Water in Kuwait

Kuwait has no rivers and only brackish aquifers, and desalination supplies about 90% of its drinking water.²⁸ It also consumes a great deal per person, at tariffs that recover a fraction of cost. Everything runs on two machines. The first is Gulf desalination, co-generated with power since the 1950s, a model Kuwait practically invented. The second, since 2004, is the large membrane water-reuse plant at Sulaibiya.¹³ High subsidies keep demand among the world's highest per capita, and reform is perennial, gradual and political.

A quick-reference dashboard for Kuwait: headline economy and water indicators³⁰³¹, water stress against the scarcity thresholds, non-conventional supply, and the institutions behind the sector. The commercial picture, with buyers, deal structures and the project pipeline, is in the market brief.

One interactive map of Kuwait's water, built from real geodata. Climate & drought maps the aridity gradient (WorldClim) with warming projections. The WRI Aqueduct layers, covering overall water risk, water stress and flood risk (plus groundwater decline where the trend is significant), shade every river sub-basin by its 0–5 risk score. Demand shows where the population, and the water demand, concentrate. Infrastructure brings the physical system together: rivers, dams (FAO AQUASTAT), treatment plants, desalination and the major conveyors. Hover any sub-basin or marker for detail; sources are cited under each view.

Kuwait is flat desert at the head of the Gulf. It covers 17,818 km², including nine uninhabited islands, and runs about 170 km east to west and 200 km north to south.¹ The plains slope gently to the north-east, and the highest ground, about 300 m, lies in the south-west.¹¹ Kuwait Bay’s shore accounts for nearly half of the coastline, and the two largest islands, Boubyan and Warba, remain undeveloped.¹ In the south, intertidal sabkhas line the coast. The largest, Al-Khiran Sabkha, has been turned into a waterfront city.¹ The coastline runs about 500 km including the islands.¹ There are no permanent rivers or lakes, only small wadis in shallow depressions, where flash floods last hours to days.¹¹

Rainfall

Rain is scarce and erratic. The average is about 112 mm a year, ranging from 75 to 150 mm, while FAO’s long-term figure is 121 mm.¹¹¹ The season runs from October to May.¹¹ Annual totals at Kuwait International Airport have ranged from 34.4 mm to 218 mm, and Umm Al-Maradim Island recorded 319.5 mm in October 2013.¹ Heavy rain overwhelms the ground quickly. Storms in November 2018 brought far more than the 18 mm the month usually sees.⁴

Heat, humidity and dust

Summer runs from late May to early November, with daily maxima of 43–48 °C.¹ The highest recorded temperature is 54.0 °C, at Mitribah on 21 July 2016, above the previous 52.9 °C at the same station.¹ The lowest was −4 °C at Kuwait International Airport in January 1964.¹ Coastal humidity can exceed 95% from mid-August into September.¹ Dust storms are frequent in summer, with winds up to 150 km/h, and their sources lie in Mesopotamia.¹ Kuwait Bay’s sea-surface temperature rose by 0.6 °C a decade between 1985 and 2002, three times the global rate.¹ Across South West Asia, the IPCC finds that warming has amplified droughts since the 1980s.³

Projections

Regional models project inland warming of 2.5–2.7 °C by 2071–2100 under a middle scenario, and 4.3–4.5 °C under high emissions.¹ Rainfall would fall by 6–9% in the east and 15–18% in the west under high emissions.¹ The World Bank’s CMIP6 ensemble instead shows slightly more rain, a reminder of how uncertain rainfall projections are here.² Days above 35 °C rise from about 171 a year in 1995–2014 to about 213 by 2080–2099 under high emissions.² The national communication tested sea-level rises of 0.5 to 2.0 m by 2100. At 2.0 m, about 454 km² would be inundated, including half of Boubyan Island.¹

Rainfall and temperature in numbers

Averaged over the whole of Kuwait, ERA5 reanalysis gives about 134 mm of rain a year and a mean temperature of 26.2 °C for 1991–2020. About 64% of that rain falls in November, December and January, and 6 months average less than 5 mm. Since 1971 the country has warmed by about 0.50 °C a decade. Average rainfall in 1993–2022 was about 19% higher than in 1951–1980, and single years swing widely around that.

Projected change

Source: World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal, retrieved September 2026. ERA5 0.25° reanalysis for the annual series (1950–2022) and the monthly climatology (1991–2020); CMIP6 0.25° multi-model ensemble median for the projections, as change against 1995–2014. These are national averages, which hide the gap between wet highlands and dry interiors, and reanalysis rainfall over deserts carries wide uncertainty.

Kuwait has almost no renewable water. Internal renewable groundwater is negligible, and about 20 million m³ a year flows in from Saudi Arabia.¹¹ The Hasa Group of limestone aquifers underlies the Kuwait Group of sands and gravels.¹¹ Fresh water exists only as two lenses, at Raudhatain and Umm Al Eish, in the transboundary Dammam aquifer.¹ Desalination supplies more than 90% of potable water.¹ In 2023, of 1.7 billion m³ used, 47% was desalinated and 51% groundwater, most of it brackish.⁵

Eight coastal plants had 3.11 million m³ a day of capacity by about 2022.¹² Sulaibiya’s reverse-osmosis effluent, at about 600,000 m³ a day, supplies agriculture and industry. It meets WHO potable standards, although the water is not piped to taps.¹² Planning sends 40% of it to Wafra, 40% to Abdally and 20% to farms around Sulaibiya.¹

Between 1925 and 1950 Kuwait imported fresh water from the Shatt al-Arab in Iraq to supplement its wells.¹¹ Its first seawater desalination plant opened at Al Ahmadi port in 1951 with a capacity of 364 m³ a day.¹¹ By around 2022 eight coastal plants had 3.11 million m³ a day of capacity.¹² Desalination supplies about 90% of drinking water but 42.2% of total water demand.²⁸

Farms on brackish water

Withdrawals rose from 538 million m³ in 1993 to 913 million m³ in 2002. Agriculture took 54%, municipal use 44% and industry 2%.¹¹ Most farm water was brackish: 300 million m³ came from private boreholes at Al Abdali and Al Wafra, and 66 million m³ was treated wastewater.¹¹ Irrigation began in the late 1950s, and sprinklers using treated wastewater arrived in 1977.¹¹ In 1994 fresh groundwater withdrawal was more than 12 times the annual inflow of 20 million m³.¹¹

The fresh lenses

Two small fresh lenses at Raudhatain and Umm Al-Aish are kept as a strategic drinking-water reserve.¹¹ Production at Raudhatain was cut from just over 2 million imperial gallons a day in 1963–67 to about 1 million, to limit saline upconing.¹³ The field facilities were destroyed during the 1990–91 occupation. Umm Al-Aish was later abandoned after oil from damaged wells polluted it.¹³

Demand, subsidy and reuse

Consumption averaged 442 litres a person a day in 2014.¹³ Residential freshwater use rose from 150 billion litres in 2001 to 634 billion litres in 2020.¹² Kuwait subsidises about 92% of the cost of producing water, making prices among the lowest in the world.²⁰ Until mid-2016 water was offered at virtually no cost, and the 2016 reform raised residential electricity prices for expatriates only.²¹ More than 90% of the population is connected to central sewerage.¹¹ The Sulaibiya reclamation plant opened in 2004 with a design capacity of 375,000 m³ a day. Its capacity was later put at about 600,000 m³.¹³¹²

Withdrawals over time

FAO’s AQUASTAT estimates put Kuwait’s freshwater withdrawals at 307 million m³ in 1993 and 770 million m³ in 2022. Agriculture’s share of the total moved from 58% in 1994 to 62% in 2022.

Source: FAO AQUASTAT via the World Bank World Development Indicators, retrieved September 2026. AQUASTAT revises national figures irregularly and fills the years between surveys, so a jump between two adjacent years usually marks a new national estimate rather than a change on the ground.

The fleet is mostly thermal and is being rebuilt. In 2015 six multi-stage flash plants, at Shuaiba North and South, Doha East and West, Al-Zour South and Sabiya, held 92% of capacity, alongside the Shuwaikh reverse-osmosis plant.¹ Another 0.5 million m³ a day of reverse osmosis was planned.¹ Output grew by about 3.6% a year between 2005 and 2015.¹ Az-Zour North, the first independent power and desalination plant, was installed in 2015.¹

New procurement

Two projects now set the pace. Bids for Al Khairan Phase 1, which combines 1,800 MW of power with a 125 MIGD desalination plant, were opened by the partnership authority and the ministry in 2026.⁶ In August 2026 a WABAG-led joint venture with Heavy Engineering Industries and Shipbuilding signed for the Doha reverse-osmosis plant, at 60 MIGD or about 272 million litres a day.⁷⁸

Storage, pipes and meters

The ministry’s water projects plan for 2026/27 covers 18 contracts. They include four freshwater complexes at Wafra, Doha, Shuwaikh and Hawally, each with two ground-level reservoirs, a pumping station and a substation.⁹ New pipelines will link Mina Abdullah to West Fintas, carry brackish water from Mina Abdullah to Zour, and connect the Wafra complex to southern Sabah Al-Ahmad City.⁹ The ministry is also tendering 300,000 smart water meters to replace mechanical ones across residential areas.¹⁰

Wastewater

The Ministry of Public Works collects sewage through 4,700 km of gravity sewers, 17 major and 57 secondary pumping stations, and 1,600 km of pressure mains.¹ Six treatment plants serve the Kuwait City area, five of them using rapid sand filtration and chlorination.¹ More than 90% of the population is connected to central sewerage.¹

The asset base in numbers

Sources: FAO AQUASTAT regional dam inventories (CC BY 4.0), which list large dams with a published capacity and can lag recent construction; the MENA Water Review major projects register, where each record cites its source on the project page. The database follows large contracted projects, not the whole asset base.

Kuwait’s farm wells have grown steadily saltier. At Al Wafra, the share of wells pumping water above 7,500 ppm rose from 50% in 1989 to 85% in 2002, and at Al Abdali from 55% to 90%.¹¹ In the Dammam aquifer, water levels fell 40–60 m between 1960 and 1990 as salinity doubled from 5,000 to 10,000 mg/L.¹⁴ Salinity in the Kuwait Group aquifer ranges from 4,000 mg/L in the south-west to 18,000 mg/L and more in the north-east.¹⁵

1991 and after

Retreating Iraqi forces destroyed most of Kuwait’s desalination capacity in 1991.¹⁸ Oil lakes covered 12.28 km² of the Raudhatain oil field.¹⁸ ESCWA notes that the two freshwater lenses may have been polluted by the oil spills.¹⁵ After liberation, shortages cut household supply to four days a week.²⁸

Bromate

Desalinated water brings its own chemistry. A study of 194 samples found mean bromate of 19.6 µg/L in tap water, above the 10 µg/L limit, against 2.89 µg/L in bottled water.¹⁹

The reported indicators

Sources: WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme via the World Bank; SDG 6.3.1 and 6.3.2 from the UN Statistics Division SDG database, retrieved September 2026. Safely managed means an improved source on the premises, available when needed and free from priority contamination. SDG 6.3.2 rests on each country’s own monitoring network, so a high share can mean few water bodies were assessed, and values move when methods change between reporting rounds.

Kuwait shares no rivers, but its aquifers extend into Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and none is covered by a water agreement.¹⁵¹⁴ About 20 million m³ of groundwater flows in from Saudi Arabia each year.¹¹ Around 16,000 km² of the Dibdibba–Kuwait Group aquifer lies in Kuwait, which abstracts 88 million m³ a year from it.¹⁵ Pumping became significant in the mid-1980s and lowered the water table by 5–20 m along the Saudi border.¹⁵ Kuwait drew about 90 million m³ from the Umm er Radhuma–Dammam in 1993, and it was reportedly preparing a joint study of the aquifer with Saudi Arabia.¹⁴

The 2026 war

Early in the war the Doha West power and water station was damaged, though it kept operating.²⁸ On 30 March a strike on a power and desalination plant killed an Indian worker.²² In early April two more plants were damaged by drones, and further sites were hit after the 8 April ceasefire.²³²⁴ From 17 to 21 July the electricity ministry reported strikes on power and desalination plants on four consecutive nights.¹⁷ Residents were urged to ration electricity, but no formal water rationing was reported.²⁵¹⁷

Kuwait is building a deeper buffer. In April 2026 it announced six underground reservoirs at Al Na’eem, each holding 100 million imperial gallons.²⁶ Its reported reserves might cover 10–15 days.¹⁶ In August 2026 a workshop in Kuwait reviewed the first phase of a feasibility study for a Gulf water interconnection.²⁷

The record

Shared aquifers

• Neogene Aquifer System (South-East): Dibdibba-Kuwait GroupIraq, Saudi Arabia · data moderate
• Umm er Radhuma-Dammam Aquifer System (North): Widyan-SalmanIraq, Saudi Arabia · data moderate

Source: IGRAC and UNESCO, Transboundary Aquifers of the World. Data reliability is IGRAC’s own assessment of the information behind each outline.

The Ministry of Electricity, Water and Renewable Energy produces and distributes water. Its water projects sector plans, designs and supervises the works.⁹ The Kuwait Authority for Partnership Projects runs the independent water and power tenders with the ministry.⁶ The Central Agency for Public Tenders handles conventional contracts, such as the smart-meter programme.¹⁰ The Ministry of Public Works manages wastewater collection and treatment.¹ The Kuwait Environment Public Authority is the national focal point for the UN climate convention.¹ Groundwater is classed as fresh, brackish or saline by the agriculture authority, which oversees farm use.¹¹

Kuwait’s supply is manufactured and its demand is subsidised. Desalination covers more than 90% of drinking water, and the aquifers that remain are mostly brackish.¹¹¹ Heat is rising. Days above 35 °C could reach about 213 a year by the end of the century under high emissions, in a country that has already recorded 54.0 °C.²¹

The near-term agenda is procurement and measurement: reverse osmosis replacing thermal plants at Al Khairan and Doha, new reservoirs and pipelines, and 300,000 smart meters.⁶⁸⁹¹⁰ Prices remain the unsolved part. The engineering is largely settled, and the politics of tariffs sets the schedule.