Law No. 5 of 2016 concerning the Regulation of Groundwater in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

This Law consisting of 27 articles establishes that the groundwater on the Emirate territory is a property of the Government. Responsible for management, organization and licensing the activities related to groundwater is the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi, which in particular is in charge for establishing and implementing related policies, checking and inspecting existing wells, supervising the excavation of new wells, issuing permits for excavations and establishing the amount of water possible to be extracted from the wells.
The Law deals also with: permits (art.4); obligations of the owner (art.5); license to practice drilling (art.6) and obligations of the drilling contractor (art.7). Art.9 prohibits any act that may pollute the groundwater. Art.10 states that the discovery of groundwater must be reported to the Environment Agency within 14 days.