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Water Resources
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Saudi Arabia has built a network of irrigation canals
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Water has always been a scarce and extremely valuable resource in Saudi Arabia. Urban life, industry and, above all, agriculture consume far more water than traditional life in the deserts and towns ever required, and the country has utilized its water resources in diverse ways to support its development. As a result of agricultural, urban and industrial growth, the country's water demand has been increasing steadily over the past two decades, reaching 35 billion cubic feet a year, and is estimated to rise to 81 billion cubic feet by the year 2000. Irrigation consumes the largest amount of water in the Kingdom.
Beginning in 1985, Saudi Arabia focused on ways to economize and regulate the use of water through the National Water Plan. The plan provides for conservation, greater coordination between agriculture and water policies, intensive use of reclaimed waste and surface water, and better coordination of supply and distribution.
Deep under the surface of Saudi Arabia, extensive reservoirs of water are stored in the rock. These aquifers, or water-bearing layers of sedimentary rock, are the country's major water source. The government has drilled many deep wells throughout much of the desert to supply the Bedouins and numerous agricultural wells in the more fertile valleys.
Another major source of water is desalination. Saudi Arabia is now the world's largest producer of desalinated water. Every day. the country's 33 desalination facilities produce 576.1 million gallons of fresh water from the sea. They provide drinking water to major urban and industrial centers through a network of 2,326 miles of water pipes, meeting 70 percent of Saudi Arabia's drinking water needs. New plants will increase desalinated water production to 750 million gallons a day by the end of the century.
To collect precious surface water during seasonal floods, the Ministry of Agriculture and Water had by 1992 built more than 200 dams with a total reservoir capacity of 15.9 billion cubic feet of water. The larger dams such as those in the Wadi Jizan, Wadi Fatima, Wadi Bisha and Najran, supply irrigation water for thousands of acres of cultivated land. The Wadi Bisha dam, the second largest in the Middle East, has a reservoir capacity of 86 billion gallons and supplies water for both agricultural and urban use.
Another expanding source of water is treated urban waste water. It is estimated that by the year 2000, approximately 40 percent of the water used for domestic purposes in urban areas could be recycled. The Ministry of Agriculture and Water has constructed a recycling plant in Riyadh that provides more than seven million cubic feet of treated waste water. Another facility operates in Jeddah and several other plants are under construction .
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