Riyadh

City Water System

Riyadh, the Saudi capital, had 7.01 million residents in Ar Riyadh governorate at the 2022 census. It lies far inland in an arid region, and no surface water contributes to its urban supply. The sector was restructured in 2024. The Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture sets policy under the National Water Strategy 2030. The Saudi Water Authority, created from the former Saline Water Conversion Corporation, regulates services and plans water security, while SHARAKAT procures privately financed plants. The National Water Company, owned by the Public Investment Fund, distributes water, collects sewage and treats wastewater in Riyadh through its Central Cluster.

Resources & Supply

Riyadh City received 994.5 million m³ of water for urban use in 2024. More than three-quarters of it, 771.2 million m³, was desalinated seawater produced on the Gulf coast and pumped inland through long transmission lines. The remaining 223.3 million m³ came from groundwater. With supply this distant, storage matters: the ministry reports that Riyadh holds the world’s largest single drinking-water tank, at 3 million m³.

Use is high. The city’s 2018 indicators put supply at 350 litres per person a day, of which residential consumption was 170 litres. In the same year, 22% of the water pumped into the network was lost before reaching consumers, up from 17% in 2014.

Wastewater & Stormwater

The city’s eight wastewater plants treated 618.8 million m³ in 2024, an average of about 1.69 million m³ a day, collected through 11,141 km of sewers. Capacity is growing through both public works and private partnerships. A plant south of Riyadh reached a design capacity of 400,000 m³ a day in early 2025, and the 200,000 m³-a-day Al-Haer independent plant reached financial close that February. Reuse lags treatment: across Riyadh region, 19.18% of treated wastewater was reused in 2024, below the national rate. Seven stormwater drainage networks inaugurated in May 2024 cover up to 55% of the city.

Investment & Resilience

Investment is concentrated on networks, treatment and bulk transfer. The National Water Company’s Central Cluster launched three rounds of Riyadh-region projects between May 2024 and April 2025; the latest, worth about SAR 2 billion, covers 1,955 km of water and sewer lines and 18 reservoirs. Long-term operation and maintenance contracts signed in 2023 cover the Manfouha and Heet treatment plants. A privately financed Riyadh–Qassim transmission pipeline of up to 685,000 m³ a day reached preferred-bidder stage in December 2025. Strategic storage across Riyadh region stood at 6.8 million m³ in 2019, and the Green Riyadh programme plans 1,350 km of treated-wastewater irrigation networks.

Key Challenges

1. Securing supply for a city that depends on desalinated water carried inland over long transmission lines.
2. Reducing network losses, which reached 22% of water supplied in 2018.
3. Planning for a population growing about 4% a year in the city’s 2018 indicators, against widely differing 2030 projections.
4. Raising reuse of treated wastewater above the region’s 19.18% rate.
5. Protecting regional groundwater, where agriculture drew an estimated 1.89 billion m³ of non-renewable groundwater in 2024.

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