Water scarcity in the Middle East means drawing far more than nature replaces
Water scarcity in the Middle East is not a shortage that comes and goes with the weather. Several countries in the region have almost no renewable fresh water of their own, and every one of them draws far more each year than nature puts back. The World Bank counts renewable fresh water per person at 2.62 cubic meters a year in Bahrain and 0 in Kuwait, unchanged in the data for every year from 2020 to 2022. The World Bank itself defines water stress as beginning below 1,700 cubic meters per person a year, so both countries sit far under that line.
Dividing the withdrawal percentage recorded by the World Bank by 100 turns it into a plain multiple, a calculation MAOWCE made from numbers the World Bank publishes. Bahrain withdraws about 38.8 times more fresh water each year than nature replaces there, the United Arab Emirates about 15.1 times, Saudi Arabia about 9.7 times, Qatar about 4.5 times, Jordan about 1.4 times and Oman about 1.2 times. Kuwait has no withdrawal figure in the same World Bank data at all.
This multiple is a MAOWCE calculation, dividing the withdrawal percentage the World Bank publishes by 100. Kuwait is left out of this chart because the World Bank publishes no withdrawal percentage for it at all, not because its multiple is 0.
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| Bahrain | 38.8 |
| United Arab Emirates | 15.1 |
| Saudi Arabia | 9.7 |
| Qatar | 4.5 |
| Jordan | 1.4 |
| Oman | 1.2 |
The region built a second water supply instead of finding more of the first
Facing that gap, Gulf governments turned seawater into drinking water instead of waiting for more rain. Desalination already supplies 90% of the drinking water in Kuwait, 86% in Oman, 70% in Saudi Arabia and 42% in the United Arab Emirates, according to Arab News. Kuwait draws that share from the sea even though it has 0 cubic meters of renewable fresh water of its own, 2 separate facts about the same country rather than 2 counts of 1 number.
Kuwait has 0 cubic meters of renewable fresh water per person in the same World Bank data used elsewhere in this article, a separate fact about natural supply, not a rival count of this desalination share.
Show the numbers
| Kuwait | 90 |
| Oman | 86 |
| Saudi Arabia | 70 |
| United Arab Emirates | 42 |
Veolia, a water and environmental services company operating in the region, has been cutting the energy that desalination needs.
Over the past 10 years, we have managed to divide by three the energy consumption required to produce one cubic meter of desalinated water.
Estelle Brachlianoff, chief executive of Veolia, a water and environmental services company. Source 4.
Saudi Arabia is spending on plants and pipelines to move that water
Saudi Arabia has pushed hardest on that build out. The kingdom now produces 6,000,000 cubic meters of desalinated water a day, out of 11,300,000 cubic meters of built capacity, and moves it through more than 14,000 kilometers of transmission pipe, according to Arab News. Strategic water storage has grown from 13,000,000 cubic meters in 2016 to more than 25,000,000 cubic meters today. The kingdom has completed 29 water sector projects worth 28,000,000,000 Saudi riyals, about 7,460,000,000 dollars, and 30% of that spending, 8,000,000,000 riyals, came from foreign investors.
Our achievements in desalinated water production in the last eight years are equivalent to what was achieved in the previous four decades.
Mansour bin Hilal Al Mushaiti, a Saudi Arabian deputy minister. Source 5.
The kingdom also says it saves more than 9,000,000,000 cubic meters of groundwater a year through conservation, on top of the water it makes by desalination.
Outside money helped Jordan rebuild too
Not every country pays for this alone. A 275,000,000 dollar compact funded by the United States government, through the Millennium Challenge Corporation, rebuilt part of the water and wastewater network in Jordan between 2010 and 2016. The record kept by that agency, the United States government body that ran the compact, names the exact projects it paid for, the As Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant Expansion, the Wastewater Network Reinforcement and Expansion, and the Water Network Restructuring and Rehabilitation.
None of this closes the gap the World Resources Institute counts across the whole region. 83% of the population of the Middle East and North Africa already lives with extremely high water stress, the institute says, a share it projects will reach 100% by 2050. Its own ranking names Bahrain, Cyprus, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman and Qatar among the most water stressed countries in the world.