evidence: There are no rivers or lakes or areas of abundant natural vegetation because rainfall is scant to non-existent. Over the centuries, through oases and then desalination plants, the Saudi people have found enough water to support their daily lives. But a relatively recent national effort has brought changes to the desert and created much greater demands for water resources. Zooming in on certain areas shows that there are indeed regions of intense greenery that nature did not create. From the sky, the Saudi landscape is checkered with green, showing farm fields made possible by irrigation. Enormous buildings nearby house tens of thousands of milk cows, whose drinking and cooling needs are prodigious. The water to perform these miracles in the desert is pumped from far below the surface, from aquifers filled thousands of years ago, when the climate in Saudi Arabia was much wetter. Water in this most improbable place gave the nation the hope to achieve its long-sought goal of feeding itself rather than importing food from other countries. However, this solution has a limited lifespan and the end is near. Saudi Arabia sits on two pools of liquids – water and oil. The oil, in world-leading volumes, has paid for the enormous cost of pumping the water to the surface for agriculture and the raising of livestock. Oil revenue continues to grow for the time being, but the water supply is rapidly diminishing and the Saudi government has decreed only a few more years will be devoted to growing wheat. The country is now directing its massive wealth towards buying land and growing crops in other, more verdant nations.