Dubai announced an ambitious plan worth 8 billion USD to build a comprehensive stormwater drainage system, preventing repeat flood disasters in the future.
The new announcement by His Majesty Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum was made just two months after unprecedented heavy rain caused serious flooding, paralyzing the desert city for many days. The extensive stormwater drainage network is expected to be completed by 2033 and construction will begin immediately.
“The system will cover the entire area of Dubai and absorb more than 20 million cubic meters of water per day,” Sheikh Mohammed stressed the scale and importance of the project for Dubai, the center of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The need for the project became clear after a record-breaking downpour on April 16th. Streets turned into rivers and homes flooded. The situation was made worse by a lack of drainage, which led to problems at Dubai International Airport. It was reportedly the heaviest rain to hit Dubai in 75 years, killing at least four people. After the rain subsided, Dubai had to use trucks equipped with large hoses to drain the stagnant water.
According to Sheikh Mohammed, the new drainage system will increase the city’s stormwater drainage capacity by 700% and prepare it for future climate challenges. As the largest drainage network in the region, the project will play a vital role in reducing flooding in a world increasingly affected by climate change.
World Weather Attribution attributed the heavy rain to global warming caused by fossil fuel emissions, suggesting that such extreme weather events are likely to become more common. Previously, many media outlets reported that Dubai’s cloud seeding operations may have contributed to the heavy rain. Cloud seeding, a technique that involves using aircraft to spray chemicals such as potassium chloride into rain clouds to increase rainfall, is a practice that Dubai regularly uses to meet its water needs.
Ahmed Habib, a meteorologist at the National Center of Meteorology (NCM), confirmed that cloud seeding was carried out a few days before the rain with planes fanning out from Al Ain airport to influence the clouds. save. However, experts and authorities quickly denied that cloud seeding was the cause of serious flooding because this activity has been taking place in Dubai since 2002 and has never led to such consequences.
An Khang (Theo Interesting Engineering)