UAE launches $1.5m cloud-seeding grants to boost rainfall

ABU DHABI: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a new research drive to increase rainfall through advanced cloud-seeding technology, offering grants of up to $1.5 million to scientists to help tackle water scarcity in the region.

The UAE’s National Centre of Meteorology (NCM) said three scientists from the United States, Germany, and Australia have been selected under the UAE Research Programme for Rain Enhancement Science. The winners were chosen from 140 proposals submitted by researchers from 48 countries.

Each recipient will receive up to $1.5 million spread over three years, with a maximum of $550,000 per year, to study environmentally friendly methods to improve artificial rain.

The selected scientists include Dr Michael Dixon from Echo Science Works in the US, Professor Linda Zou from Victoria University in Australia, and Dr Oliver Branch from the University of Hohenheim in Germany.

Their work will focus on using artificial intelligence, new cloud-seeding materials and land-based techniques to improve how clouds produce rain. UAE officials said AI will help identify the best clouds and increase efficiency.

The UAE receives very little natural rainfall and relies heavily on desalinated seawater. It already carries out hundreds of cloud-seeding flights each year.

Officials said the new research aims to support agriculture, strengthen water reserves and improve long-term water security in the country and the wider region.