National Water’s Buraidah Oasis earns its first water footprint worldly and first carbon footprint in MENA and EU becoming a reservoir to absorb “emissions”

In a regional achievement, Buraidah Oasis has recorded the first internationally accredited water footprint in the world and the first internationally accredited carbon footprint in the Middle East and Europe, and. This comes as the project nears the end of its first year since the National Water Company (NWC), which describes it as “one of our most important projects in terms of our environmental sustainability efforts”, launched it. 

The carbon footprint report, which was certified by the German Board, showed that the Oasis has no "carbon emissions" and is instead a giant reservoir that absorbs carbon from the surrounding environment (the atmosphere) at a rate of 0.12% per year. The certification was presented to the CEO of the National Water Company, Dr. Fuad bin Ahmed Alshikhmubarak. 

The German Government's "German Board" certification is one of the strongest institutional certifications at the European level, given Germany's global excellence in the agricultural sector, as well as its 7 decades of experience in combating carbon emissions.

Reaching the stage of complete absorption of CO2 emissions is an unattainable goal that countries and international institutions specializing in this field are striving for in different environments around the world. This is evidenced by a comparison between the Buraidah Oasis and a forest in Germany, which showed that the latter emits 12 times more carbon emissions than the oasis, which is located on the outskirts of the city of Buraidah, demonstrating the great capacity of the oasis to absorb carbon.

As for the water footprint, the report for Buraidah Oasis was prepared to calculate the rate of water wastage and the amount of irrigation water concentration in the vicinity of the tree trunk, which contributes to the sapling's absorption of carbon emission. 

The water footprint is an indicator that measures the appropriate amount of water that a single plant needs to grow dynamically.  

The Buraidah Oasis is home to one million trees surrounding a huge lake that holds 86,000 cubic meters of renewable water from the National Water Company's wastewater treatment plant (WWTP), which it relies on as part of its future vision for sustainability and positive environmental impact in the Kingdom.

The Oasis project, which is expected to have a significant impact in the coming years, is part of National Water Company's contribution to the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI). One of the most prominent features of the project is that it is an integrated sustainability project because the renewable water produced by the NWC’s STP irrigates the oasis.

An antelope Sanctuary was recently opened in the oasis, with 15 antelopes recently released in the sanctuary, which occupies an area of 50,000 square meters of the oasis's total area of 19 million square meters.