Abstract
The mining industry has a significant value to national economies and is a major lever to rural development in many countries. Globally, the mining industry is a small water consumer compared to other economic sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing. However, mining requires a substantial volume of water in the mining field, especially in the extraction and processing phases (e.g., 716 cubic meters of water are needed to produce a ton of gold). In some local areas, the mining industry can be the largest water consumer and may impact the availability of water for other economic sectors. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the mining sector has grown significantly over the last few decades. Going forward, the mining sector will have tremendous growth opportunities in line with Saudi Vision 2030s mining sector goal to have “a mining sector contributing to the national economy at full potential.” The present paper provides an overview of the link between water and mining sectors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in light of the National Transformation Program and Saudi Vision 2030 and highlights the ongoing coordination and integration activities to optimize mining water usage in the Kingdom.
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Ouda, O.K.M., Al Shaibani, A.M., Al-Bassam, A.M. (2023). Water for Mining in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Overview. In: Kallel, A., et al. Selected Studies in Environmental Geosciences and Hydrogeosciences. CAJG 2020. Advances in Science, Technology & Innovation. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43803-5_57
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43803-5_57
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