"This is a huge quantity of water and represents the output of a desalination plant for five years," the minister told reporters after inspecting water projects in Tihama Asir.

"During my visit I checked the level of water at Beesh, Murba and Atoud dams following the heavy downfalls that the region received in recent weeks," he said.

He said the Beesh Dam could become not only a supplementary water resource for the region's desalination plant, but could also replace the plant. About 200,000 cubic meters of water flow through this valley always, he pointed out.

The Atoud and Murba dams, which hold seven and four million cubic meters of water respectively, were established to meet the shortage of water before the setting up of Shuqaiq-II plant. He said investing in dams was a right decision taken by the government.

The Beesh Dam is located 33 kms southeast of Beesh in Jazan. It is the highest dam in the Kingdom with a height of 106 meters. It has the capacity to hold 192.75 million cubic meters of water.

During the past decades, the Saudi government has constructed several dams of different sizes in various valleys to preserve the country's water resources. There are nearly 250 dams with storage capacity of about one billion cubic meters.

The ministry has plans to construct more dams to increase the total capacity of dams to 1.5 billion cubic meters annually. Saudi Arabia has won fourth position in the Middle East in the number of dams after Turkey, Iran and Syria.