JEDDAH: Jeddah Mayor Adel Fakieh signed a cooperation agreement yesterday with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) for a major project to manage and preserve the city’s environment.
Recent official reports have indicated that Jeddah lacks an organized mechanism to deal with current and upcoming environmental challenges that are expected to grow with continuous urban development, said Mohammed Abdulsalam, adviser to the mayor and general supervisor of the Urban Observatory.
Abdulsalam said the agreement includes a study of the city’s current environmental state. “The new project holds great importance due to the environmental problems that have piled up over the years around the city,” he said.
Abdulsalam added that the relatively fast-paced development has posed many environmental challenges that need immediate attention. Concern about the current state of the city’s environment has caused the municipality to launch the project, which will involve international experts to bring Jeddah up to the level of the First World cities.
The Urban Observatory and the Presidency of Meteorology and Environmental Protection are directly supervising the project, said Abdulsalam. Riyadh Al-Ahmad, the UNDP’s representative in Riyadh, signed the agreement with the mayor of Jeddah and the supervisor of the Urban Observatory.
One of Jeddah’s main environment problems is the sewage lake located about 15 kilometers to the east of the city. The lake is posing a potential threat to the city as it is putting pressure on the sand levee, the only barrier between Jeddah and 10 million liters of raw sewage.
The municipality is undertaking a number of urgent projects to bring down the lake’s level.
by building extension pipelines and additional water purification plants.
