Latest news with #KabulCity
Al Jazeera
05-07-2025
- Climate
- Al Jazeera
‘End is near': Will Kabul become first big city without water by 2030?
Kabul, a city of over six million people, could become the first modern city to run out of water in the next five years, a new report has warned. Groundwater levels in the Afghan capital have dropped drastically due to over-extraction and the effects of climate change, according to a report published by nonprofit Mercy Corps. So, is Kabul's water crisis at a tipping point and do Afghan authorities have the resources and expertise to address the issue? The depth of the crisis Kabul's aquifer levels have plummeted 25-30 metres (82 – 98 feet) in the past decade, with extraction of water exceeding natural recharge by a staggering 44 million cubic metres (1,553cu feet) a year, the report, published in April this year, noted. If the current trend continues, Kabul's aquifers will become dry by 2030, posing an existential threat to the Afghan capital, according to the report. This could cause the displacement of some three million Afghan residents, it said. The report said UNICEF projected that nearly half of Kabul's underground bore wells, the primary source of drinking water for residents, are already dry. It also highlights widespread water contamination: Up to 80 percent of groundwater is believed to be unsafe, with high levels of sewage, arsenic and salinity. Conflict, climate change and government failures Experts point to a combination of factors behind the crisis: climate change, governance failures and increasing pressures on existing resources as the city's population has expanded from less than one million in 2001 to roughly six million people today. Two decades of US-led military intervention in Afghanistan also played a role in the crisis, as it forced more people to move to Kabul while governance in the rest of the country suffered. 'The prediction is based on the growing gap between groundwater recharge and annual water extraction. These trends have been consistently observed over recent years, making the forecast credible,' said Assem Mayar, water resource management expert and former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University. 'It reflects a worst-case scenario that could materialise by 2030 if no effective interventions are made,' he added. Najibullah Sadid, senior researcher and a member of the Afghanistan Water and Environment Professionals Network, said it was impossible to put a timeline on when the capital city would run dry. But he conceded that Kabul's water problems are grave. 'Nobody can claim when the last well will run dry, but what we know is that as the groundwater levels further drop, the capacity of deep aquifers become less – imagine the groundwater as a bowl with depleting water,' he said. 'We know the end is near,' he said. Over-extraction highlights divides A vast portion of the Afghan capital relies on underground borewells, and as water levels drop, people dig deeper or in different locations looking for sources of water. According to an August 2024 report by the National Statistics Directorate, there are approximately 310,000 drilled wells across the country. According to the Mercy Corps report, it is estimated that there are also nearly 120,000 unregulated bore wells across Kabul. A 2023 UN report found that nearly 49 percent of borewells in Kabul are dry, while others are functioning at only 60 percent efficiency. The water crisis, Mayar said, exposes the divide between the city's rich and poor. 'Wealthier residents can afford to drill deeper boreholes, further limiting access for the poorest,' he said. 'The crisis affects the poorest first.' The signs of this divide are evident in longer lines outside public water taps or private water takers, says Abdulhadi Achakzai, director at the Environmental Protection Trainings and Development Organization (EPTDO), a Kabul-based climate protection NGO. Poorer residents, often children, are forced to continually search for sources of water. 'Every evening, even late at night, when I am returning home from work, I see young children with small cans in their hands looking for water … they look hopeless, navigating life collecting water for their homes rather than studying or learning,' he said. Additionally, Sadid said, Kabul's already depleted water resources were being exploited by the 'over 500 beverage and mineral water companies' operating in the capital city,' all of which are using Kabul's groundwater'. Alokozay, a popular Afghan soft drinks company, alone extracts nearly one billion litres (256 million gallons) of water over a year — 2.5 million litres (660,000 gallons) a day — according to Sadid's calculations. Al Jazeera sent Alokozay questions about its water extraction on June 21, but has yet to receive a response. Kabul, Sadid said, also had more than 400 hectares (9,884 acres) of green houses to grow vegetables, which suck up 4 billion litres (1.05 billion gallons) of water every year, according to his calculations. 'The list [of entities using Kabul water] is long,' he said. 'Repeated droughts, early snowmelt and reduced snowfall' The water shortage is further compounded by climate change. Recent years have seen a significant reduction in precipitation across the country. 'The three rivers — Kabul river, Paghman river and Logar river—that replenish Kabul's groundwater rely heavily on snow and glacier meltwater from the Hindu Kush mountains,' the Mercy Corps report noted. 'However, between October 2023 to January 2024, Afghanistan only received only 45 to 60 percent of the average precipitation during the peak winter season compared to previous years.' Mayar, the former lecturer at Kabul Polytechnic University, said that while it was difficult to quantify exactly how much of the crisis was caused by climate change, extreme weather events had only added to Kabul's woes. 'Climate-related events such as repeated droughts, early snowmelts, and reduced snowfall have clearly diminished groundwater recharge opportunities,' he said. Additionally, increased air temperature has led to greater evaporation, raising agricultural water consumption, said Sadid from the Afghanistan Water and Environment Professionals Network. While several provinces have experienced water scarcity, particularly within agrarian communities, Kabul remains the worst affected due to its growing population. Decades of conflict Sadid argued Kabul's crisis runs deeper than the impact of climate change, compounded by years of war, weak governance, and sanctions on the aid-dependent country. Much of the funds channelled into the country were diverted to security for the first two decades of the century. Since the Taliban's return to power in 2021, funding has been used to tackle an escalating humanitarian crisis. Western sanctions have also significantly stymied development projects that could have helped Kabul better manage the current water crisis. As a result, authorities have struggled with the maintenance of pipelines, canals and dams — including basic tasks like de-sedimentation. 'The crisis is already beyond the capacity of the current de facto authorities,' Mayar said, referring to the Taliban. 'In well-managed cities, such impacts are mitigated through robust water governance and infrastructure. Kabul lacks such capacity, and the current authorities are unable to address the problem without external support,' he added. As a result, environmental resilience projects have taken a backseat. 'Several planned initiatives, including projects for artificial groundwater recharge, were suspended following the Taliban takeover,' Mayar pointed out. 'Sanctions continue to restrict organisations and donors from funding and implementing essential water-related projects in Afghanistan,' he said. Sadid pointed out one example: An Awater supply project -funded by the German Development bank KfW, along with European agencies – could have supplied 44 billion litres (11 billion gallons) of water annually to parts of Kabul from Logar aquifers. 'But currently this project has been suspended,' he said, even though two-thirds of the initiative was already completed when the government of former President Ashraf Ghani collapsed in 2021. Similarly, India and the Ghani government had signed an agreement in 2021 for the construction of the Shah-toot dam on the Kabul River. Once completed, the dam could supply water to large parts of Kabul, Sadid said, 'but its fate is uncertain now.' What can be done to address the water crisis? Experts recommend the development of the city's water infrastructure as the starting point to address the crisis. 'Artificial groundwater recharge and the development of basic water infrastructure around the city are urgently needed. Once these foundations are in place, a citywide water supply network can gradually be developed,' Mayar recommended. Achakzai agreed that building infrastructure and its maintenance were key elements of any fix. 'Aside from introducing new pipelines to the city from nearby rivers, such as in Panjshir, there needs to be an effort to recharge underground aquifers with constructions of check dams and water reservoirs,' he said, adding that these structures will also facilitate rainwater harvesting and groundwater replenishment. '[The] Afghan government needs to renew ageing water pipes and systems. Modernising infrastructure will improve efficiency and reduce water loss,' he added. Yet all of that is made harder by Afghanistan's global isolation and the sanctions regime it is under, Achakzai said. 'Sanctions restrict Afghanistan's access to essential resources, technology, and funding needed for water infrastructure development and maintenance,' he said. This, in turn, reduces agricultural productivity, and increases hunger and economic hardship, forcing communities to migrate, he warned.
News.com.au
18-06-2025
- Politics
- News.com.au
Nearly two centuries on, quiet settles on Afghanistan's British Cemetery
Aynullah Rahimi's family has for decades tended the old cemetery in Kabul reserved for non-Afghans, but since the country's latest war ended and foreigners left in droves, he says few now enter the oasis of quiet in the capital. Dating back to the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th century, the small plot of land in the city centre has interred and memorialised foreign fighters, explorers and devotees of Afghanistan who have died in the country over some 180 years. In the two decades of war between Western forces and the Taliban that ended in 2021 with the latter's victory, there were a handful of burials and memorials attended by ambassadors and dignitaries at the British Cemetery. But these days, Rahimi quietly tends to the garden of roses and apricot trees, the calls of caged partridges louder than the rumbling traffic beyond the high stone wall that secludes the cemetery. "Before the Taliban came to power, many foreigners used to come here to visit every week," he told AFP. "No one visits here much now, only sometimes a few tourists," he said. The paint on the walls -- hung with commemorative plaques for the dead of NATO countries who fought the Taliban, as well as journalists who covered the conflict -- has chipped and weathered since the Taliban takeover in 2021, when Western embassies emptied. Where Kabul was once teeming with Western soldiers, diplomats, journalists and humanitarians, their presence has thinned dramatically. Adventurers from around the world are increasingly travelling to the country, despite lingering security risks and Taliban-imposed restrictions primarily targeting Afghan women -- including a general ban on women entering Kabul's parks. For those who know what's behind the wall marked only by a small sign reading "British Cemetery", they can pause in the shade in one of the few green spaces in the city fully open to foreign women. "This is a historical place," Rahimi said, noting he hasn't had interference by the Taliban authorities. Those whose countrymen are memorialised there are welcome, he added -- "it's their graveyard". - The Ritchies - The last time the cemetery was full of the living, Rahimi said, was the burial of the latest person to be interred there -- Winifred Zoe Ritchie, who died in 2019 at the age of 99. Ritchie's family brought her body from the United States to Afghanistan to be laid to rest next to her husband, Dwight, who was killed in a car crash in southern Afghanistan 40 years earlier. The Ritchies had worked and lived in Afghanistan, one of their sons later following in their footsteps -- cementing the family's ties to a country far from their homeland. The couple's daughter, Joanna Ginter, has memories of her family wandering through markets, flying kites and raising pigeons in Kabul years before the city was engulfed by the first of many conflicts that wracked the country for 40 years. Their mother's burial "was the first time (we visited) since we were there for my dad's funeral", Ginter told AFP, having travelled back to Kabul with relatives. "I was very happy to get to go there, even though it was for a funeral." Her mother's grave marker stands out in light marble among the headstones, wobbly letters next to a long cross -- a rare sight in Afghanistan. Older gravestones of some of the more than 150 people buried there bear the scars of conflict, names pockmarked into near unrecognisability by weapon fire that breached the wall. Other than thieves who broke through a fence where the cemetery backs onto a hill dotted with Muslim graves -- "our graveyard", Rahimi calls it -- the caretaker says he is left mostly alone to his watch. The 56-year-old grew up helping his uncle who raised him tend to the cemetery, taking over its care from his cousin who fled to Britain during the chaotic withdrawal of foreign forces as the Taliban marched into Kabul. He had in turn taken up the post from his father, who guarded the cemetery and dug some of its graves for around 30 years. "They also told me to go to England with them, but I refused and said I would stay here, and I have been here ever since," Rahimi said, certain one of his sons would follow in his footsteps.
The Guardian
07-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Kabul at risk of becoming first modern city to run out of water, report warns
Kabul could become the first modern city to completely run out of water, experts have warned. Water levels within Kabul's aquifers have dropped by up to 30 metres over the past decade owing to rapid urbanisation and climate breakdown, according to a report by the NGO Mercy Corps. Meanwhile, almost half of the city's boreholes – the primary source of drinking water for Kabul residents – have dried out. Water extraction currently exceeds the natural recharge rate by 44m cubic metres each year. If these trends continue, all of Kabul's aquifers will run dry as early as 2030, posing an existential threat to the city's seven million inhabitants. 'There should be a committed effort to document this better and to draw international attention to the need to address the crisis,' said Mercy Corps Afghanistan country director, Dayne Curry. 'No water means people leave their communities, so for the international community to not address the water needs of Afghanistan will only result in more migration and more hardship for the Afghan people.' The report also highlights water contamination as another widespread challenge. Up to 80% of Kabul's groundwater is deemed unsafe, with high levels of sewage, salinity and arsenic. Water access has become a daily battle for people in Kabul. Some households spend up to 30% of their income on water, and more than two-thirds have incurred water-related debt. 'Afghanistan is facing a lot of problems, but this water scarcity is one of the hardest,' said Nazifa, a teacher living in the Khair Khana neighbourhood of Kabul. 'Every household is facing difficulty, especially those with low income. Adequate, good quality well water just doesn't exist.' Some private companies are capitalising on the crisis by actively digging new wells and extracting large amounts of public groundwater, then selling it back to city's residents at inflated prices. 'We used to pay 500 afghanis (£5.30) every 10 days to fill our cans from the water tankers. Now, that same amount of water costs us 1,000 afghanis,' said Nazifa. 'The situation has been getting worse over the past two weeks. We are afraid it will get even more expensive.' Kabul's sevenfold growth from less than 1 million people in 2001 has drastically transformed water demands. A lack of centralised governance and regulation has also perpetuated the problem over the decades. In early 2025, the UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs announced that its partners had received just $8.4m (£6.2m) of the $264m required to implement planned water and sanitation programming in Afghanistan. A further $3bn in international water and sanitation funding has been frozen since the Taliban's return to power in August 2021. The US's recent move to cut more than 80% of its USAID funding has compounded the crisis. 'Everything is so aid-dependent,' said Curry. 'We can throw millions of dollars at short-term water fixes and say we've addressed the need, but that need will continue until there's better investment for longer-term solutions. And that's where foreign governments are stopping short at this point due to political dynamics.' Nazifa said: 'Water is a human right and natural resource of Afghanistan. It is not a political issue. My heart bleeds when I look at the flowers and fruit trees in the garden, all drying up. But what can we do? We are currently living in a military state, so we can't exactly go to the government to report the issue.' The Panjshir River pipeline is one project which, if completed, could alleviate the city's over-reliance on groundwater and supply 2 million residents with potable water. The design phases for this were completed in late 2024 and are awaiting budget approval, with the government seeking additional investors to supplement the $170m cost. 'We don't have time to sit around waiting for budgets. We are caught in a storm from which there will be no return if we don't act immediately,' said Dr Najibullah Sadid, a senior researcher on water resource management and member of the Afghan Water and Environment Professionals Network. 'Those in Kabul are in a situation where they have to decide between food or water. And yet, the locals we've spoken to are still willing to invest what little they have towards a sustainable solution. Whichever project will bring the most immediate impact is the priority. We just need to start somewhere.'
LBCI
05-06-2025
- LBCI
Afghan women UN staff forced to work from home after threats
Afghan women working for the United Nations in Kabul have been threatened by unidentified men because of their jobs, the organization and several women told AFP on Thursday. Multiple women working for various UN agencies told AFP on condition of anonymity they had been threatened on the street and over the phone by men warning them to "stay home". UN staffer Huda -- not her real name -- said that for weeks she has been bombarded with messages abusing her for "working with foreigners". "The messages keep coming and they are always harassing us... saying, 'Don't let me see you again, or else'," the young woman told AFP. She said her office had advised her to work from home until further notice. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed that UN staff had been threatened. "Several United Nations female national staff members in the Afghan capital Kabul have been subjected to threats by unidentified individuals related to their work with the UN," it said in a statement. AFP
Arab News
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
‘Serious problem': Afghan capital losing race against water shortages
KABUL: Every week, Bibi Jan scrapes together some of her husband's meagre daily wage to buy precious water from rickshaw-drawn tankers that supply residents of Afghanistan's increasingly parched capital. Kabul faces a looming water crisis, driven by unruly and rapid urbanization, mismanagement over years of conflict, and climate change, meaning people like Bibi Jan are sometimes forced to choose between food and water. 'When my children have only tea for a few days, they say, 'You bought water and nothing for us',' the 45-year-old housewife told AFP, describing reusing her supplies for bathing, dishes and laundry. Experts have long sounded the alarm over Kabul's water problems, which are worsening even as many international players have backed off big infrastructure projects and slashed funding to Afghanistan since the Taliban government took power in 2021. 'There could be no ground water in Kabul by 2030' without urgent action, the UN children's agency UNICEF warned last year. Other experts are more cautious, citing limited consistent and reliable data, but say the situation is clearly deteriorating. A 2030 cliff is a 'worst-case scenario,' said water resources management expert Assem Mayar. But even if slated development projects are completed in a few years, it 'doesn't mean the situation would become better than now,' Mayar said. 'As time goes on, the problems are only increasing,' he added, as population growth outstrips urban planning and climate change drives below-average precipitation. The Taliban authorities have launched projects ranging from recycling water to building hundreds of small dams across the country, but larger interventions remain hampered by financing and technical capacity. They remain unrecognized by any country since they ousted the Western-backed government and imposed their severe interpretation of Islamic law, with restrictions on women a major sticking point. They have repeatedly called for non-governmental groups to reboot stalled projects on water and climate change, as Afghanistan faces 'some of the harshest effects' in the region, according to the United Nations. The water and energy ministry wants to divert water from the Panjshir river to the capital, but needs $300 million to $400 million. A dam project near Kabul would ease pressures but was delayed after the Taliban takeover. For now, Kabul's primary drinking water source is groundwater, as much as 80 percent of which is contaminated, according to a May report by Mercy Corps. It is tapped by more than 100,000 unregulated wells across the city that are regularly deepened or run dry, the NGO said. Groundwater can be recharged, but more is drawn each year than is replenished in Kabul, with an estimated annual 76-million-cubic-meter (20-billion-gallon) deficit, experts say. 'It's a very serious problem... Water is decreasing day by day in the city,' said Shafiullah Zahidi, who heads central Kabul operations for the state-owned water company UWASS. Water systems designed decades ago serve just 20 percent of the city's population, which has exploded to around six million over the past 20 years, said Zahidi. At one of Kabul's 15 pumping stations, maintenance manager Mohammad Ehsan said the seven-year-old well is already producing less water. Two others nearby sit dry. 'The places with shallower water levels are dried out now,' said 53-year-old Ehsan, who has worked in water management for two decades, as he stood over an old well. It once produced water from a depth of 70 meters (230 feet), but a newer well had to be bored more than twice as deep to reach groundwater. At one of the two large stations in the city, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently procured four new pumps where only one had been functioning. 'If that pump collapsed for any reason, that means stopping the service for 25,000 beneficiary households,' which now have uninterrupted water, said Baraa Afeh, ICRC's deputy water and habitat coordinator. Everyone in Kabul 'should have 24-hour service,' said Zahidi, from the state water company. But in reality, Bibi Jan and many other Kabulis are forced to lug water in heavy jugs from wells or buy it from tankers. These suppliers charge at least twice as much as the state-owned utility, with potable water even more pricy in a country where 85 percent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Bibi Jan said she has to police her family's water use carefully. 'I tell them, 'I'm not a miser but use less water.' Because if the water runs out then what would we do?'
