Synergies and Conflicts: Evaluating AI and 5G Technologies Role in Saudi Arabia’s Drought Management Strategy

Water scarcity across the world and specifically in Saudi Arabia is exacerbated by climatic conditions such as desalinated resources, limited rainfall, reliance on ground water and arid climate. For addressing this issue, governments around the globe have implemented numerous measures leveraging advanced technology like AI and 5G for developed drought management systems. This paper aims to evaluate the synergies and conflicts of Saudi Arabi’s national policies with those of international standards (agreements, conventions and SDGs). The methodology of this paper is based on qualitative content analysis of Saudi Arabia’s policies (Mission 2030, National Innovation Plan and National Water Management Strategy 2030) with those of international agreements (Paris Agreement, UN Convention for combatting desertification & GPAI framework) and SDGs (6, 9, and 13). Python tools and libraries (pandas, nltk, sklearn, OpenPyXL and Networkx) are used for data processing, keyword extraction, themes identification, results extraction and their representation. The intersection of extracted themes has provided results that Mission 2030 and drought management strategy of KSA perfectly aligns with all the selected international agreements and SDGs. However, National Water Strategy 2030 merely aligns with UN Convention and SDG 6. On the other hand, National Innovation Plan of KSA overlaps with the themes of UN Convention, GPAI, SDG 13 and SDG 6 in a perfect manner. The analysis has shed clear light on the KSA’s policies alignment with international standards forecasting the Mission 2030 and drought management strategy in it. Even though the National Water Strategy aligns with merely two standards, it could be a limitation due to limited data set, thematic levels and keyword extraction instead of full text document analysis. Further research can benefit from additional data sources and full-text document reviews for better understanding of policy alignment and efficacy.