A Problem With Liquidity: The Challenges Of Water in Saudi Arabia

By Roger Harrison


The Dumat Lake in Saudi Arabia’s Al Jouf province is a good example of local efforts to conserve water. Filled entirely with tertiary treated wastewater, the lake is a popular resort for the nearby town of Sikaka, and supplies irrigation water to local farms (Roger Harrison).

ARAB COUNTRIES have become synonymous with oil production and wealth. With only 4.5 percent of the world’s population, they control up to half the world’s oil supply. Less well known, however, is the fact that they get only 2 percent of the world’s rainfall and have but 0.4 percent of the world’s recoverable water resources. Total water resources of the 22 Arab states is less than 150 billion cubic meters.

An even greater shortage looms. With population expected to increase from its current 250 million to 600 million by 2030, Arabs’ per capita share of water will halve—from 150 to 75 cubic meters per annum—in 25 years.

Over 98 percent of the world’s fresh water (outside the polar ice caps) is held in aquifers, the water-bearing layers of rock that hold reserves of groundwater. More than 300 of these aquifers cross international boundaries. The United Nations lists 158 international river basins as potential flashpoints, simply because the water from them is accessed by more than one country.

With increasing populations and shrinking resources, the potential for water shortage and conflict is increasing. Indeed, Egypt, for example, frequently has said that the only reason it would go to war is over water, and has already been involved in verbal sparring with Uganda, where the Nile originates.

Saudi Arabia has a booming population, as well—official estimates put the increase at between 3.8 and 4 percent per year. As a result of this rapid rise, municipal demand for water has risen from 1 million to about 5 million cubic meters per day over the last 25 years, according to Dr. Omar Aburazaizar, the director of the Water Research Unit at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah. Current estimates by private and public bodies project water consumption at 12 million cubic meters a day by 2030.

The Red Sea city of Jeddah illustrates the situation in microcosm. In addition to the birth rate, rural migration to the city expands the population by another 5 percent. In rural communities, per capita water consumption is approximately 20 liters per day. When villagers move to the city, however, their per capita consumption rises to between 200 and 300 liters per day, putting enormous pressure on municipal authorities.

Half of the Kingdom’s domestic water consumption is provided through desalination, with 30 huge government-owned plants and thousands of smaller private and local plants. The other half is derived from groundwater—which is not being replenished at a sustainable rate. According to Dr. Adil Bushnak, a Saudi water expert and owner of several desalination and water distribution companies, aquifers are being replenished at only about 10 percent of the extraction rate.


	“Crop circles”—large green spots in the desert landscape—are a feature of the Saudi landscape. Huge, slowly rotating irrigation arms spray water onto crops—often fodder for cattle or camels—which are harvested up to four times a year (Roger Harrison).

Domestic consumption accounts for only about 5 percent of the country’s total water consumption, however. The vast majority of total consumption—87 percent—is devoted to agriculture, and almost all of that water is drawn from the dwindling groundwater reserves. Total agricultural water use, only 2 billion cubic meters per year in the 1970s, today stands at 25 billion cubic meters.

While the government has reduced its grain subsidy for farmers, Abdullah Al Hussayen, a water engineer and the Kingdom’s recently appointed water minister, noted that this has had little effect on agricultural use. Animal fodder has replaced wheat and produces four crops a year. (Saudi Arabia has the world’s biggest integrated dairy farm, with over 32,000 cattle, many of which enjoy air-conditioned barns.)

“The cost of the water used to produce the crops,” stated Dr. Bushnak, “is greater than the revenue they generate.”

Unsurveyed Water Reserves

The Saudi government is aware of the problem. However, according to both Dr. Bushnak and Water Minister Al Hussayen, there has been no proper survey of the Kingdom’s water reserves for 20 years.

Despite its reputation as a desert kingdom, Saudi Arabia does receive substantial rainfall in it southwest corner, near the border with Yemen. In fact, said Dr. Bushnak, the runoff from annual precipitation is enough to supply the Kingdom’s entire agricultural needs, “Largely, it’s a water management problem,” he explained. “We should adopt an integrated, holistic approach to the problem.”

The generally accepted way to meet the Kingdom’s increasing water needs is by building more desalination plants. Not only is this expensive, however, but it adds to the pollution in the country‘s urban areas. “The government, with increasing debt, cannot afford to continue financing mega-projects,” said Dr. Nahed Taher, senior economist at the National Commercial Bank. Government financing of such projects, she noted, has decreased from SR 14.2 billion (U.S. $3.78 billion) in 1982 to SR 2.4 billion (U.S. $6.3 million).

An increasingly attractive way to finance water development projects is through direct investment from abroad. In addition to the financial advantages, the investors and engineers such projects attract bring experience and technology, and the spillover to the Kingdom is a welcome bonus.


Many small-scale farms, often those close to urban centers, like these near Sikaka in Al Jouf province, still use very inefficient methods of irrigation. Water sprays are the most common, but up to 40 percent of the pumped water is lost by evaporation in the fierce desert sun (Roger Harrison).

Desalination plants also take years to build and commission. In the meantime, immediate savings in water consumption could be realized by cutting back on agricultural use. A reduction of as little as 10 or 15 percent, for example, would satisfy urban demand for many years. A simple change to the drip feed method of crop irrigation would reduce consumption by up to 40 percent on crops currently irrigated with sprayed water.

Another solution, called for 20 years ago, said Dr. Aburazaizar, is demand management. “Several European countries reduced per capita daily water use from 250 to less than 150 liters per day in only 10 years,” he pointed out, “and the major means for controlling demand was pricing.”

Currently, water is virtually free. Charging for it is a very sensitive subject in the Kingdom, both politically and from a religious point of view. The public has become accustomed to paying only a nominal charge for water use, with the government subsidizing up to 97 percent of the cost.

Bushnak is clear about the need to charge for water—and the difficulty of such a move. “We all know the cost of water,” he said, “and that consumers are subsidized heavily, and would have to pay a hundred times more for it if they paid the commercial cost of production. How do you jump a hundred fold?”

The water expert estimated that such a jump would take 10 to 20 years, and require a carefully structured policy of tariffs. “This is how we recover the costs of production and the 93 to 97 percent paid for by the government,” he explained. “The consumer will pay, because that is the only stable way and the only way to afford to finance the investment of the huge sums needed now.”

Saudi Arabia, of course, is not unique in its reluctance to charge for water. Many countries that need to change their tariffs most often are the slowest—and, when water is scarce, it tends to become more, not less, of a political issue.

Ironically, those who currently are benefiting from the low tariff on water can afford to pay. Those Saudi citizens who can least afford to pay are not connected to the network. Because their water must be delivered in tankers from central filling stations, they pay some 10 times the rate of their connected countrymen.

The country’s current high unemployment rate and declining per capita GDP make it even more difficult to impose much higher tariffs. From an Islamic perspective, water is free and should be provided to the people without cost.

“From an economic point of view,” however, said the National Commercial Bank’s Dr. Taher, “that is not feasible.” Finding a solution to these contradictions, she added, results in “a lot of ongoing debate—including in the Ministry of Water.”

But there is a consensus that it will take political commitment at the highest level to correct the existing imbalance.

“The minister for water knows this,” said Bushnak. However, he added, “many ministers in the Council [the Majlis Ash Shoura, the consultative council that advises the government] are still thinking that a political tariff is too political an issue to touch.”

Roger Harrison is a Jeddah-based free-lance writer.