Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — The Riyadh Region Municipality has announced the completion of more than 40% of King Abdullah International Gardens (KAIG)’ operation, which is considered as one of the world’s largest environmental projects.

The General Supervisor of the KAIG project Eng. Nasser Al-Wadaei stated that most of the concrete and metal structure works have been completed, including a large part of the coverage of the Botanical Museum building (Al-Hilalain — two crescents), which exceeds an area of 90,000 square meters.

He also confirmed the completion of a large part of the project location’s infrastructure work, which exceeds an area of 2 million square meters, and that after implementing 80% of the water networks, flood drainage, sewage, irrigation, treated water, in addition to the water networks of firefighting, cooling and heating.

He said that the pace of work is accelerating thanks to the support of Saudi Arabia’s leadership, and follow-up from Riyadh mayor.

The most prominent target of the project is to spread awareness in terms of preserving nature, therefore, they will cooperate with higher education in the fields of scientific research related to plants, climate change, and others, in order to raise the environmental awareness to the new generations.

He said that the Botanical Museum building is the main building in the project. It is considered as an architectural icon for botanical gardens.

The Botanical Museum building will contain 7 gardens express the ancient historical ages of plants, in addition to telling their development from the Devonian era to the modern era.

The gardens will contain more than 1,400 species of local and imported plants. It will be provided with appropriate climatic environment, Al-Wadaei said.

Moreover, there will be many service buildings such as restaurants, cafes, educational games, and child care areas in the gardens.

Al-Wadaei said that the Riyadh Municipality aims to complete the project work by the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.