Dubai plans to spend the equivalent of $8.2 billion to build a stormwater drainage network, the emirate’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, announced on June 24. The play follows April’s record floods in the country and the United Arab Emirates.
The infrastructure would increase Dubai’s rainwater drainage capacity by 700% to 20 million cubic meters per day, according to officials. Part of the project will involve the drilling of tunnels with a flow capacity of 230 m3 per second. Dubai is scheduled to begin the project immediately, with work gradually completing in 2033.
The project will increase “preparedness to meet future climate-related challenges” over the next 100 years, it said in a statement.
The storms on April 16 brought the highest volume of rain to the UAE since records began in 1949. Although most of the country averaged between 5.5 inches and 7.9 inches of rain per year, the UAE National Meteorological Center reported that some areas experienced more than 10 inches of rain. At least four people were killed, although the UAE government has not released official figures.
The United Arab Emirates normally sees so little rain that its weather agency conducts cloud seeding to boost rainfall, but it did not do any before the April storms, he said. Cloud seeding involves adding certain types of particles to existing clouds to form ice crystals that will produce more precipitation.
Diana Francis, senior research scientist and head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences Laboratory at Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa University, told the government-owned Emirates News Agency in April that the UAE will face more frequent and intense extreme weather events due to climate change.
“The amount of rain that fell [April 16] it is unprecedented and is equivalent to the amount of rain the UAE receives in two years,” he said.
Dubai officials said the stormwater project would address the expected increase in rainfall associated with climate change and expand on work begun after the 2019 floods. Dubai then added drainage infrastructure in the area of Expo Dubai, Jebel Ali and Al Maktoum International Airport City, where the country plans to build the world’s largest airport as part of a $35 billion project announced this year.
