Jubail’s population has exploded since the 1970s, but humans aren’t the only new residents. Near Jubail’s waste treatment facility lies something unexpectedly beautiful—Sabkhat Al-Fasl, one of the most popular bird-watching spots in the kingdom.
Jubail uses recycled water for all of its landscaping irrigation, but the community processes much more than is needed, so the excess water is pumped out into the surrounding desert. Since 1991, the effluent has transformed the sabkha, or salt flats, into a biological preserve that now attracts more than 20,000 birds during peak migration.
Because wastewater is rich in nutrients, it boosts the production of a huge biomass of microflora such as algae and tiny species like aquatic insects. Waterfowl and shorebirds including flamingos, avocets, plovers, stints, and sandpipers feed on the plankton and insects.
Two globally threatened species make regular visits to the shallow wetland; both the imperial eagle and the spotted eagle are lured by carrion. But residents say the most spectacular sight is the thousands of greater flamingos that spend their winters at Al-Fasl and occasionally attempt to breed here. At a national ecotourism conference in 2002, the area was ranked the second most important birding venue in the country.
