Oman, similarly, has used stringent administrative regulation to control groundwater withdrawals for irrigation. According to van der Gun (2007),“Oman’s successful strategy for sustainable groundwater management has deftly combined demand-side measures to control, protect, and conserve water resources with supply-side measures to augment the resource.
The demand side includes obligatory registration of wells, introduction of well permits; prohibition of wells less than 3.5 km from the mother-well of a falaj; closing down illegally constructed wells and confscating contractors’ drilling equipment involved in illegal drilling; a national well inventory; wel metering; well-feld protection zoning; water treatment; leakage control; improving irrigation techniques; and public awareness campaigns for water
conservation.
Supply-side strategies include large recharge dams, intended both for flood control and for groundwater recharge.
Treated wastewater is re-used in lieu of groundwater pumping in the Muscat area for watering
municipal parks, gardens, and roadsides.
Public water supply in this capital area depends mainly on desalinated seawater.”
In Jordan, Syria, and Yemen, there are efforts to regulate groundwater irrigation, but they have not proved to be successful even though the urgency to do so is widely accepted. In Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia the number of tubewells is increasing at a similar rate to those in South Asia (Bahri, no date).
The lesson from MENA is that small autocratic or theocratic states, where groundwater regulation is a life-and-death issue, have effectively restricted or reduced groundwater irrigation.
Some, like Oman and Saudi Arabia, have already begun using desalinated sea water to meet urban drinking water demands.