Sohar University
Sohar University was planning a new campus on Oman’s Batinah coast, and they wanted it green. In a region where water is the constraint on everything, that ambition carries a problem with it. A green campus has to be irrigated, and where that water comes from decides whether the campus is an asset or another drain on a system already under stress. That was the problem we were brought in to solve.
That coast is an abundant agricultural landscape of alfalfa, lime, banana, mango and papaya.
The water comes from underground, flowing down from the Hajar Mountains, and is drawn up to irrigate the fields. This land has been farmed for generations. That is now changing.
Too much water is being taken out. The water table is dropping, seawater is moving in behind it, and productive land is turning saline. Some fields have already failed.
The farming was never the problem. The problem is taking more than the aquifer can replenish. Within that rate, the system sustains itself. Beyond it, the system fails.
The land immediately around the university is still green and still productive, and that character is what we wanted for the campus. We set ourselves a second requirement at the same time: the campus should not make the water problem worse.
Water, without drawing on the aquifer
The campus we designed is green, shaded and planted, courtyard after courtyard. None of that would mean much if the irrigation were drawing on the same water table.
The answer was not to use the water that was there more carefully. It was to leave it alone entirely.
The university runs on desalinated water regardless of what the landscape does. Once that water has passed through the buildings, it is treated on site and used again, this time on the landscape. The aquifer is not touched, and the landscape adds no new demand for water.
Treatment happens in reed beds, which are constructed wetlands. The plants are commonly assumed to do the cleaning. They do not. Microbial communities in the root zone break down the nutrients and pollutants, while the plants supply oxygen and the physical structure those communities need.
Through the academic year, the campus produces enough treated water to irrigate its own landscape.
Nothing of this kind and scale had been designed in Oman, or anywhere on the Arabian Peninsula. In my opinion, at the time there was nothing like it anywhere in the world.
The result is a campus that is green, cooler and more comfortable to be in, and that reads as belonging where it is. It is also a real answer to a serious problem in an arid climate.
More about Sohar University on our project page.
Credits
Ahmed Al Roshdi managed the project for the university and brought the vision and the commitment to sustainability. Wolfram Sievert, a master of constructed wetlands, engineered the reed bed systems.
Laith Wark (narrator) is a partner at NatureCulture. He led living systems and placemaking at Sohar University.