Saudi Arabia, which lacks natural rivers or lakes, intends to build the largest project for the production of drinking water by digging an underground river.
The river will surpass the length of the Nile, which is currently 6,650 km and will be four metres deep, 11 metres wide, and a whopping 12,000 kilometres long.
The river will include anti-corrosion pipes with a diameter of 2.25 metres, each, according to Seen, a documentary series by Saudi journalist Ahmad Al Shugairi.
Ahmad admitted that constructing underground rivers required a lot of work but gave dry regions access to water.
Al Shugairi expressed their thankfulness for having access to potable water in their houses and thanked those who helped make it possible, even though they had initially taken it for granted. He predicted that in a few years, the freshwater delivered by the pipes will travel a great distance. He added that the project will be twice the length of the Nile.
According to Ahmad, the pipes currently buried beneath Saudi cities are about 126,000 kilometres long and, if they were to surround the planet, would be three times as wide. 9.4 million cubic metres of water are thought to be produced per day by Saudi desalination plants.
He added that if water from Saudi desalination plants were supplied to the entire world’s population, each person would receive two gallons or two bottles of water.
The largest producer of desalinated water in the world, Saline Water Conversion Corporation, produces a total of 1006.6 million cubic metres annually.
