ABSTRACT
The scarcity of water has posed a great threat to the local population in terms of sheer survival; it has also had a great psychological effect among peninsular Arabs. In the artesian oases the availability of water is no problem; in fact, the problem is rather an excess of available water. In the open desert, however, the availability of water is critical, except in the winter, when fodder grasses are the primary concern. In Arabia there are no rivers in the accustomed sense of the word; no means to provide substantial water reservoirs of the types which are conventional elsewhere. The possibility of harvesting surface water became, once again, as in mahafir times, very attractive. The water in the Turaif borrow pit was reserved for the drinking and cooking needs of the people. The reason for this is the same as that underlying a statement made by one Bedouin, "Water from the sky is better than water from the ground."
