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Intelligence

The professional layer

Two formats. Technology briefs are evergreen, covering what a technology does and who pays for it, reviewed with each site update. Market briefings are dated and monthly, drawn from our own procurement tracking. Both are sourced the way the rest of the platform is, with numbered references on every page.

Briefings are published monthly. Last update: 29 September 2026.

The latest briefing

August 2026

Market briefing: MENA water, August 2026

Gulf desalination plants come under attack for the first time since 1991, Hormuz stays mined, and procurement carries on around both. Kuwait signs, Jordan's carrier finds its lenders, Sharakat's plan slips past its own dates.

Read the briefing

Technology briefs

UtilitiesDigital

Finding leaks from orbit: how network loss became a data problem

Satellites, acoustic loggers and smart meters have made non-revenue water visible. It is the region’s largest hidden loss, and the cheapest new supply a utility can buy.

DesalinationResources

Brine: desalination's second product

The region makes 48% of the world’s desalinated water and 70% of its brine. What the stream is, what the rules say about it, and how far brine mining has really got.

DesalinationFinance

The machines that halved the price of seawater

Between 2018 and 2020 the winning bid for desalinated water nearly halved, to 27.7 cents. The technology stack behind that number, why the record was never financed, and why prices rose.

DesalinationDigital

Green hydrogen's water bill

The region is staking industrial strategies on hydrogen split from water. The volumes are smaller than the debate assumes; the specification, the source and the cooling choice matter more.

DigitalUtilities

Water for the machines: data centres in the desert

The Gulf is announcing AI campuses at gigawatt scale in the world’s most water-scarce region. What cooling actually draws, what operators disclose, and the column they leave blank.

GroundwaterInfrastructure

Banking water underground: the region's other reservoirs

Open reservoirs lose water to the desert sky. Recharge dams, infiltration basins and injection wells store it where nothing evaporates, and Abu Dhabi banked a 90-day emergency reserve in its dunes.

AgricultureDigital

Drip irrigation and the efficiency trap

Morocco alone has converted about 794,000 hectares to drip and other localised irrigation. Field efficiency is not saved water, unless someone caps the pumping and measures what crops consume.

ClimateDigital

Cloud seeding: what the rain-makers can and cannot buy

Morocco, the UAE and Saudi Arabia all fly national seeding programmes. What the science supports in cubic metres, what the programmes claim, and why the April 2024 storm became a governance lesson.

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