Digital twin enables environmentally responsible coastal development in the Red Sea’s Al'Wajh Lagoon

Red Sea Global is developing luxury tourism and residential developments along the Saudi Red Sea coast. The Red Sea destination sits around Al’Wajh Lagoon. These developments are part of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 to diversify its economy through sustainable and regenerative tourism. The destinations are developed in Red Sea’s pristine marine ecosystem with the aim of enhancing its conservation value. The challenge is to understand the science of the sensitive environment, overcome limited historical data and meet the requirements for Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIAs). To address these, DHI developed a digital twin of the marine environment, enabling informed planning and supporting decision-making through the development lifecycle.

Challenge

The development of The Red Sea destination around Al'Wajh Lagoon presents challenges due to the sensitive marine environment. The region’s biodiversity requires careful consideration to ensure adaptive design decisions while avoiding or minimising impacts on local ecosystems. With limited historical environmental data, innovative data collection and analysis methods are needed to understand construction and operational impacts on water and sediment quality and marine life.

Red Sea Global is proactively addressing these challenges by committing to best practices in environmental management to ensure that all its developments align with sustainability goals. Additionally, the requirements for conducting comprehensive ESIAs require careful planning to comply with both local and international standards. These assessments identify solutions to potential risks, such as sedimentation, changes in water flow and impacts on natural ecosystems while ensuring the development of a destination. Balancing these factors is key to meeting development objectives and maintaining the ecological health of the lagoon.

Solution

To address these challenges, DHI developed advanced hydrodynamic and wave models to facilitate the environmental assessments and support sustainable coastal and offshore planning. DHI’s team developed a 3D hydrodynamic model alongside a 2D wave model, capturing key parameters such as sediment transport, water quality and ecological factors essential to the lagoon's ecosystem. These models are calibrated and validated frequently to maintain accuracy and reliability across the entire lagoon.

Utilising the numerical models, DHI established a digital twin of the lagoon's marine environment, creating an accurate and dynamic representation of a destination site’s baseline conditions. This allowed for the simulation of various development scenarios and evaluation of potential environmental impacts before implementation, ensuring the development remains aligned with sustainability goals while minimising risks to the environment. For example, the models identified potential risks related to sedimentation in areas sensitive to development, highlighting the need for specific mitigation measures. Based on these insights, DHI advised Red Sea Global on strategies to reducing sediment displacement and protecting marine habitats during development. 

Results

DHI’s digital twin enabled Red Sea Global to evaluate coastal planning and development scenarios in a virtual environment, allowing Red Sea Global to assess the environmental conditions and impacts before implementation. This enabled Red Sea Global to manage its risks with improved sustainability of destinations.

The models also provided data-driven insights for environmental stakeholders, supporting meaningful discussions on design and delivery. This ensured environmental concerns were addressed and incorporated into the planning process.

With DHI’s solution, Red Sea Global is armed with optimising environmental management strategies, ensuring regulatory compliance and maintaining alignment with its sustainability goals. This proactive approach to managing the environmental impacts of coastal development is helping to preserve the lagoon’s ecological health, delivering long-term benefits for both the destinations and local communities. It has set new benchmarks in sustainable and regenerative development: safeguarding the natural environment, creating meaningful opportunities for local communities and protecting the destination for future generations.