RIYADH: As part of a plan to reduce the use of water, Saudi Arabia has launched the third phase of its rain project. The "cloud seeding" experiment of this project, which enables the clouds to absorb more moisture to broaden water droplets and force rain, is presently being carried out in the southwestern region of the Kingdom.
"The project will eventually help to increase the water resources of the Kingdom," said Tarek Al-Samawi, a spokesman for the Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME). He said that the rain project had been approved by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah under the supervision of Prince Turki bin Nasser, PME chairman.
The move to create rain will help to meet the water needs of different sectors of the Kingdom which receives only 100 millimeters of rain annually, said Naif Selhu, director of environmental awareness at PME. He said that the results of the experimental stages of the rain project were being compiled and would be announced later.
Selhu could not say how long it would take for the PME to carry out the test run before the project finally takes off. He said, however, that Prince Turki had reaffirmed that the project would continue to be tested and experiments carried out before it is implemented in full. The project, he said, had been using techniques in which chemicals (either dry ice or commonly, silver iodide aerosol, potassium and sodium chloride) are introduced into the upper part of clouds to try to stimulate the precipitation process and produce rain.
"Moreover, it is a national program, under which rainwater samples will be collected from the seeded and non-seeded clouds for studies," he added. He explained that the chemical analysis of rainwater samples would be carried out to discover the effect of seeding on the water.
"The experiment will give us an idea which areas are conducive to cloud seeding and the amount of increase in rainfall after the experiment," he added. Estimates of the lifespan for Saudi fossil water reserves vary widely, with one estimate suggesting they could run out early next century.
Hence, the need to produce water by any means is essential in Saudi Arabia, whose population is projected to reach 40 million by 2025. Like other Gulf states, the Kingdom relies heavily on water desalination for drinking and irrigation. According to official estimates, desalination plants, which have cost billions of dollars, produce nearly two-thirds of the region's fresh water needs.
Countries in the region, particularly in the Gulf, have spoken of plans to pump more investments into building desalination plants and expand existing units to meet a five to 10 percent growth in water consumption.
By Ghazanfar Ali Khan
© Arab News 2009
