Annual rainfall up 53% in Saudi Arabia

Cairo: The annual rainfall in Saudi Arabia recorded an increase of 53.4% in 2023 compared to the previous year, according to figures from the kingdom’s General Authority for Statistics.

The state agency also revealed that the amount of flood water that flowed into the kingdom’s dams last year amounted to 1,564 million cubic metres, recording an increase of 164.1% compared to the previous year.

The volume of reused treated water, meanwhile, increased by 13.3% against 2022, the figures showed.

The statistics agency also said that the area of land reserves recorded an increase of 7.1% to reach 361,000 square kilometres last year compared to 2022, to constitute 18.1% of the total land area of Saudi Arabia.

On the other hand, the area of marine reserves rose last year by 17.7% to reach 14,000 square kilometres against 2022.

The area of national parks across the kingdom reached 340 million square metres in 2023, with the total number of trees planted in them reaching 2.6 million trees.

Saudi Arabia has intensified its environmental protection efforts in recent years. In 2021, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI) to address climate change through emission reductions, afforestation, land restoration, and the conservation of land and sea areas.

The SGI aims to reduce carbon emissions by more than 4 per cent of global contributions and seeks to provide 50 per cent of Saudi Arabia’s electricity from renewable sources by the year 2030.