Everyone in the world knows about the war in Afghanistan but few know about the water crisis going on in the country. Afghanistan was once a flourishing country with beautiful cities and plentiful food and water supplies, but decades of war have decimated much of the country. One of the casualties of war has been the infrastructure that supplies the people with a clean water source. However, the war is not the only cause of the crisis. Geographical constrains, climate change, and the lack of education on clean water and sanitation also adds to the problem.
Afghanistan has a population of 29 million, with 79% of the population living in rural areas. Only 27% of its population has access to improved water sources, and it goes down to 20% in rural areas, the lowest percentage in the world. The numbers get even worse when you look at the percentage of people with access to improved sanitation facilities. With the numbers at 5% nationwide, and only 1% in rural areas, Afghanistan again ranks the worst in the world. In Kabul, with a population of 6 million, 80% of the people lack access to safe drinking water, and 95% lack access to improved sanitation facilities.
One of the many reasons for these numbers being so appalling is because their infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed by years of war. From 1992 to 1996 fighting between different mujahidin groups led to indiscriminate shelling of Kabul and other cities which destroyed most of the water infrastructure, including pump stations used to get fresh water. Then in 1996 the Taliban took over, leading to a lull in the violence. However, the Taliban did little to rebuild the infrastructure in Kabul and elsewhere, instead focusing on imposing their version of Islamic law. In 2001 the Taliban was pushed from power by coalition forces, and Afghanistan has been at war ever since, giving it no time to rebuild.
Because Afghans have no access to sanitation facilities 20% of the population (mostly rural) practices open defecation, often in the rivers they drink out of. The majority of the rest of the population use traditional latrines. The latrines are a better option than open defecation, but still not very good. Because they do not isolate excrement from human contact and do not dispose of the waste by moving it outside of the house they still lead to disease and infection. Even if you could move it out of the house Afghanistan has no wastewater management right now, and hasn’t for a long time. This is due to several factors including limited water supply (you need water to treat the wastewater), the facilities and equipment are very expensive, and the Afghans do not yet have the technical expertise to run a wastewater treatment facility. The alternative to a wastewater facility that some use is a septic tank, however they often leak, which contaminates groundwater, and then contaminates the wells they drink out of. One of the other problems contributing to the water crisis is Afghanistan’s location.
Geographically, Afghanistan is a land locked country and because of this has historically had disputes with its neighbors over the flow of water from its mountain rivers, Afghanistan’s main source of water. Due to its geographic location the natural flow of the snow runoff coming from the mountains flows through Afghanistan into central Asia, Pakistan, and Iran. Afghanistan has some reservoirs built to collect this water, but not enough, and some have been destroyed in the past decades. Because of the lack of reservoirs, canals, and infrastructure, today only 30-35% of the water coming out of the mountains of Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan. And it looks like as long as the fighting continues there will be little change. Because dams and waterways can take years to build investors are reluctant to invest much money (an estimated $11 billion is needed nationwide) into these projects for fear workers and/or the project will be attacked.
One exception to this is India, who historically has very close ties to Afghanistan. India is currently spending $200 million on the Selma Dam Project which aims to reconstruct the Selma Dam that was badly damaged in earlier wars, including adding a hydroelectric plant. The project originally started in 1988; however work has had to stop for a number of years due to the instability in the region. Construction started back up in 2006 and has been going since even though the site has been attacked a number of times. Once completed, the hydroelectric plant would produce 42 megawatts of power in addition to providing irrigation for 75,000 hectares of farmland
Another contributing factor to the crisis is the climate. Higher average temperatures are melting snow in the mountains earlier in the year. Because Afghanistan lacks reservoirs to store the runoff the early melting leads to there being less water to use during the summer when it’s needed most. The lack of water during the summer combined with drought has led to some studies saying that half of the current wells will soon dry up. This also leaves less water to irrigate crops, cutting food production and putting farmers out of work. Water scarcity has also led to conflict among Afghans. Oxfam found that 43% of local conflicts in Afgan communities are over water. In 2010 two men were killed when they were caught taking water from the river Paghman in the Kabul province. The killings led to families in the communities taking sides, which led to fighting. The dispute was settled only after elders decided to channel water from the river to one of the communities. Now that we know the causes of this crisis what is the effect?
All of these factors I’ve talked about contributed to the crisis, and to the suffering that follows. Without clean water and sanitation you have disease and infection, and children are the ones most effected by this. In Afghanistan, 25% of deaths among children under 5 are directly attributed to contaminated water and bad sanitation. These deaths are by and large caused by diarrhea, which is the leading cause of illness in children under 5 years old. Among other things diarrhea leads to malnourishment, and malnourishment leads to more health problems. 54% of children age 6 months to 5 years have stunted growth (low height for their age) due to exposure to contaminated water/bad sanitation, and 67% weigh less then they should. Helminth infection is another heath problem caused by poor water quality, sanitation, and hygiene. An examination of 1001 children in poor communities showed that 47.2% of them had some form of Helminth. Helminth can lead to a number of health problems, including mal-absorption of nutrients from food, challenges to physical growth, problems with cognitive development in school aged children, and iron deficiency. Iron deficiency can lead to anemia which in woman can cause low birth weight, premature birth, and children being born with disabilities. Other health problems in Afghanistan that are caused by contaminated water include dehydration, typhus fever and kidney disease, which have killed thousands of people nationwide.
While the numbers look grim, things seem to be improving. The number of households in urban areas with access to municipal water is growing. In Herat 85% of the houses have access. In Kabul it’s 35%, and in Kunduz it’s 50%. Also, in the last couple of years local institutions have been formed to teach communities about water conservation as well as educating the citizens about hygiene and sanitation, which is seen as one of the most important aspects of change. Even with these gains I fear that as long as fighting continues in Afghanistan the international aid that is needed to get clean water and proper sanitation to all Afghans will go towards other projects that our worlds’ governments deem more critical.
Here is a quick video from Al Jazeera on the Afghan water crisis:
Afghans’ dire need for clean water – Al Jazeera
If you’d like to donate to help Afghanistan here are a few organizations helping to solve the water crisis:
https://www.afghancaretoday.org/
https://apr.afghanpovertyrelief.org
https://affhope.org/current-projects/afghan-water-well-project/
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this story is really true story.this is a resume of the breadwinner.
i feel bad for afghanistan. i wish god could sole this with the snap of his fingers.
hi am Halima I go to wildwood school we have an advocacy project my group are doing clean and water Afghanistan in south east asia we will like to learn more about u
Hi Halima,
I’ll reply to you via email.
Thanks,
Brian
Hello, this is Jack, I am currently doing a research report in the clean water crisis in Afghanistan. I am really interested into the clean water crisis and I chose to do it about Afghanistan and is really hard to find information about this and is kind of ironic to not find information about this because you and the world knows what this poor people are going through. I will really appreciate if you had any advice about where I can find more information about this problem in Afghanistan. Thank you! By the way this article is very helpful and well done!
Hi Jack,
Thanks for the comment. I would just suggest searching on the internet and seeing what you can find. There’s probably not a lot out there, but there is some. Also, try searching for “middle east water crisis”, or something similar to broaden your search, and you may find information about Afghanistan included.
-Hydratelife
Hello Jack,
This is Qasim a student of master degree in India I also want to do research and my thesis work on it so let me know if you have collected and done some research on this.
I will appreciate you to share the data with me.
thanks in advance.
Qasim
hi Jack,the information you have gathered on this issue if you can provide it i would be glad.thanks in advance
Hi I am Zubair from afghanistan, a water resource engineer from afghanistan
May be I can help you out
Thanks Jack for the nice, meanwhile, hard topic!
I am doing my master degree about Drinking Water Assessment in one of the cities of Afghanistan. If I can publish any academic paper/journal, I will let you know, at least I can send you my researches outcome.
good luck
Thank you so much for your consideration, I am from Afghanistan, the above story was a point view of the current status of Afghanistan, I looking for a Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System for could regain, who cam help me to find a useful system based on could and dry climate condition. thanks
I am very involved with raising awareness for clean water and funding money to build wells. I even have a clean water March Maddness bracket where all of the proceeds go to clean water exept for the winner who gets his or her 20 bucks back. But I had no idea Afghanistan was in this much need of clean water. This was very helpful and I will try and focus my efforts mainly on Afghanistan
i am a water supply engineer in Afghanistan. I am ready to help u here in Afghanistan
great story exactly what i needed for my essay thanks from australia
Poor Afghanistan they have it hard.
wow i feel so sad 🙁 for afghan its terrible to have a realy bad water crises and having to deal with war for dacades, the population must be shrikin real badly.thanks realy helps mwa on my school assey. 🙂 xoxo thx
came here to find some info for the master thesis topic.
This is a great article, and it helped me very much with my Global Issues Project
this is really sad I am so sorry for them and I want to help I am going to try
I think that the USA should help!
We are in war with them. I agree, but the U.S.A. doesn’t want to.
This is a very well written report and really makes me feel for Afghanistan, especially because it mentions how it used to be fairly stable country. Just another example of how little education and war leads to more horrid things.
It was a good topic, but now the problem is increased. The most important pollutant sources are anthropocentric sources, specially in the Kabul city. The only source for the Kabul city is ground water and unfortunately it is in the most areas of the city is already contaminated. As I know the Fecal Coliforms of groundwater in the most sites of the Kabul city was more than 100 CFU/100ml in November 2014.
this a true story
this is crazy, i never thought that Afghanistan was this bad, we should really do something about this
Hello, I’m Husein, We – as a team- are working in a study about water management solutions in Afghanistan. we need some advice about modeling from an experienced expert or even some contribution. regarding that our study is non-profit, it should be free of charge. Anyone can share some time with us?
I forgot to mention, if anyone has a research or project in Afghanistan seeking volunteers please feel free to contact me.
hey Husein
i have a research assignment on afghanistans food insecurity. and main cause of food insecuiry is lack of resevoir and sanitaion. what soloutions could i use to lessen food insecuiruty and provide clean water. could you please email me for an answer. i really need help, there are no good sources anymore. thank you.
hi this is really usefull for my year 7 project i chose afghanistan this will help alot thanks
Hi. This article was very useful for my research project. I would like to aks a question. What has the locals done to raise awareness on the after crisis in Afghanistan. THANKS!
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately I am not sure what effort is being put forth by the locals to raise awareness. I would suggest an online search for more information.
Thanks for reading.
this text was amazing but need something other than text on text on text. for e.g photos
Hello…
Thank you so much! We are doing a Global Citizenship project in school and I just want to thank you for having this very helpful article. I’m kind of behind on this, and this article is really helping me get back on track because it clearly states a lot of info I could use. Thanks SO much!
Hello, I am doing a project about the water crisis in Afghanistan. I was wondering what is being done to address these problems. Thanks.
Hi Kaitlynn,
I have not followed what is being done very much in the past year or so. I would suggest doing a google search. I’m sure you can find more information. Here are a couple of links that may help you. Maybe they can give you more information. Thanks for reading.
http://www.usaid.gov/news-information/fact-sheets/afghan-sustainable-water-supply-and-sanitation-swss
http://www.unicef.org/afghanistan/wes.html
Hi,
I find this article for interesting and want to use it in my research project. However, I need to know the credibility of the website. Could you give me statement of how this is credible?
Hi Katey,
I’m not sure what you’re looking for. I wrote the article based on online sources. If you can give me more specifics on the information you need maybe I could help more.
Thanks
Who is the Author of this article?
Hi Jenn,
I am, Brian Luenow. Why do you ask?
Thanks
thanks from your information which is very helpful for me
I loved this which in the same time made me so sad. I hope this problem gets better even thought it could not be fixed but i wish most people would see this and see how Afghanistan with it’s Afghan people are suffering.
who can we contact for information for our project but the person has to know English and needs to be professional.
Dear Sir
I hope this email will find you well and healthy.
Sir, I am a research scholar at South Asian University, and working on Afghanistan water sharing issues. I read the article and I found it very interesting, but unfortunately I could not find the source of the article.
I hereby request you to provide the source of the following statements:
1. Only 27% of its population has access to improved water sources, and it goes down to 20% in rural areas, the lowest percentage in the world. The numbers get even worse when you look at the percentage of people with access to improved sanitation facilities. With the numbers at 5% nationwide, and only 1% in rural areas, Afghanistan again ranks the worst in the world. In Kabul, with a population of 6 million, 80% of the people lack access to safe drinking water, and 95% lack access to improved sanitation facilities.
2. Because of the lack of reservoirs, canals, and infrastructure, today only 30-35% of the water coming out of the mountains of Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan.
3. Oxfam found that 43% of local conflicts in Afgan communities are over water.
I thank you in anticipation for your support.
Ikramuddin
I’m doing a school project about the water in Afghanistan and what we could do to help them. Can you give me any info?
I am representing Afghanistan in a UN, World Health Organisation debate here in Luxembourg, this article is brilliant! great job
Hey Brian; It’s a great read, I really liked it. Actually I am also doing thesis about “The use of water resources and it’s economic and political effects in Afghanistan”. I think your article will help me there but some information are not valid like the population is more than written there and the percentages also differ from what the actual are. But again it’s great article I may need more information about other aspects in water resources, water supplies, water management areas if you have anything please share it with me on this email.
Regards
Majid
Hello, I am Hamy from TGISB (The Grandeur International School Bangalore). I am doing a project on Water Crisis in Afghanistan. I would love to know some ways that we can help solve the Clean Water Crisis in Afghanistan.