Saudi Arabia is taking steady steps in the artificial seeding program

Weather of Arabia - The CEO of the National Center of Meteorology and the general supervisor of the cloud seeding program, Dr. Ayman bin Salem Ghulam, confirmed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is taking steady and promising steps in the artificial seeding program.

In this regard, he referred to modern technologies applied for the first time in the Kingdom for cloud seeding, in which ground generators are used for ground seeding, and aircraft are not used.

Dr. Ghulam explained that the techniques used by the National Center of Meteorology are international, including the use of rain seeding techniques by aircraft.

And he added, "But Saudi Arabia, through its previous experiences, wants to have its own roads that are compatible with its weather and terrain."

He added: "There are research studies to deploy ground generators on mountainous areas to benefit from the rise of winds on these mountains with seeding materials through ground generators that also contribute to increasing the density of water content within the clouds and increasing precipitation rates, and these technologies use ground generators and do not use aircraft." ".

In a related context, Ayman Al-Bar, the regional director of the Artificial Rain Enhancement Programme, revealed during the third session of the national workshop for modernizing the "Cooperation and Reporting" mechanism in dealing with weather phenomena, which concluded its work last Tuesday in Riyadh, about this modern terrestrial technology in rain seeding, saying: "We have a trend On the ground seeding stations, where generators will be installed during the next three months, we will have, for the first time in the Kingdom, ground seeding devices without the use of aircraft.”

And he added, "We take advantage of the topography we have in the southern regions, and the ground seeding devices are distributed on the tops of the mountains, and thus we can reach the clouds through the same topography, and the seeding materials are released through the operations center in the mountains."

It is noteworthy that the rain-seeding initiative is one of the regional initiatives announced by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the Middle East Green Summit in Al-Ula and the Kingdom. It aims to increase the rainfall rate by up to 20% from the current rate, which does not exceed 100 mm annually.

The operational work of the rain-seeding program in its three stages achieved a success rate of more than 97 percent. The results of preliminary studies of rainfall for the three stages of rain indicated precipitation amounts amounting to (3.5 billion) cubic meters of water in the targeted areas, according to the devices measuring the amounts of rain in the areas of operations.

Cloud seeding technology increases the amount and quality of precipitation for certain types of clouds. In order to exploit its characteristics and stimulate and accelerate the process of precipitation in predetermined areas, and it is done through aircraft dedicated to sowing accurate materials that do not have harm to the environment in specific places of clouds.

The program aims to increase rainfall levels to create new sources of water, and to increase and intensify the vegetation cover; To confront desertification through national cadres at the highest level of readiness, and contribute to alleviating drought phenomena, preparing natural resources for adaptation, enhancing environmental performance to increase precipitation and achieving environmental sustainability, in addition to building human capacities to secure new water sources and increase the Kingdom’s natural capabilities, and increase green spaces according to the vision Kingdom 2030.