A TALE OF TWO VALLEYS

The two valleys, located in the vicinity of the Saudi capital city, disprove and dispel the immediate thought that comes to the mind of a tourist or a casual visitor---that Riyadh or for that matter the whole of Saudi Arabia will be a typical concrete metropolis surrounded by sand dunes and rocks. But at first sight itself, any visitor will be amazed to watch the valleys rich in greenery, water and wildlife.
Today, Wadi Hanifa is an impressive valley, which runs from north to south of the city. The valley has become one of the most important parks in the capital, where its gardens and sitting places attract a large number of tourists besides residents from the city, especially during holidays. They find in the Wadi Hanifa an excellent place for recreation amid clean and healthy environment.
The valley can be reached through a series of steps and graded slopes where children scamper along trails and families enjoy the relaxing view under the acacias. The wadi has also turned into a safe heaven for many bird species, who add to the natural beauty of the place. It also features parking lots, barbecue stands, mosques and restrooms and contains bilingual Arabic-English signs that show you your exact location and how to get around the wadi.
The Wadi Hanifa encompasses six open parks with a vast area of small lakes hosting hundreds of palm trees, a carefully designed stone bridge and walking trails as well as attractive family picnic pods. Each picnic pod resembles a horseshoe of upright limestone slabs offering visitors a private and secluded open view of the wadi. In fact, the wadi has become a permanent flowing river in its lower reaches due to rising groundwater and sewage effluents from the city.
In addition, the wadi suffers from seasonal flooding, on average once every one to two years. This prompted the Saudi government to launch a restoration project for Wadi Hanifa. This project needed to provide environmental remediation to the wadi and its environments, allowing for flood and dry weather flow protection, including water quality remediation, restore and enhance the landscape.
A key challenge to the project team was to significantly improve the city’s sustainable use of water, by reducing its reliance on expensive desalinated water from the coast. Presently, Wadi Hanifah is an on-going project where planners continue to offer a wide-range of services and focused expertise addressing various challenges, aspirations and an entire region’s need to become more sustainable and resilient.
In fact, the fertile Wadi Hanifah was for years a rubbish dump and a public health hazard, but now it’s been transformed into a vast park that blow cool breezes. Thanks to the Saudi government, which spent millions of dollars to restore the wadi. Now, it’s an oasis so large it’s hard to police – making it a place for Saudi citizens, expatriates and tourists to relax, in more senses than one.
Rising in the highlands of central Arabia, Wadi Hanifah runs southeast 120km before losing itself in the sands of the Empty Quarter desert. This great watercourse is dry for most of the year, but fertile thanks to aquifers close to the surface. People have been farming and trading up and down the valley for millennia. As a village, then a small town, Riyadh grew sustainably with its population.
But from the 1970s, rapid growth quickly overwhelmed the city’s ecosystems. Construction firms mined Wadi Hanifa for minerals. The valley was blocked by encroaching farmland. Seasonal flooding swept pollutants into residential neighborhoods and then left stagnant water, jeopardizing public health and raising pollution levels. But today, Wadi Hanifa shows few signs of its polluted past.
A large number of palm trees now shade a line of carefully designed picnic pods. Picnicking is big in Saudi Arabia. And down in the cool, shaded Hanifa valley, beside flowing water, there are signs of unusual change. Saudis and foreigners are starting to mix, in a way unthinkable before. Women and children flock around during weekends.
Many families bring their food in hot pots or carry charcoal woven to roast chicken and eat in the wadi itself. It is important to note that the ancient Arab tribe of Banu Hanifah were the principal tribe in this area at the dawn of Islam. In pre-histrionic times, rain fell heavily in the region. This is reflected in the local folk tradition that claims that during the reign of the ancient Kingdom of Al-Yamamah, the area was once covered with oases and fertile farmland.
The increase in surface water has led to widespread date palm cultivation along the banks of the wadi today. The treated water of the wadi is given free of charge from the government to farmers, which has led to much higher yields. More importantly for the economy, the government uses much of the water to run one of the largest oil refineries in the country. The city of Riyadh also pumps a portion back into the city to irrigate its public gardens and parks.
Some 35,000 indigenous trees, as well as native grasses, now provide a buffer against dangerous flash floods; while shading the huge stretch that includes 43 kilometers of paths for walking and biking. To keep the area from becoming polluted again, the project also included the creation of an artificial wetland system to naturally clean the wastewater that once almost destroyed a substantial chunk of the valley. It is worth mentioning again that the valley is under rehabilitation and restoration within the framework of the “Wadi Hanifa Comprehensive Environmental Rehabilitation Project”. The project has managed to clean up the valley restoring its normal function as a waterway. Besides, it has also maintained its environment clean from pollution making it accessible to the Riyadh residents, especially during the weekends and public holidays.
Another valley near Riyadh that fascinates every one with its pastoral charm in Wadi Laban. This valley is also frequented by Saudis and expatriates alike. Wadi Laban is also famous for its massive suspension bridge that passes over the valley’s fissure. This bridge popularly called “hanging bridge’ is one of the parts of the western side of Riyadh ring road. It is 1300 meters at length and mainly include a suspension bridge of 763 meters at length at Wadi Laban, one of the largest and the deepest valleys in the west of Riyadh. Therefore, the hanging bridge has become a major landmark feature of the city. The bridge is based on two columns separated by a distance of more than 400 meters and cross the bridge over Wadi Laban up 80 meters. A tourist or a visitor to Wadi Laban enjoys by driving his motor car on the bridge and overlooking the valley on the way. The valley is deep depicting all pastoral features of a typical nomadic grounds or villages of ancient Arabia. This cable-stayed bridge is illuminated with thirtysix 2,000W metal halide floodlights (ULTS) to light up the bridge. These have been mounted on two towers each of which rises to a huge height from the bridge’s surface. The lighting has been arranged so as to diffuse light in different directions and angles to get the required illumination levels with reasonable uniformity ratios. The bridge is located 25 km from Riyadh at the southwest of the city.