• jve@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    2 months ago

    If it weren’t for the millions of gallons of water that I’m sure are wasted in the middle of the desert, this honestly looks like so much fun.

    • binomialchickenEnglish
      12·
      2 months ago

      I doubt much of the water is wasted, though a tiny bit of spillage and a bit more evaporation is expected. The rest is pumped back to the top, as it would be hard to source fresh water fast enough to just waste it.

      • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        2 months ago

        I wouldn’t say that the water loss is tiny. I’m assuming average temperatures between 90-100° F when operating and low humidity (<30%) and I found a source saying that the city of pheonix estimated that an Olympic swimming pool loses 2500-5000 gallons of water per month. That has mostly to do with surface area but I’m assuming they have at least one of those pools in the park, maybe multiple. Could be up to 15,000 gallons/month just for pools alone.

        Then we talk about the water slides which, if you’ve ever been on a water slide, you know that they waste water. Water leaking from the slides may be gallons an hour and the agitation of the water will speed up evaporation. I’d say each slide loses somewhere around 10-20 gallons an hour as a guess. You multiply that by 15 slides and you’re getting 150 gallons per hour, 12,000 gallons a day.

        So not to put it lightly but this one park could be losing over a million gallons of water a year. Easily. And in a desert that’s nothing to scoff at.

        I did all my math before researching but I found an article from the guardian that uses very similar numbers. Mine are higher but this park is also bigger.

        • proleEnglish
          4·
          2 months ago

          What’s lost in vapor is returned through child piss.

          The circle of life.

        • binomialchickenEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          I was under the impression that the bulk of water consumption for modern water parks was from flushing toilets bathroom facilities, so I’ll have to defer to your assumption of 20 gallons per hour for a slide. If a slide can accommodate 20 kids per hour, that means 1 gallon per kid, which seems pretty reasonable.

          • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            2 months ago

            When we talk water consumption in regard to bathroom facilities, you might get into the weeds a little bit. In most modern countries, water from waste facilities is not “wasted” and is instead treated and returned to reservoirs or rivers. Upon being returned, the contaminants are diluted by the natural water source and then are eaten and processed by organisms that will rebalance things. And many areas in the US draw from aquifers that are replenished by adding this water back into the ground which takes years and further filters the water.

            The reason evaporation is a problem is because we don’t have to consider those complicated factors when the water is returned to the air. It is purely wasted in the sense that it will be dispersed in the air and we have no control over where it goes after that. If you have an abundance of water and your aquifer is at equilibrium, no problem. But if you’re in a desert and having to desalinate water from an ocean to fill your water park, that’s a big issue. Basically it’s hard to know exactly how bad this park would be without context of its resource systems.

      • frezik@midwest.socialEnglish
        4·
        2 months ago

        Better, in fact. You wouldn’t need to treat seawater as much. If you’re anywhere near an ocean, you can just flush it back every few days and refill. Cruise ship swimming pools are done this way.

      • binomialchickenEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        There is some concept art, so maybe that idea got scrapped for some reason?

        • binomialchickenEnglish
          3·
          2 months ago

          Actually, it seems that it isn’t just concept art. So I guess they are using seawater.

      • proleEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        You’d have to make sure all those slides are coated in something that salt won’t destroy.

  • bionicjoey@lemmy.caEnglish
    15·
    2 months ago

    It bothers me that the name of the park encourages you to pronounce either “Aqua” or “Quatar” incorrectly

  • li10@feddit.ukEnglish
    14·
    2 months ago

    Can’t wait for the YT videos exploring these abandoned Saudi mega projects.

    How long, 30 years? Over or under?

  • bdot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    13·
    2 months ago

    holy shit! this is the most dystopian-looking amusement/water park that i have ever seen! more like BEmusement park

  • halvar@lemm.eeEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    I said it once I’ll say it again that’s the centrifuge brainproject of aquaparks