Max the Dog

Morning all!
does anyone have any experience of using the ground water wells for the garden?
I have just had one installed and its seeems to be killing the grass

Meow

Yes. We have a well in the garden. It needs to have been put in very deeply to draw fresh water rather than salinated.

Dry as Dust

Assuming you are in Dubai or near coast - much of the groundwater here is saline - in many paces saltier than seawater. Anything above 2,000 mg/l total dissolved solids will be damaging to most plants. Seawater here is around 38,000 mg/l - in the sabkha (salt flats) it can be above 200,000.

I don't think going deeper is any guarantee of striking non saline water - generally quite unlikely.

Groundwater throughout the Emirates has been overexploited, and where it is used for forestry or farming (inland) they have to go deeper and deeper. However as water table approaches sea level then saline intrusion is inevitable.

Ditzy

The use of bore wells in UAE is illegal and affects the water table....

Meow

@Ditzy Where have you read that it's illegal? Generally teneants just require the landlords permission to install one, although they are not permitted in places like Arabian Ranches according to Emaar.

@Dry as Dust It is possible to have non salinated water from a borehole. Plants wouldn't survive if they were watered with salty water.

jackthehat

I had one in Jumeira 1 (Got one of the Pakistani Gardners, from Satwa to install it). It went down about 9m, and the water was not 'Salty' to the taste. The Garden Flourished! The deeper you go, the better the water gets, as it is filtered by the sand. For it being 'Illegal' I did notice that the Fire Station opposite the villa, used Ground Water, to fill the Fire Pumps! - they had a huge pump in the back yard of the Fire Station.

Ditzy

Borewells should be licensed by the Ministry of Environment and Water

http://uaeagricent.moew.gov.ae/wateranddam/dams_en.stm

An article on why Borewells should not be used, is here

http://www.uaeinteract.com/docs/EAD_...ears/34877.htm

Chairman of EAD, said that the Emirate's groundwater supply has been reduced by 18% since 2003, according to EAD's Annual Abu Dhabi Emirate Water Resources Statistics Report.

Meow

So not illegal then?

It's up to the landlord to get the permissions.

Ditzy

If you (the LL) don't have the relevant permission then yes, it would be?

Anyway, it's still not right.....there is a process for obtaining water and it is DEWA. It is really bad for the environment to take water this way.....

Meow

OK, if you want to be really pedantic. You simply said "The use of bore well in the UAE is illegal" (direct quote) without explaining that permission is required. It is there not illegal if you have permission. Really not the same thing at all from a legal perspective.

It is therfore perfectly legal in most areas provided there is permission. Those are the facts.

Max the Dog

Well....after fleecing me financially, telling me that the ground water was fine and all the neighbors are using it without problems, the gardener has now in formed me that you have to mix with dewa water otherwise the plants/grass will die!:curse::curse:

Meow

Your gardener is spinning you a line. That isn't true.

Simply sounds as if the well wasn't sunk deep enough.