In the sprawling deserts of the United Arab
Emirates, there are huge areas of greenery emerging amidst the golden sands. This transformation is not some
natural phenomenon, it’s by design. It’s called desert greening and,
for all the UAE’s opulence, this may be its most valuable investment yet. The United Nations estimated that by 2025,
1.8 billion people will be living with absolute water scarcity. If you don't have water for people,
animals, plant communities, as a nation, you will really struggle. Especially in desert countries increasingly
lack of water due to climate change is resulting in less secure water. And the Middle East is home to 12 of the 17
world’s most “water stressed countries.” The UAE receives less than 200 mm
of rainfall each year. To put that into context, London soaked up
an average of 1,051 mm of rain in 2022, while Singapore drenched in a whopping
3,012 mm during the same year. So, as one can imagine, ensuring enough water
for the UAE’s population is a real challenge. To continue to support its increasing development
and growing population, the UAE government invested more than 20 million dollars in research
to start a process called cloud seeding. Cloud seeding enhances the rain in the cloud. The main objective of that to increase the storage of groundwater. It was a direct order from
His Highness Sheikh Mansour. When did this start? It was in late 2000 and early 2001. We were partnered with the
National Atmospheric Research in the U.S. The entire Gulf region could face a 50 percent
reduction in water availability per capita by 2050. The UAE has tried to combat desertification,
which is land that is no longer productive because it can't support plant growth. The Emirate spans over 83,000 square kilometres,
and around 80% is desert. It’s estimated that 75% of our planet's
land is already degraded. These lands have become deserts or are uninhabitable. About 12 million hectares of land
is lost around the world each year as a direct consequence of
drought and desertification. The World Bank estimates
the Emirates has lost almost 33,000 hectares
of land from 2002 to 2018. The decrease in arable land is primarily
due to land degradation. This impacts over 3 billion people. And people that live in desert and dry land
ecosystems that cover nearly half of the globe, are particularly vulnerable to the loss of
arable land and land degradation. But in the last 50 years, what was once
a large desert and a tranquil fishing port has evolved into an urban metropolis. Long before the skyscrapers and bustling cities,
the UAE had a history of planting trees in areas that lacked them,
a process called afforestation. So what we're seeing across the world,
especially some of the countries that have significant desert systems is efforts
to green that desert, which means bringing in trees, other plant communities
to increase, as the initiatives say, the greenness of the deserts. Take a look at these satellite images of the
UAE in the 1980s, and present day. The country’s late president sought to provide
permanent homes for nomadic Bedouins in the parched desert. His dream set the stage for a nation's ambitious
endeavour and their leaders knew that trees could help with the fight against desertification. About two decades ago, the “One Million Trees” initiative
was announced by the ruler of Dubai. The plan was to plant 250 thousand trees every year,
in collaboration with the Dubai Police Academy. It wasn’t long before groves of olive,
palms, and the resilient ghafs, the national tree of the UAE,
painted the once-empty land with life. When you are planting some of those trees,
you can dig different holes to capture water and engineer the landscape so those trees
that you're bringing in will be able to survive. And so that's critically important is that it's
not only the types of trees that you're bringing in, or in the types of plants you're bringing in
for these afforestation projects, but also how you engineer that landscape
to be able to receive those plants and that they are able to survive. A tree nursery for the “One Million Trees” initiative
was created, spanning more than 130,000 square meters. But challenges loomed large over green dreams. Behold: 'Mall of the World,'
a mega shopping center project. It was said that Dubai Holding,
the investment vehicle of the Emirates ruler, would require 6.8 billion dollars
to build that entertainment district. Could you guess where they wanted
to build this mega project? None other than the very land
the tree nursery once thrived. And just like that, the project fell through,
and thousands of trees withered away and died. But in January 2015, the UAE Cabinet
approved the UAE Green Agenda for 2030, aimed at building a green economy. Plants are this miracle worker
in terms of pulling carbon dioxide. So you see a lot of engineering approaches
to think about how we pull greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere, but plants by themselves
are one of the best tools that we have. The UAE is not alone in its quest
to green the desert. Other countries like China have followed the
same path, as seen in a desert called Kubuqi in the country’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In 1988, a Chinese company partnered with
the Beijing government to build solar farms and other renewable energy projects. Three decades later and one third of Kubuqi is green,
preventing dunes from encroaching on farms. The United Nations Environment Programme estimated
the Kubuqi project cost 1.8 billion dollars over 50 years. Beijing is a proponent of cloud-seeding technology. They used it to manipulate weather to protect farming areas
and to guarantee clear skies for key events. The UAE performs around 1,000 hours of
cloud seeding to enhance rainfall in just one year. And it’s all controlled out of this building,
the National Center of Meteorology in Abu Dhabi, where they track the whole process. We met with a cloud seeding expert to explain
how the seeding process works. We wait for the forecast when we have a good chance
for clouds, we send the aircrafts to that location. It goes under the cloud, in the first stage of the cloud
there is good updraft at that time, it can release all the salt and, with a good updraft,
it goes inside the cloud and start to condensate and the droplets
become bigger and start to rain. The centre manufactures a salt substance
that helps enhance rainfall. They put them in what they call “flares.” We also spoke to one of the weather forecasters. He explains how the operations work. We alert our pilots and tell them when to be at the airports. So, as expected, we wait for the clouds to appear on the radar. We have our pilots talking to us. Le me know if there's any updrafts in your area. This is a sample plane here at the National Center of Meteorology, but the real planes fly out
from the runways in Al Ain. We have around 110 weather stations. It gives us metrological data every 15 minutes. The information on the screens tracks wind,
speed and direction, while satellite imagery monitors clouds to track fog and dust. Anything passing above the country
we will see it from the satellite, especially the clouds. And this is the map of the UAE. But is the UAE seeing results
from their efforts over the years to create a greener country? So we have different ways of either increasing
the water or saving the water. We have desalination, we have using plantation
that doesn't take much water. There are many ways.
One of the ways cloud seeding. Is there any success in terms of more greenery
around the UAE because of cloud seeding efforts? So the UAE is expanding on the agriculture and also
we were expending too much before. We have to do a plantation with the study.
Plantation costs a lot of water. We can control this water and not to use it as a waste. According to the World Bank,
climate-related water scarcity will cost the region up to
6% of their GDP by 2050. As we green landscapes, this results in healthier
people, not only healthier landscapes. Greening landscapes impacts the wellbeing,
the mental health of people, the physical health of people in terms of the air that they're breathing. In a region expected to be most impacted by
warming temperatures, the time has never been more important than now to find alternate
ways of maintaining life in the desert.
