Dh3bn drainage contracts for Jumeirah, Al Barsha and nine more areas

Dubai Municipality has awarded four contracts worth Dh3 billion to expand the city's stormwater drainage network. The work is the third phase of Tasreef, the Dh30 billion drainage programme Dubai launched in 2024 after the unprecedented rainfall of that April flooded roads, homes and whole communities.

This phase covers some of the most established villa and mixed-use districts in the city: Jumeirah, Umm Suqeim, Al Safa, Al Manara, Al Quoz, Al Barsha, Al Wasl, Zabeel, Al Bada'a, Al Satwa and Al Marmoom.

What the contracts include

• 100 km of main drainage lines, built new or extended.
• Pipes up to three metres in diameter.
• About 100 sq km of the city — residential, commercial, industrial and tourism areas.
• Four contracts, Dh3 billion in total, within the Dh30 billion programme.

The 11 areas

The list is a cross-section of the older city rather than one district:

• Along the coast: Jumeirah, Umm Suqeim, Al Safa and Al Manara — low-rise villa areas between Al Wasl Road and the beach, many of them older family homes and rebuilt plots.
• Inland and mixed: Al Barsha and Al Quoz — apartments and villas on one side, warehouses, workshops and galleries on the other.
• Central districts: Al Wasl, Al Satwa, Al Bada'a and Zabeel — some of the city's longest-established neighbourhoods close to Sheikh Zayed Road and Downtown.
• Al Marmoom — the large inland area around the desert conservation reserve, far from the others on the list.

For agents the first group matters most: these are the villa areas where buyers pay for a garden and a ground floor, and where the question of standing water is asked most often.

The programme behind it

Tasreef is meant to raise Dubai's rainwater drainage capacity by 700% — about sevenfold — by 2033, so that the network can handle more than 20 million cubic metres of water a day. The municipality says the system is designed to meet the city's drainage needs for the next 100 years.

Earlier phases are already in the ground. A Dh277 million sewerage and rainwater network in Nad Al Sheba was completed in June 2025, and the drainage network in Al Quoz Creative Zone in April 2026. Shortly before the new contracts were announced, the municipality also said it had prepared ten temporary water collection lakes in strategic locations across the city.

"Dubai did not simply stop to assess the damage or look for solutions," said Marwan bin Ghalita, director general of Dubai Municipality, describing the programme as built to serve the city for the next century.

Why it matters for property

The April 2024 floods are still the first thing many buyers ask about when they look at a villa in an older community, and "did this house flood?" became a standard question at viewings.

Until now, the honest answer about the future was general: the city is working on drainage. With this phase, there is a specific answer for 11 named areas — the contracts, the size of the network and a completion date.

It is worth being precise about what that answer is and is not:

• It is a plan with a date, not finished work. Completion is scheduled for 2033. Pipes will be laid area by area, and the reports do not give an order or a timetable per district.
• It covers main lines. Main drainage lines carry water away from districts. How quickly an individual street or plot drains also depends on local connections and on the property itself — its levels, gullies and garden drainage.
• Construction comes first. Building 100 km of large pipes means road works. For several years, some streets in these areas will have diversions and noise before they have better drainage.

Questions buyers ask, and what you can say

"Did this area flood in 2024?" Many did. Answer honestly, and if you do not know about the specific house, say so and suggest the buyer asks the owner and checks the property.

"Will it flood again?" No one can promise that. What you can say is that the area is in the third phase of Tasreef, with Dh3 billion of contracts awarded in October 2026 and completion planned for 2033, as part of a programme designed to raise the city's drainage capacity sevenfold.

"Does this affect the price?" A funded, dated infrastructure plan removes part of the uncertainty around older villa communities. How much of that is already in prices is a judgement for each area — give the facts, not a forecast.