Doha South Sewage Infrastructure Programme

The economy of the State of Qatar has grown at annual double-digit rates in recent years. The State’s capital city Doha will serve as the main host city of the FIFA World Cup 2022 games, requiring tremendous preparations to provide and maintain first-class networks of highways, utilities and related services. 

Additionally, the State of Qatar has developed Qatar National Vision 2030 which envisage continuous infrastructure upgrade to achieve a world class and state-of the-art and updated infrastructure to the fast-growing population of citizens and residents by executing complex engineering projects.

These factors have led to large number of projects and the complexity of the work involved have therefore placed unprecedented demand on the resources of the State’s Public Works Authority (Ashghal).

One such effort is the Doha South Sewage Infrastructure Programme (DSSIP) which was formerly known as Inner Doha Resewerage Implementation Strategy (IDRIS) program, a world-class solution developed by Ashghal, to upgrade and expand its sewerage infrastructure and to accommodate the projected population growth for the next 80 years.

Jacobs is serving as the Program Management and Construction Oversight Consultant for the DSSIP program, which involves upgrading and expanding the sewerage infrastructure in Doha’s oldest catchment, which is becoming overloaded due to the scale and pace of development. A major tunneled interceptor scheme is replacing the existing shallow sewers and numerous pumping stations to meet the long-term needs of this growing area. 

Doha South Sewage Infrastructure Programme (DSSIP) is a world-class solution developed by Ashghal to upgrade and expand its sewerage infrastructure and to accommodate the projected population growth for the next 80 years.

The original DSSIP scheme comprises lateral interceptor sewers that will be used to intercept flows and to relieve the existing overloaded system and its numerous pumping stations. Flows will be channeled by gravity via the main trunk sewer and will travel over 45 kilometers south to the terminal pump station located at the downstream end of the tunnel, then lifted to the new Doha South Sewage Treatment Works. The sewage will be reclaimed as treated sewage effluent and returned to the Doha area with treated water suitable for irrigation purposes.

Jacobs, as the Program Management Consultant and the “Engineer” administers the interfaces between Ashghal and the various parties who are responsible for program delivery and provides general program oversight.

Ashghal appointed Jacobs to manage the whole program, from inception to handing over, and ensure that the desired program objectives of health and safety, quality, cost and schedule are achieved.

The original program includes several packages:

1. Main trunk sewer tunnels, 45-kilometers of gravity based main trunk sewer with internal diameter ranging from 3 to 4.5 meters, that will link a number of areas in the south of Doha to the sewage network. The deep trunk sewer is also comprised of 26 deep shafts. The main trunk sewer will convey the sewage flows to the existing Doha South Treatment Works through a deep pumping station As a result, it’ll reduce the environmental impacts through the full control of odors in sewage treatment works and conveying system, and reduce other environmental problems arising from sewage overflow due to excess hydraulic pressure on the existing drainage network, where sewage flows exceed its capacity.
2. Lateral interceptor sewers 70-kilometers of micro-tunneled pipelines using more than 250 shafts , which will convey flows from areas in the center of Doha, Wakra-Wukair and Mesaieed to the main trunk sewer tunnels.)
3. Terminal pumping station at New Doha South Sewage Treatment Works (STW) – comprising one of the largest and deepest sewage pumping stations in the world.
4. Treated sewage effluent (TSE) pumping stations.
5. TSE return mains.
6. New Doha South STW, with state of art treatment technology and an initial treatment capacity of 500,000 m3/day and ultimate built-out capacity of 1 Million m3/day.

Some of the salient and innovative solutions employed by the team in this project include:

• Use of integrated segment lining that combines the application of the corrosion protection lining and segmental lining. This approach saves time and completely eliminates the need for a cast-in-place secondary tunnel lining construction operation.
• Use of Vertical Sinking Machines, for the first time in the region, to construct deep shafts in the congested areas for minimum disruption to public.
• Use of advanced earth pressure balancing TBMs considering the complex geology and highly constrained schedules.

The deep trunk sewer tunnel, the DSSIP Main Trunk Sewer MTS-01 Project, received recognition as Engineering News-Record’s 2019 Global Best Project in the Water/Wastewater Category. MTS-01 is also the first project in the region to achieve CEEQUAL’s Design and Build Good Rating Certification. Also, CEEQUAL awarded the Exceptional Achievement Award to DSSIP MTS in the Water Environment and Resources Category.

DSSIP and Ashghal have received two consecutive gold achievement awards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). The award acknowledges the program’s outstanding occupational health and safety performance during 2017 and 2018, recognizing a strong health and safety culture across the project team, effective risk management practices and exemplary health and safety track record.

Oracle also awarded Ashghal the Construction and Engineering Excellence Award for Enterprise Wide Standardization in Public Infrastructure for use of digital engineering for process efficiency, resource utilization and record management in DSSIP.

The Doha South Sewage Infrastructure Programme is a landmark program for the region, and its impact spans far beyond the project itself. An important feature of DSSIP is the flexibility to be linked to future infrastructure projects, and when completed in full, it’ll enable the decommissioning of more than 30 old pumping stations currently located in the residential and commercial areas in the south of Doha.