The application, end to end
The modules run in order of use: what the question is, what the options are, how they are read, how they compare, which survive a given zone's classification, and what happened when they were tried elsewhere.
The Question
Why allocation is a policy choice rather than a technical result, what this application does and does not evaluate, and the boundary against the evaluation itself.
Model Catalogue
Every mechanism grouped by what the government contributes and what it keeps — how it works, where it has been implemented, and how it reads against all twenty-three criteria.
Impact Framework
What each criterion measures across the three fields — economic, social and environmental — how it is read, and the eleven places where a gain in one causes a loss in another.
Comparison Matrix
Five groups against twenty-three criteria, side by side. Every cell states what that group does — never a rating, and no row or column produces a total.
Zone Routing
A zone's classification closes some mechanisms before anyone chooses between the rest. Build a composite code and see which models remain available.
Precedent Cases
Six programmes that allocated government land, with what was done and what resulted — including the failures, and what transfers to the Kingdom against what does not.
Three fields: economic, social, environmental
Every model is examined against twenty-three criteria across three fields. The fields are reported separately and none takes precedence over another.
- Imported food replaced, and progress toward covering strategic crops
- Which crops the model produces, and how reliably
- Time between allocation and first harvest
- Private investment attracted to develop the land
- Payments received by the government, and for how long
- Public expenditure required for the model to operate
- Whether ordinary citizens can obtain land
- Employment created, and whether it lasts
- Whether allocation favours those who already hold capital
- Whether rural settlements are sustained or land concentrates
- Whether farming knowledge reaches Saudi operators
- Effect on existing land users, including herders
- Whether the model rewards water volume or water efficiency
- Whether the agreement outlasts the water source
- Soil condition over the period of use
- Improvement of degraded land, including tree planting and dune stabilisation
- Clearance of native plants and ground cover
- Wildlife habitat, and whether animals can still move through
- Whether the government can act on damage, and whether anyone checks
- Whether agriculture is physically possible — land evaluation
- Whether water exists and is licensable — land evaluation
- Whether development is legally permitted — land evaluation
- How well a given crop would perform — land evaluation
- Where each value came from and how far it is reliable — database
Economic impact covers two objectives. The first is food security: reducing dependence on imported food. The second is revenue: what the government is paid, over what period, and at what public cost. Generating revenue where possible is among the Ministry's objectives, so a model that produces food while returning nothing and one that returns a continuing income are not treated as equivalent. Private investment attracted (EC7) is recorded separately from revenue received (EC8), because the government never receives the former.
Weighting the three fields against one another is a political judgement
A composite score would require deciding how much citizen participation is worth against reduced wheat imports, against revenue received, or against reduced water abstraction. That decision belongs to the Ministry, not to an analysis. Producing one number would embed a policy choice inside what presents as a technical output, and would conceal precisely the trade-off the comparison exists to reveal.
This follows the rule already applied in the evaluation, where capability, water, land rights and crop suitability are reported as four independent answers and never averaged into one.
Three questions, kept apart on purpose
Separating the applications is what stops a permission question being answered with an economic argument, or the reverse. This application takes the evaluation's findings as given and does not re-open them.
| Application | Answers | Never answers |
|---|---|---|
| App 1 — Land Evaluation | Is agriculture possible, watered, permitted, and suited to a crop | Whether it is profitable, or who should develop it |
| App 2 — Database | Where every value comes from, and how far it can be trusted | What should be done with the finding |
| App 3 — Investment | By what mechanism land reaches an operator | Whether the land is suitable — that is already settled |
What this application inherits
These gaps sit beneath every economic statement made here. They are listed because economic language reads as more authoritative than the physical findings supporting it, and the qualification has to be visible rather than implied.
| Open item | Effect on this application |
|---|---|
| No Saudi-calibrated crop thresholds | Production estimates are indicative only |
| Area ledger values not computed | No area totals available to size any model |
| Governorate boundary layer not obtained | Zones not yet generated |
| Water and land-rights elements ministry-dependent | Area availability unconfirmed |
| Minimum viable areas unconfirmed against the Terms of Reference | Operator-class routing is provisional |
| Five sub-models with no located implementation | Carried as structures, not presented as record |
No economic statement here is firmer than the physical findings beneath it
Production and self-sufficiency statements in this application are indicative. Crop thresholds are not yet calibrated for Saudi conditions, the area ledger is not computed, and the water and land-rights elements await ministry data.
The Ministry weighs these options. This application makes the trade-offs visible so that the choice is made with them in view.