Saudi Arabia Is Building The World's Largest Artificial River In The Desert
2024 ж. 20 Мам.
664 388 Рет қаралды
Saudi Arabia has a water problem it's trying to solve by building the world's largest artificial river in the desert. This gigantic mega project is already under and costs a staggering $500 million dollars. Why is Saudi Arabia trying to build this giant artificial river mega project, what will they use it for and how exactly are they going to build it? Today we look at the insane engineering behind the project and if it will actually work.
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Is this the coolest mega project in Saudi Arabia right now?
Yes
This is already done 20 years ago. It is not a new project but an already existing one.
No.
Russia tried building rivers and it resulted in a new desert lmao you can't beat Mother Nature
One should not try to beat Mother Nature, but instead to work with it using the most proven permaculture methods. We need a strategy to rehydrate all the continents and to restore all the ancient forests in barren regions. @@ms3862
A “River” ? An underground pipe sounds more like a “pipeline” to me…
Underground rivers exists even naturally.
@@anonyme5893But they aren't laid in a pipe😅
@@jameschristophercirujano6650 well rivers aren't laid in canals neither, yet artificial rivers are.
@@anonyme5893 Cause they're out there exposed in the air, besides, we don't call them artificial rivers per se, but canals. That kind of logic that you call a pipeline a river means there are even longer oil rivers somewhere, or lpg rivers 😅
Calling a pipeline or canal a river is not common. Rivers are naturally formed. "Artificial river" makes no sense and is just marketing nonsense (look up greenwashing).
This will work as long as you add forests to reduce winds and help provide conservation of the aquafer.
They have Saudi Green Initiative .
@@user-mi7vo6mz1ninitiative not actions yet..
😂
@@user-mi7vo6mz1n still takes initiative not actions.
It's underground
Fun fact: Libya now currently has the worlds largest man made underground rivers. 🇱🇾
The project didn't completed due to the civil war in 2011
@@Yusufiya I believe the first and second phases were completed and are operational as we speak. You are correct that the 3rd phase was halted due to the proxy war. Thanks Obama and Hilary…
@@lets.build.cool.things Thanks also to Nicholas Sarkozy.
@@Kenan-Zwho is that? A scientist?
@@abdeslamkallis533 Ex-president of France, who led the fight against Gaddafi's Libya that left the country in ruins
It's a pipeline, not a river
😂 exactly
One question. What happens to the enormous quantity of brine produced as the byproduct of desalination?
A very good question, like most areas in the GCC, they will dump it into the ocean.
Start a salt making operation?
Sell it for food, use it, extract minerals from it, (primarily) dump it into the ocean
Most likely dumped in the ocean, upsetting the balance and making this the opposite of environmentally friendly.
Salt is a basic ingredient for starting a chemical industry. Read that somewhere.
Why does every Middle Eastern country go for the world's largest?
Competition is healthy.
Actually looks insane, I wish the US was as ambitious.
@@kyleharrinton221 I've been opening my eyes to the Middle East honestly everything over there is beautiful and I want to move there, I actually started investing over there already.
@@yusufenver5077 How?
@@kyleharrinton221 There is a company called Aseel, and recently I signed up to a new platform called moneDo because aseel doesn't offer much opportunities.
An underground pipe is not a river. Thumbs down for misleading title.
Pretty cool! Glad to see Saudi Arabia is a leader in desalination! California could benefit from mirroring those systems.
California would be far better off by properly managing the fresh water it already has.
Nah, we need to stop growing cotton, alfalfa, rice, corn, etc first.
Not mentioned most of the project has already been completed and operational now 🤲. Alhamdulillah
Is there anything nature wise that has benefited from it or is it just industry and some farming?
@@jeffrydemeyer5433 No farming. It is used for city tap water
Very good 👍
So it didn't bring any greenery to the world?@@adwanalshammari6209
ALLAH PAK IS THE GREATEST GREATEST GREATEST GREATEST GREATEST GREATEST GREATEST MERCIFUL HAZRAT MUHAMMAD S.A.W IS THE LAST PROPHET OF ALLAH PAK
This is more profitable to humanity than spending money on weapons for destruction of humanity championed
They have money for that too. Or should we say, debt.
Was this written by the Saudi marketing department?
Take the energy from massive solar plants, and lay the brine in big pools in the desert to produce salt as the last water evaporate. You get return on investment when you become net exporter of salt while at the same time not puttign the brine back to the sea, destroying eco systems with too salty water.
The brine is full of impurities. It might be better to fix them in a form of concrete, covering the roads. The brine itself contain not a lot of water as all the water has been passed through the membranes.
@@guidovanbelle8516 So they are returning it to the ocean and increasing the salt content of the Red Sea?
@@stanford2444 Yes it's called Brine which is so salty that fishes and other aquatic species cease to exist in the area where its dumped.
the Saudis need WATER.Salt will be a byproduct...
@@guidovanbelle8516 You don't want salt in concrete it will eat any rebar set inside it. The US mostly uses the brine as road/sidewalk salt (huge market still open) but they do have some neat new places is socal and Florida, that with extra pool's/steps are able to get 10-20% eatable salt.
Amazing and impressive? Yes! Sustainable? That's still debatable... If its solar powered and using advanced water conservation techniques? Then yes! If it's oil powered, wastes water and doesn't use industry best practices? Then it's a fool's errand... Hopefully it's more of the former and less of the latter...
Don't use common sense or facts, it makes the dreamers heads ache ...
Knowing the Saudis, it's probably the latter. Surely the west will make up for their environmental impacts by implementing another tax on something innocent that produces maybe 1/100000 of the carbon emissions the Saudis are cresting here..
It wasn't covered in the video but I'm truly curious as to how they work plan to dispose of all that saline brine in a way that doesn't harm marine life. Sustainability is a broad topic covering several aspects. As things stand, most Gulf State nations use copious amounts of fossil fuels for desalination, largely ignoring the potential of solar regional resources for this purpose.
it takes oil to make solar panels...shut up Greta
@@momoszabong You have SPECTACULARLY missed the point.
The USA states like Arizona and California should be investing in desalination projects ❤
They need to couple it with nuclear power
Correct. Small, modern nuclear reactors powering several states scattered all over the country. Chuck the panels and windmills that can't be recycled.
Where is AZ going to get seawater?
@@rxa177 Mexico, Gulf of California
Desalination is insanely expansive, those states absolutely cannot afford this. Only a country with massive oil reserves could afford to see if this kind of thing might work
Where does the brine go? Usually they pump it back into the ocean where its very bad for sealife.
It's a shame they don't have access to the less salty Indian ocean. Maybe they should use a strip between oman and yemen
You mean like the monkey pissing in the sea to make the tide come in?
@@joeycadthey’ll find a way those people are smart
@@2967575 No they really aren't....Something like 95% all of their engineers are foreigners from Western Countries.
@@beewee4987 well they are providing jobs for somebody no matter what nationality they are , but lets be fair its more like 60/70 percent
Desalination on this scale will result in the production of an enormous volume of brine. The diagrams showed the filtrate coming out of the processes, but the other fraction, known as retentate is typically 40-60% of the total volume. As you attempt to reduce the retentate volume (thereby increasing the salt concentration), you non-linearly increase the energy demand on the RO system. So they will be dumping all this brine back into the environment, and there will be consequences. I don't mean to suggest they can't or shouldn't do this.. I understand that this strategy enables millions to flourish in Saudia Arabia. I would like to see some acknowledgement of the donwsies as well as hear their plans to mitigate those impacts (if any).
The brine can be dumped into dug out lagoons. It will slowly sink into the crust.
this process will turn the Red Sea into the Dead Sea
@@VarietyGamerChannel as you add salty water to an infiltration basin you will precipitate out minerals that consolidate and ossify the bottom of the basin, cutting the infiltration rate to almost nothing. The practical consequence is that it takes an impractical area to infiltrate away brackish wastewater, even if one isn't concerned at all with the underlying aquifer quality (which is usually not the case).
go Saudia🇸🇦🇸🇦🇸🇦❤
Video shows a trench for laying two pipeline, but still talking about "river". These would be networks of pipelines, built around KSA to deliver water for agriculture. Lybia already has similar networks, unless USA bombed them.
That's called a pipeline. Not a river. 🤦🏼♂️
Yes it should work, even though the time scale to get it done might vary. They are producing many round farms at a fast pace and over time, this will increase the humidity and create more rains. This is what happened in Phoenix, AZ in the US. Back in the 50's it was a legit desert. AS more people moved into the region, new lawns, swimming pools and trees were planted. Now, Phoenix is much more humid and more rains. When storms come, more rain is falling and more snow in the mountains surrounding the city, creating more runoff into rivers and newer lakes and ponds. It will depend on if they want to build more artificial lakes and ponds for the new communities with round farms for agriculture. Google shows they have built a vast amount of these round farms so they are using water for this and the more green you make a region the more you change the climate of it. Over a fast area if you plan to green it and grow crops the more natual rain you can create.
I like your sentiment re increasing rainfall, etc, but in reality, lattitude in relation to the equator, weather systems, and geography perhaps has a greater impact on the evapotranspiration scale than what is just generated via the stomata exchange with forests. I have long thought that trees are an important reinstation into the ecology for the promotion of rain, and yes, they really do under the right circumstances. However, they play a more important role in getting the water into the ground through deep root penetration and slowing the evaporative and ground surface water flow once the rains come. Therefore, they effectively lift the ground storage capacities that improve ground hydrology through introducing organic matter, evaporative barriers, entomology, flora, and fauna that all kick-start sustainable ecosystems. 😊
@@raystein5418 Well,, how do you get increased evaporation and increased humidity? You de-desert. Basically by creating more greenery, more water source pools, and farming ponds. This is basic weather principle and how climates change over time. But in a smaller urbanized area, say a portion of a country, you can do it almost overnight, especially if that is your goal. This happened to Phoenix, AZ in the US almost overnight. Now it rains much more than even back in the 50's. The heat is more oppressive though with higher humidity levels brought on by the water source. This also is basic terraforming for food production. At the amount of money they are spending, they could almost grow the food inside, hydroponics and vertical farming. If you dig the wells, for ponds, pools and irrigation, the rainfall is less of a worry until you create more humidity from greening.
@@raystein5418 Trees do play an effective role but not early on in the greening process. Once you bring the water, you than either fill up ancient subterranean water tables or you create new ones. Once this is dome over time, you have now the ground table and soil for larger and more deep rooted trees. The difference between trees higher rainfall areas and their climate zones and smaller desert trees. The more amount of ground water available, the bigger the trees can grow. Fruit trees they are planning are perfect at this early stage in the process for Saudi. I'm very impressed by all this they are doing. They aren't just laying agricultural foundation to support these resorts but terraforming it to build a much larger urbanization environment there. I think the projects will be successful there because of this terraforming and creating what might have been there thousands of years ago, and new technologies and innovations are speeding up the process. Just a couple of years ago, these google images showed nothing but desert. Almost no green round farms and waiter sources. Now the vast region is teeming with them.
@gwhite7136 In Australia, where I live, there was a plan called the Bradford plan (1930's, timeframe) Bradfords plan was to turn the surplus rain that fell in the northeast of Queensland back into the arid side of the range situated on the western side of the range. The plan has been debated back and forth for nearly 90 years, and the studies have shown that although de-desertification is possible through irrigation systems from the benefit of turning the water inland and cloud production may increase but any rain that may fall simply evaporates before hitting the ground due to the massive heat inversion layer found at that lattitude. The clouds form too high as there isn't the ceiling to push the clouds down. In the east, the air moisture can be condensed against the eastern ranges and compressed up against a ceiling that is cooled by the temperature moderating factors of the sea. Effectively, the rain is allowed to condense and fall without the evaporative forces of the heat inversion layer generated in the west. This is why Saudi are building their massive river scheme inside a pipeline. They have an arid climate with high heat, which would also evaporate any river not covered and obliterate any potential precipitation. But yes, you have got to start somewhere. The Saudis are doing it to their credit, and good luck to them on their honourable efforts. Fortunately, they are well resourced to do it on the back of a fossil fuel driven economy, and unlike many other similarly resourced countries that seem to be hell-bent on destroying, in conquest, other countries sovereignty and resources.
@@raystein5418 It's hard to say for sure but this being built so close to the oceans is another plus. In Australia how far was the ocean from where they were trying to build it? Sure, it's arid in Saudi, just like the deserts of AZ were where Phoneix is. If you add moisture by adding vegetation with irrigation, you are going to change the humidity factor. Meaning, it won't be dry but more humid and the ocean helps with this. My guess is that is why they are buidling within a reasoanble distance from the water. Piping water is part of that irrigation. Reminds me of the plans we had back in the 50's to pip fresh meltwater down from Alaska and Canada into the arid regions of CA, AZ and Nevada but they never did it. Since they have been greening more in the SouthWest of the US, rainfall has increased. Death Valley has now formed a massive lake in the middle and this is the driest place on earth. The lake just formed in the last few months. Excessive rain and mountain snow. I'm sure they are trying to get the same effect in Saudi but are adding more greening than they have in California and the regions not far from Death Valley. Just this weekend the Sierras are getting 10 feet from one snow even, on top of about 12 feet. But that in itself is far from death valley.
Gaddafi’s great manmade river was much better
Agreed, but if he had more foresight, he would have built the river for it to flow inland in the opposite direction, instead of towards the coast
How? Did the dessert turn green? How? Did it bring fresh water? He did his part that could be considered as great. Now the will do their part & each generation will add only Truth is great.
What happened to it?
@@user-te6tr6hl8jwhen Hillary Clinton and Obama destroyed Lybia it fell into disrepair
@@reidr7288 and Sarkozy
Desalinating billions of gallons of seawater requires millions of tons of people lastic, filters, pumps, wastewater holding land. Huge amounts of electricity 24x7x365. All in a region of desert which is warming up by the day. Boondoggle defined
i assume they will buy lots of modular reactors from the chinese to power the desal plants, currently much of their oil is used for desal. this would prolong their oil reserves especially with growing population.
It's not a river. It's a pipeline.
A river sized water pipeline, yes.
@@VarietyGamerChannel So Nordstream is a river sized gas pipeline? Therefore, it's an underwater gas river 🤦
They have started so many mega projects, but have they finished any of them?
What about the brine? It's already a problem. They currently discharge it directly into the ocean creating massive dead zones.. Scaling up desalination without addressing the brine problem will be an ecological disaster of epic proportions..
It is a dilemma between desertification or saltier sea. Either way we are f'ed.
@@bsanchir89lol
This country is addressing the most important problem in this world - that of lack of fresh water!!!
Lack of fresh water is the government's fault, all they need to do is spend some money
desalination is not ecology friendly.... what will be be impact on sea life, probably it will kill it
Try a bit of mathematics to know the truth, you are delusional.
The long report, full of how the project is the greatest, and, no doubt, good for Saudi, does not touch the important question of how much energy, that is, burning oil, is involved in greening a desert.
They have to invest on solar energy for desaliantion energy.
Finally, a project I can get behind.
I find it interesting that they didn’t even touch on the main problem with desalination- waste disposal of the brine. They put it back into the ocean and the Red Sea is already twice as salty as normal due to the huge amounts of this waste brine being dumped back into the sea.
This channel is only interested in marketing
not their problem...
They can pump the brine into artificial lagoons. It will slowly sink into the sedimentary layers.
And spoil the earth in the area. There is no fix for that btw.
this process will turn the Red Sea into the Dead Sea
Wow, Alhamdulillah...
Danke fur das Hochladen sehr intressant
Do this across all deserts and we can counter sea level rising
Pardon My Ignorance but you have all the sun you need to Magnify and heat up the salt water pots so they produce a lot of fresh water.
Too slow.
absolutely fantastic!!!!
It's a pipeline not a river
Absolutely brilliant and bold!
It a pipeline. But that doesn't sound so environmental as an underground river😂
It’s a pipeline not a river….
Now, if Saudi Arabia starts planting Mangrove forests on their coasts, build more Solar plants to produce all their electricity, using the brine from the saline convertion as energy storage, they might be up to something. But this pipeline system is NOT a river. Misleading title.
Amazing I love the get it done method
This is good to see... but they should also invest in Chinese style reforestation of their deserts.
China is going to do that in saudi
Is China helping to plant the Green Wall in Africa?
@@hackman669 I don't know about that
Rivers and greenery in a desert, just as the Prophet (peace be upon him) mentioned. Subhanallah!
I think its great. More countries should follow suit. Also, building floating greenhouse / desalination plants is another option
Very impressive.
hoping saudi will build a bigger river they needed very badly for the deserted land n country nearby...and thru inside middle of country near all city..
Spain is setting up more and more desalinization installations using solar panes to power the plants. As those are local plants where the water is needed, the project cost less. The water is transported over a few 100 kilometers to reach the inland. The problem of the brine is a major concern. In Spain as elsewhere. If you have smart ideas about o solution, please put them in the comments. Evaporation to produce salt is not an option.
Great concept keep going😊😊😊
SAUDI ARABIA’s the LINE project is a failure, the next option is to convert the excavated area as a port area or best a canal that serves as an artificial river to provide water in the central arid regions.
I absolutely love this innovativness!
Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East should start to do some REFLORESTATION, planting trees and forming new forests, transforming large areas of degraded land back into bio-diverse ecosystems, by restoring millions of trees and in turn improving the lives for rural farming communities, as well as capturing over a million tons of carbon to benefit the planet as a whole. This can be considered a major accomplishment for any country, particularly one that has a low average rainfall such Saudi Arabia.
Very amazing in the human history,...rich country can make river,...
what are they going to do with the brine?
none of anyone's business .. no one cares co2 emission into our air by industrialist countries across america, europe, asia.. so they don't care too
Lots of exciting projects going on in the kingdom. Look forward to getting up to date
Desalination require high pressure pumps to convert seawater to potable water. They have plenty of oil to power the pumps perhaps they can also get part of their power from Solar cells
The brine generated from the desalinisation plants could be processed to extract the minerals from it as there's a lot of useful stuff in brine to be used as raw materials in manufacture.
Instead of turning saline water into potable water for agriculture purposes, plant fruit trees
Every type of desalination is energy intensive and extreamly expensive.
Thanks for your royal majesty
All powered by burning more oil?
Yes❤ burning oil is good along as the industries need and as long as the nation depends on it
Here in the usa We have the exact opposite problem. A lot of land in the southeast is waterlogged and completely undesirable.
I'd paint the pipe white and lay it on the surface as much as possible to be able to repair inevitable leaks. I'd also make green corridors along the pipeline for for the future generations.
Hi do desalination plants bury there salts or flush them back to the Ocean ?
Sounds like it's very cool and innovative that they're actually looking after their own people and I love the way that it's sustainable interesting the way that somebody is trying to change the landscape of the Earth for a positive humanitarian purpose when so many times when we take from the earth we just destroy it this seems to be giving back life.
visionary leadership and project.
It is very good to make the desert green
That's the kind of thing I consider when thinking about building a civilization. Terraforming is a natural outcome when tailoring a environment to service a population. We're starting to think about it on a global scale. Global warming is a terraforming outcome where we were not in control of the process but let the civilization just run instead of building in the sustainable factors that give us controll off our future. I'm sure you appreciate just how big and predictable it becomes when you look at it that way. The kardashev scale.
God bless ksa and all best wishes..from egypt ❤❤
This was done in the SciFi Classic Dune, published in the 60s.
Adliest some smart part of evolution,,the watter is LIFE..Respekt***
The problem with this project is sea water is very corrosive and salt deposits on areas of turbulence. If you have electromagnetic devices on these pipes to breakdown the turbulence, it would be good. You will need tons of electricity to power them too.
I like that they are finally spending all that oil money to benefit their people, rather than just accumulate and find new opulence to spend on. Seriously, gold plated Rolls Royce level opulence.
Eye opening project. Fantastic Ata ur Rahman New York
Bhai cv ki link bhi daal dete😂
Excellent 👌 idea
What about the waste from the treated water? Are they just pushing out the highly salted concentration back into the sea ? Creating further pollution and killing off the eco system ?
great project👍
inspired by Afghanistan River project !!
? Sure
Could you elaborate? Never heard about it before.
@@user-te6tr6hl8j Google it Qushtapa canal 280 km long 600 m2 water in a second. Started by Islamic Emart of Afghanistan. A year ago it will take two more years. Cost $1 billion
The open canal Afghanistan wants is not the same as the underground pipeline that Saudi Arabia wants.
What if Saudi Arabia create a big lake in desert, wouldn't it create more rain from evaporation?
Best wishes! ആറബി !
for agriculture they can use treated wastewater with advance technologies available in market , singapore NEWater which is treated waste water at drinkable standards and ofcourse they are selling it for drinking and blending in raw water
Massive project that would not be possible without equally massive capital from decades of oil extraction
I think this project is doomed to failure if it is implemented only as described in this documentary. The problem is that there's no way to slow the flow of water, meaning the water has no time to soak into the surrounding area. The banks are too straight and deep, meaning that the 'river' will do little more than erode the land further. They would do better to create a wetlands, marshy type river closer to the coast and then expand inland as the greenification expands. This has been seen in successful projects around the world. If they continue with the current project I hope they are seeking advice from other successful projects. it's not enough to just add water to a desert, it needs water retention methods as well. Will wait to see more on this project since it is nearing completion.
shush that the idea? get them self to wash the hole country away? knower's ark project 2
What happens to the salt? If released into the sea it will destroy the marine environment
new offshore and shore facilties that can converts salt to freshwater cheaper and faster could turn much of this nation green, but what do you do with all that salt.
Put it on French Fries !!! 🙂
I believe Saudi Arabia is one of those nations that only requires a plan they know how to implement it effectively. MashAllah
Dreaming Big Saudi Leaders. Well Done. Can you come to Australia and give our leaders some advice.
1. What energy is used to heat the salt water? Oil? Solar? Is permaculture and tree planting going to be used?
More likely reverse osmosis, relatively energy-efficient.
@@donaldmaxie5264As a country they hardly use any renewables so the power source is likely fossil fuel based. If only they had lots of space, sun and funds they could go solar...
@@backacheacheThey have the empty quarter. A huge area where solar could be used to generate electricity.
@@donaldmaxie5264 Sadly there is a long list of things they *should* spend their money on...
piping systems would be more expensive if we rather use surface level dredging to draw in water into lakes that may help over all climate and bio-diverse echo system and being in natural state would be suitable for fishing and irrigation needs i-e natural rain water cycle. then the drinking water could be acquired from these lakes deposits via desalination or osmosis filters but what is remedy accumulation of the waste due to desalination and filtration. a guess is that i may increase salt ratios and render soil as non-irrigable in future as already seen on the salalah and batha border areas adjacent to abu dhabi .
It's definitely bold. What will be done with the salt / salty water? Some desalination plants put the salt back in the sea, which causes environmental problems.
This is the forward thinking that the entire world needs to be considering. Growing food should be the importance of any breathing human.
its a great idea
Could Saudi use freeze desalination? It gets to 19F there in the winter and natural desalination occurs during the phase change (water to ice) as the water molecules align during freezing.
Great project
Respect ✊🏽
Good initiative, but KSA should get energy from Solar and wind to run this Project
This is priceless, about 10 years ago I was saying why dont we carve more rivers across the nation to help provide more water ... everyone thought that was stupid... or at least here LITERALLY through this process. I have drawings and a time stamp on it LOL
wonderfull
It's a bad idea to dump the salt back into the oceans.