东南亚国家人口的迁入也加剧了用水压力。Oil rich gulf countries in Middle East are struggling to provide safe drinking water to its masses. Water supplies for agriculture， industrial and domestic use have increased over the time due to increase in population in the region but water supplies have gradually decreased due to droughts and evaporations of the water reservoirs in already one of the most water poor regions of the world. While gulf has made tremendous achievements in development sector but water question is getting big with every passing day and proving a challenge to governments. Falling water tables and salinization of underground water tables has left the region in critical situation.These countries are oil rich and have loads of wealth in petro-dollars and governments of the region have tried their best to provide water for above mentioned uses but cost of such efforts is huge and far more than what has been achieved so far. Governments have set up water desalinization projects on sea shores. Such plants consume a lot of energy which basically comes from oil supplies as oil is one the biggest and cheapest energy source in gulf region which increases carbon footprint of the region and induces global warming. Afterwards huge amounts of energy， again produced by oil， are consumed on transporting the water from these plants back to population either by pipelines or water tanks. Migration by huge chunks of population to cities and migrant workers arriving from South and Southeast Asian nations like India， Pakistan， Sri Lanka， Bangladesh， Malaysia， Indonesia， and Philippines have increased the pressure on use of water resources because of increase in demand for safe drinking water and sanitation purposes.（Source： mindsofscience.com）