Middle East Water Tech Brief – December 2025
Welcome to this month’s edition of the Middle East Water Tech Brief, your essential source for the latest water innovations, investments, and policies shaping the region’s water security.
Water security across the Middle East is entering a transformative phase, shaped by large-scale infrastructure programs, expanding PPP pipelines, and rapid adoption of climate-resilient and smart water technologies.
In this edition of the Middle East Water Tech Brief, we spotlight major regional developments—from Saudi Arabia’s 587 km water transmission pipeline and Abu Dhabi’s new Integrated Water Strategy to a landmark Iraq–Türkiye infrastructure deal. We also highlight emerging technologies, including fruit-peel adsorbents and high-efficiency desalination energy-recovery systems, alongside notable investment moves and upcoming desalination events.
Key Developments
Saudi Arabia: 587 km Independent Water Transmission Pipeline
What’s New?
Saudi Arabia has advanced a 587 km independent water transmission pipeline connecting Jubail to Buraydah under a 35-year BOOT model. The system is designed to transport around 650,000 m³/day of potable water to inland demand centres.
Why It Matters:
The project expands private-sector participation in strategic water conveyance, strengthens redundancy between coastal desalination hubs and interior cities, and supports Vision 2030 objectives for long-term water security and diversified financing.
What’s Next?
Expect follow-on tenders for additional long-haul pipelines and storage PPPs, widening the portfolio of contracted transmission assets and opening opportunities for institutional investors seeking steady, utility-style returns.
Abu Dhabi, UAE: Integrated Water Strategy Launch
What’s New?
Abu Dhabi’s Department of Energy has released an Integrated Water Strategy targeting lower production costs, a 40% reduction in network losses by 2035, and expanded desalination and reuse projects enabled through innovation partnerships.
Why It Matters:
The strategy provides clear direction for utilities on efficiency, non-revenue water reduction, and circular resource use, anchoring future investment decisions in defined performance and sustainability metrics.
What’s Next?
Authorities plan competitive tenders and calls for proposals on desalination and reuse technologies, positioning Abu Dhabi as a regional testbed for digital leak detection, smart metering, and low-carbon desalination linked with clean energy.
Iraq–Türkiye: Cross-Border Water Infrastructure Deal
What’s New?
Iraq and Türkiye have signed an agreement enabling Turkish firms to construct major water infrastructure across Iraq, financed by Turkish export credit agencies and development banks.
Why It Matters:
The agreement pairs Türkiye’s engineering capabilities with Iraq’s urgent need for modern conveyance and treatment systems, signalling a shift toward regional partnerships to address infrastructure gaps under fiscal and climate pressure.
What’s Next?
Upcoming implementation details will determine which dams, transmission lines, and treatment plants advance first, creating a pipeline of cross-border projects to track for procurement milestones and technology deployment.
Technology Spotlight: Innovations in Water Management
Fruit-Peel Adsorbent for Wastewater Treatment (Saudi Arabia)
What it Does:
Researchers in Saudi Arabia have patented a water purification technology that converts processed fruit peels into high-efficiency adsorbent materials capable of removing around 98% of dye pollutants from wastewater. The materials can be regenerated and reused multiple times.
Why it Matters:
This approach combines low-cost agricultural waste with an energy-efficient treatment method, giving industrial and municipal facilities a practical way to reduce contaminant loads without relying heavily on imported chemicals or high-energy advanced treatment systems.
Impact:
If deployed at scale, the technology could lower treatment costs, advance circular-economy objectives within Saudi agriculture, and encourage similar bio-based innovations across MENA countries that generate substantial fruit and crop by-product streams.
Energy-Recovery Devices for Desalination (Saudi Arabia – Global Water Expo)
What it Does:
Exhibitors at Riyadh’s Global Water Expo showcased advanced energy-recovery devices used in reverse-osmosis desalination plants. These systems capture pressure from brine streams and feed it back into the process, reducing overall electricity consumption for seawater desalination.
Why it Matters:
Desalination is essential to Saudi Arabia’s long-term water security but remains highly energy-intensive. Integrating energy-recovery devices supports national goals to cut operating costs, reduce emissions, and ensure future large-scale desalination assets are both financially and environmentally sustainable.
Impact:
Wide adoption across existing and new desalination plants could recover a notable share of input energy, free up grid capacity for other uses, and position Saudi water utilities as regional leaders in high-efficiency desalination technologies.
Investment Tracker: Major Water Infrastructure Projects in 2025
Saudi Arabia
ACWA Power desalination and water portfolio expansion
Approximately $115 billion total portfolio across IWPP/IWP projects and utility concessions
Over 2025, ACWA Power is advancing a multi-billion-dollar pipeline of desalination and water projects in the Kingdom and abroad. This growth is supported by a planned $1.8 billion capital increase aimed at accelerating new independent water plants and integrated energy–water schemes.
Qatar–Egypt
Qatari Diar–NUCA New Cairo development with desalination and full utilities
Multi-billion-riyal real estate and infrastructure agreement structured as a PPP-style investment
Qatari Diar and Egypt’s New Urban Communities Authority signed a major agreement in November 2025 to develop a mixed-use district that includes full infrastructure provision, notably electricity distribution networks and a dedicated water desalination facility serving the project area.
Upcoming Event
7th MENA Desalination Projects Forum 2026 — Abu Dhabi, UAE
Regional flagship conference and exhibition focused on large-scale desalination across the MENA region.
Features updates on project pipelines, an estimated $100 billion in investment opportunities to 2030, emerging PPP/IWP models, and the integration of renewables and low-carbon technologies in both new and existing desalination plants.
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The Middle East Water Tech Brief – Premium Edition delivers expert, in-depth analysis on the region’s circular water transformation for decision-makers, investors, and innovators navigating the intersection of climate, water, and sustainability.
Why It Matters
As water scarcity deepens across the Middle East, governments are accelerating a shift toward integrated Water–Energy–Food Nexus planning. Rapid expansion of renewable-powered desalination, large-scale wastewater reuse, and precision agriculture is reshaping how water, food, and energy systems are secured in an era of declining rainfall and rising temperatures. By combining clean energy, circular resource recovery, and digital optimisation, the region is lowering system-wide costs, easing pressure on aquifers, and building long-term resilience—while positioning water security as a core pillar of economic competitiveness and climate-aligned development.
What You Will Discover
How solar- and renewables-powered desalination are emerging as essential tools for securing water supply amid declining rainfall and rising food demand.
Why circular approaches such as wastewater reuse, brine mining, and nutrient recovery are becoming central to national food and industrial strategies.
How precision irrigation, controlled-environment agriculture, and AI-driven agritech are reducing agricultural water consumption in the region’s most water-stressed economies.
Where integrated governance, PPPs, and sovereign investment are aligning water, food, and energy planning to deliver long-term resilience and cross-border cooperation.
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