Podcast from my latest piece on the Qatari fishing industry

My interview starts 13:50 or so; no mistaking the voice.

My latest published piece on the numbers behind obesity

Click on the magazine above to read my latest bit of data-driven journalism: a piece on how food supply chains impacts the lifestyles and wellbeing of the people living in the GCC.

My article starts on page 45! 

Drinking the Desert: First of a New Series

A news story carried by the Gulf Times last year shed light on the consumption of water by Qatar residents. The Gulf Times points out that Qatar has a greater proportionate reliance on desalinated water than even other GCC states such as Kuwait, Oman and the United Arab Emirates; in Qatar, 75% of the water consumed comes from desalinated sources. (I was frankly surprised to learn that it was not higher). Some of the much more clear-cut statistics can be difficult to locate, but I found this very interesting presentation on the website of Qatar's Ministry of Planning and Statistics. One of the important things to keep in mind is that more than 93% of the water consumed by Qatari households comes from the municipal desalination plants, a costly and environmentally damaging affair.

One fact that I found interesting to the point of being disturbing was that agriculture, a fringe activity in the country, accounts for nearly as much water usage as its nearly two million inhabitants. The agriculture sector's reliance on groundwater resources also places huge strains on the country's existing network of aquifers, which it shares with Bahrain, Kuwait and of course Saudi Arabia. This reliance on the underground water resources of Qatar further drives up the existing aquifers' salinity, one of the themes which I hope to explore in the coming three or four blog posts after such a long hiatus!