Saudi Arabia has made several public commitments to adapt to the effects of rising sea levels, including infrastructure protection, coastal management, and potentially relocation.
Sea level rise along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea and Arabian Gulf coasts is a gradually intensifying threat that affects both individual properties and the broader community. From roughly 1975 to 2025, global sea levels rose steadily as ocean temperatures increased and land-ice melt accelerated, with the rate of rise roughly doubling over that period. By 2025, most coastal regions, including those around Jeddah, Yanbu, and Dammam, were already seeing more frequent tidal flooding, beach erosion, and strain on drainage systems. Looking ahead to 2050 and beyond, climate models project a continued rise, with higher storm-surge impacts and greater shoreline retreat, especially in low-lying urban areas.
For homeowners, this means rising risks to foundations, landscaping, and underground utilities as saltwater intrusion and periodic flooding become more common. Communities may face increased insurance premiums or tightening coverage as insurers price in climate-exposed coastal assets. At the city-planning scale, sea-level rise is already influencing zoning decisions, stormwater infrastructure upgrades, and long-term coastal protection strategies such as seawalls, breakwaters, and expanded natural buffers. Saudi Arabia’s major coastal economic hubs: ports, refineries, and residential developments, are beginning to integrate sea-level-rise scenarios into new project designs, and some municipalities are reassessing setback distances and building codes. Over the next several decades, the cumulative effect of higher seas will require coordinated adaptation across property owners, insurers, and local governments to ensure that coastal communities remain resilient.
Saudi Arabia has made several public commitments to adapt to the effects of rising sea levels, including infrastructure protection, coastal management, and potentially relocation. For example, as part of the Saudi Green Initiative (SGI), the Kingdom aims to place 30% of its land and sea under protection by 2030 and plant over 600 million trees within the same timeframe, an increase of over 150 million trees from the initial goal of planting 450 million by 2030. The overall costs of achieving these goals will depend on future emissions scenarios and the specific adaptation measures implemented.
For example, one urban adaptation strategy is the construction of hard protection measures, such as dikes and seawalls. The primary advantage of this strategy is its ability to protect critical infrastructure and facilities that are difficult to relocate. However, this strategy would be very costly, as the Kingdom would need to keep raising those seawalls over time as sea-level rise accelerates. At present, seaside developments (e.g., Red Sea Development Project, NEOM, Economic Cities) are being planned and built, mostly in scarcely populated, pristine areas, to support economic activities and tourism growth.
For developers and stakeholders, a smart, future-proof design of the coastal front, in combination with the conservation of the unique physical and ecological characteristics of these coasts, is a primary goal. Any future decision to limit seaside property development will require collecting and analyzing information on the evolution of the coastal system and integrating climate change and coastal management to gain useful insights into the influence of different natural and/or anthropogenic drivers. Additionally, it can inform the assessment of planned coastal interventions regarding the type and magnitude of expected impacts on the natural system, thereby contributing to future-proof and sustainable coastal development.
This Post was submitted by Climate Scorecard Country Managers, Abeer Abdulkareem and Amgad Ellaboudy.
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