How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia by Toby Craig Jones

In the past decade, the Middle East is the central topic of discussion and most of them are negative. In particular, Saudi Arabia is attracting attention as a result of the soaring price of natural gas and oil in recent years. Usually this country is observed through Islam and its oil economics. In addition to these basic elements directly related to domestic and international political issues, other aspects that contribute to these factors are often overlooked.

Saudi Arabia is the true "oil kingdom" where oil reserves and production were ranked first in the world and is one of the richest countries in the world. Saudi Arabia is the world's largest desalination producer and seawater desalination occupies about 21% of the world. However, there are still water issues in Saudi Arabia, there are two most serious problems. Saudi Arabia is currently the world's largest saltwater producing country, but unless a desalination plant has been established yet, water is not enough. In Saudi Arabia, the use of water resources and water inefficiency are becoming increasingly serious, as water usage is scarce.

Saudi Arabia is a desert covered country, people are concerned about water, agriculture, oil industry, and the water necessary for private use. Unlike many other countries, Saudi Arabia relies heavily on desalination and fossil water as a means of satisfying thirst. Seawater desalination is the process of removing excess salt and other minerals from water to make it available to people. The Shoaiba desalination plant on the Red Sea coast feeds 50% of city water for the kingdom. Shoaiba uses a multi-step flash process to dilute 150 million cubic meters of brine per year

Access to drinking water and sanitation facilities has increased significantly in the past few decades as Saudi Arabia's water supply and sewage facilities invest heavily in desalination, water distribution, wastewater treatment and wastewater treatment. Approximately 50% of the drinking water comes from desalination of the seawater, 40% from extraction of irreproducible groundwater, and 10% comes from surface water, especially from the mountains in the southwestern part of the country. The capital city Riyadh is located in the center of the country and offers freshwater treatment water from the Persian Gulf at a distance of 467 km. Considering a lot of oil, water is provided almost free of charge. The quality of service has improved, but it is still very poor. For example, in Riyadh, there is only one water supply every 2.5 days in 2011, but in Jeddah it feeds water once every nine days. Reflecting the general characteristics of the public sector of Saudi Arabia, institutional capacity and governance of the sector is weak.