Far off the target

ENAR

In the first of a twelve-month series investigating Lebanon’s capacity to reach the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Gaelle Kibranian Zavzavadjian, Stephanie Nakhel and Gebran Azar take a look at Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. The Lebanese are blessed with favorable amounts of precipitation, with the highest average rainfall of any country in the Middle East, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The government estimates that there is between 2,000-2,700 million cubic meters of total available water per year in Lebanon, exceeding the country’s projected water demand of 1,802 million  cubic meters in 2035.  However, water supply shortages are still a major problem in the country. Most of the population faces severe water shortages, leading households to rely on unlicensed private wells, overpriced tanker trucks, and purchasing bottled drinking water to meet daily needs. Among an estimated 80,500 private wells in the country, only 20,529 are