It only makes sense to wonder about the quality of tap water in the desert. There are some contradictions within opinions about it. Even the scientists who test the water claim different things. Some say that is perfectly safe to drink it, while others are strongly against that.
It often happens that people move to UAE and they begin to lose their hair or their skin suddenly becomes dry; they suffer from nausea and often feel lightheaded. Most of them choose to blame it on the tap water that they drink and use for cleaning themselves. In the same time people who were born and raised in Dubai or anywhere else in UAE don’t have such problems. There is perfectly reasonable explanation for that: desert weather conditions and climate is totally different from those in Western Europe. Air is very dry. Salt from the body goes away with the sweat because of extremely high temperatures; that lowers the blood pressure and makes one feel lightheaded and the nausea at the beginning of their time in Dubai is usually caused by the food that is rich in spices that they are not used to.
Dubai nowadays counts more than two million people so it was necessary to start providing drinking water with desalination plants. That process definitely makes the water from the see drinkable, but what happens with the plumbing is another story. Every plumbing is supposed to have certain amount of bacteria in it; water without some friendly bacteria is not even god for you. When Dubai plumbing was inspected it was concluded that there is absolutely acceptable and permitted amount of bacteria. But people still rather drink plastic-bottled water.
Those who are in favor of Dubai tap water say that plastic is much more harmful for human organism. Those packages often stay in warehouses for a long time and the temperatures are very high; it means that plastic releases some very bad substances directly in the water. One scientist said that there is nothing harmful as much as those substances in the plumbing, unless it came to nuclear catastrophe.
Filtered water is also popular, but filters contain chemicals that are necessary to clean the water, such as chlorine, and those are also not good for you.
It is impossible to know what is true so it comes to a personal choice whether to drink it or not. Maybe it is useful to have in mind that in the city hot as Dubai – selling, producing and importing bottled water is probably one of the best businesses you could be in.