Electricity-water usage for sustainable development: An analysis of United Arab Emirates farms

Abdullah Khamis Banhidarah, Ameena Saad Al-Sumaiti, James L. Wescoat and Hoach The Nguyen

Energy Policy, 2020, vol. 147, issue C

Abstract: Electricity and water consumption play a crucial role in the sustainable development of desert regions. In countries with arid climates like the United Arab Emirates (UAE), water-energy efficiency and conservation in agriculture are critical issues. This paper investigates the characteristics of and interlinkages between electricity and water consumption on UAE farms to suggest policies for water-energy efficiency and conservation. Descriptive statistics and multivariate regression analysis were performed on data collected from surveys of farm owners and rural water tanker services. Unlike urban areas, these rural statistics show that water use is more important than electricity use, and that the cost and reliability of water are more important than the cost and reliability of electricity. Multivariate regression analysis identified interlinkages among five common factors that influence both electricity and water consumption: farmer age, worker salary, visiting times of owner's family, number of buildings, and number of rooms. Importantly, worker salary is the key influence on both water and electricity consumption. These results suggest that sustainable rural policies should consider the key factors of “workers' salary” and “water cost” for increasing both water-energy efficiency and conservation.

Keywords: Farm survey; Multiple regression analysis; Rural electricity use; Rural water use; United Arab Emirates (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421520305413
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:147:y:2020:i:c:s0301421520305413

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111823

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().