Dubai Municipality has announced that rainwater drainage capacity across the city will increase by 700 per cent once its major Tasreef project is completed. The roughly Dh30 billion programme is due to finish by 2033 and will be able to handle more than 20 million cubic metres of water per day.
Marwan bin Ghalita, director general of Dubai Municipality, said the project includes over 6,500km of drainage networks and 5,000km of sewage networks across the emirate. He said that after the unprecedented flooding of April 2024, Dubai "did not simply stop to assess the damage or look for solutions," but instead made a swift, bold decision to launch long-term infrastructure resilience work rather than short-term fixes.
Tasreef was launched in 2024, though earlier phases date back to 2019 and already cover areas including Expo Dubai, Al Maktoum International Airport City and Jebel Ali.
Alongside the drainage expansion, the municipality outlined broader environmental targets: planting 3.5 million trees by 2040, expanding green space to 187 square kilometres by the same year, and projecting 95 million annual visits to city parks. The municipality also carries out roughly 577,000 food consignment inspections every year.
Bin Ghalita described the initiative as representative of Dubai's "city of action" approach, crediting a clear vision and collective commitment for the results achieved so far. The Tasreef project ranks among the largest urban infrastructure programmes undertaken in Dubai in recent decades, aimed squarely at reducing the impact of extreme rainfall events in the years ahead.