constructed wetland

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Reed Beds: Cleaning Waste Water in the Desert

Earlier this year I decided to visit a strange looking waste management site in Um Al Quwain – one of seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates. From satellite imagery it looked like raw sewage was being dumped in the desert, just a couple of kilometres from Um Al Quwain’s precious mangrove estuary.

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Ancient River Valley Reclaimed: Saudi’s Sweet Success Story

For hundreds of years, Saudi’s Wadi Hanifah River carved out a scenic valley extending from sand dunes and agricultural land pocked with date plantations into the heart of Riyadh before it seeped underground. But the city’s expansion into a thumping metropolis of 7 million people brought the 4500 sq km catchment area close to extinction as […]