wotfigo;, The population of the central Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Bahrain Oman) has soard on the back of the regions oil wealth. This region has almost no natural resources of water or food producing land. And yet the population has soared from around 8 million in 1950 to over 70 million today. This is an overpopulation catastrophe that will explode as the regions oil begins to run out in the very near future. The region imports most of its food & produces its water with energy intensive desalination plants. The regions waste water is often poorly managed. Large lakes of waste water are appearing in the desert to various environmental opinions.

Man-made desert lake: Ecological paradise or disaster?

Lake Zakher, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – In a remote corner of the United Arab Emirates, a blue lake shimmers amid the sand dunes.

It’s not a mirage, but a man-made oasis – an unintended byproduct of the UAE’s water management practices, which has sprung from the desert in recent years.

Opinion is divided over this unexpected phenomenon, known locally as Lake Zakher.

The lake is an industrial byproduct of the desalination system used to meet the UAE’s water needs. With few sources of fresh water in the region, the country has relied on desalinating seawater for domestic use – a technology that has been essential to the country’s growth, according to advocates.

“Desalination started here 50 years ago,” said Corrado Sommariva, president of the International Desalination Association. “There wouldn’t be any development of the industry or society if there was no desalination.”

The waste water is treated and just over half reused for industrial purposes, according Mohamed Al Madfaei, executive director at the Abu Dhabi Environmental Agency.

But the other 45% of recycled waste water was simply discharged at sea or released on to the land, where it had been pushing up groundwater levels, and eventually resulted in the creation of Lake Zakher.

From http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/14/world/meast/desert-lake-zakher-emirates/index.html