Water in Qatar

Qatar pairs one of the world's highest incomes with one of its lowest rainfalls, and treats water security as national security. Desalination supplies 99% of drinking water,⁸ co-generated and now shifting to RO at Umm Al Houl and Ras Abu Fontas. Mega-reservoirs lifted reserve cover from 1.3 days in 2010 to 5.2 days in 2024.¹⁶ Almost all wastewater is now treated and reused.¹⁹ Groundwater is reserved, in effect, for farms. It is still overdrawn.

The signature response is storage. Kahramaa's Water Security Mega Reservoirs were commissioned at the end of 2018 with 1,500 million imperial gallons in 15 reservoirs, and they hold Guinness records. Storage has since risen to 2,417 million gallons.¹⁶

A quick-reference dashboard for Qatar: headline economy and water indicators²⁸²⁹, 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 Qatar'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.

Qatar is a low limestone peninsula. It covers about 11,637 km², including the islands of Halul, Shira’wa and Alashat, with 550 km of coastline.¹ The land runs just under 190 km north to south and just under 90 km east to west.¹ Apart from hills in the north-west and dunes in the south-east, the terrain is flat desert with limestone outcrops at Dukhan and Jabal Fuwairit.¹ Elevations range from 0 to 107 m, and about 23% of the land lies low.¹ Limestone and dolomite make up about 80% of the surface, with gypsum layers in the south.¹ About 850 depressions hold the country’s farm soils, and saline sabkha lines the coasts at Umm Said and Dukhan.⁸

Rainfall

Rain is scarce and erratic. The annual average was about 68.8 mm between 2011 and 2022, against about 80 mm in FAO’s older series.¹⁸ Rain falls mainly between October and May, with occasional thunderstorms from December to February.¹ Totals at Doha airport ranged from 11.0 mm in 2021 to 119.9 mm in 2018, and the 2021 figure was 19% of the long-term average.¹ Wet spells can be intense. In under three weeks in late 2018, 136 mm fell, against a Doha annual average of about 75 mm.³ Evaporation averages about 2,200 mm a year.⁸

Heat and the sea

The climate is hyper-arid, with a hot summer from June to mid-September and a mild winter from December to February.¹ Between 2018 and 2022, summer lows ran 31.4–33.3 °C and highs 39.2–42.6 °C.¹ Summer temperatures can reach 50 °C.⁴ At Al Udeid, 32 heatwaves were recorded between 2003 and 2024, with frequency rising by about 0.1 events a year.⁵ The Gulf is warming faster than the global ocean. Around Qatar, summer sea-surface temperature rose by about 0.06 °C a year over 2003–2024.¹ Sea level rose by 3.5–4.5 mm a year in 1993–2022, about 20% above the global rate.¹

Projections

Downscaled models project an annual mean temperature of 29.7 °C by 2050 under a middle scenario and 30.1 °C under high emissions, against 27.9 °C in 1984–2014.¹ The largest increases fall on the western and northern coasts.¹ Rainfall projections diverge. The same ensemble gives 98.7 mm by 2050 in the middle scenario, while its lower bounds fall to 69.5 mm and 57.4 mm.¹ In the World Bank’s CMIP6 ensemble, days above 35 °C rise from about 162 a year in 1995–2014 to about 220 by 2080–2099 under high emissions.² A one-metre rise in sea level would flood about 173 km², mostly around Mesaieed and the south-east.¹ Unmet water demand by 2050 could reach about 1,900 million m³ under high population growth with climate-driven demand.¹

Rainfall and temperature in numbers

Averaged over the whole of Qatar, ERA5 reanalysis gives about 66 mm of rain a year and a mean temperature of 27.4 °C for 1991–2020. About 60% of that rain falls in December, January and March, and 7 months average less than 5 mm. Since 1971 the country has warmed by about 0.44 °C a decade. Average rainfall in 1993–2022 was about 4% 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.

Qatar has no rivers, and recharge depends on runoff into the depressions.⁸ Runoff is 16–20% of rainfall, and 70% of what reaches a depression soaks in.⁸ Renewable groundwater is about 58.1 million m³ a year, including 2.2 million m³ flowing in from Saudi Arabia.¹ The safe yield is about 54.2 million m³, but abstraction runs near 250 million m³ a year.¹ Deficits ranged from 57 to 184 million m³ between 2016 and 2021.¹ Fresh water sits as lenses in the Rus and Umm er Radhuma aquifers, mostly in the north.¹ Recharge is now largely artificial, with about 65% of replenishment coming from treated sewage effluent.¹

Desalination is the supply. In 2021 it provided 61% of water, groundwater 23% and reused effluent 16%.¹ Total water production reached 671 million m³ in 2022.¹⁸ Treated effluent, 98% of it reused, irrigates green spaces and fodder and recharges aquifers.¹⁹ The aquifer persists as agriculture’s overdraft.

Qatar built its first desalination plant in 1953, with a capacity of 150,000 imperial gallons a day.⁹ The Ras Abu Fontas plants followed from 1977, and since June 2008 Kahramaa has pumped water around the clock.⁹ Desalinated output rose from 0.44 million m³ a day in 2003 to 1.48 million in 2011 and 2.18 million in 2018.¹⁴ Desalination supplies 99% of drinking water and 77.3% of total water demand.⁸¹¹

Farms and the aquifer

Withdrawals grew from 292 million m³ in 1994, 74% of it for agriculture, to 444 million m³ in 2005, when farms took 59%.⁸ Agriculture drew 98% of groundwater in 1993.¹⁰ In 2005 extraction was 221 million m³ against recharge of about 25 million m³, so 159 million m³ was mined.⁸ Depletion averaged 69 million m³ a year from 1972 to 2005.⁸ By 2019 agriculture used about 310 million m³, including about 250 million m³ of groundwater, with an annual deficit of 98 million m³.¹⁵ Irrigation efficiency is about 45%.⁸

Demand and reuse

Qatari citizens receive water and electricity free. Tariffs have risen since 2016, but consumption stays around 557 litres a person a day, and leakage is about 25% of supply.¹⁷ From September 2015 Kahramaa replaced a flat QR 4.40 per cubic metre with slabs rising to QR 7.40 from 100 to 150 cubic metres.²⁰ Since the January 2021 bill, non-Qatari homes also pay a wastewater fee of 20% of the water bill.²¹ Kahramaa runs the Tarsheed water-saving programme.¹⁴ Reuse has grown fast. In 2005, 43 million m³ of treated wastewater was reused.⁸ By 2026 Ashghal reported that 98% of wastewater was treated and reused. Of the cumulative 3.46 billion m³, 32% went to green spaces, 31% to fodder and 22% was injected into aquifers.¹⁹

Withdrawals over time

FAO’s AQUASTAT estimates put Qatar’s freshwater withdrawals at 150 million m³ in 1975 and 250 million m³ in 2022. Agriculture’s share of the total moved from 74% in 1994 to 33% 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.

Kahramaa procures plants as independent water and power projects. Qatar’s first desalination plant dates from the 1950s, and thermal co-generation still carries much of the fleet.¹⁹ Facility E, about 25 km south of Doha, will add 2.4 GW of power, around 20% of grid capacity, and 495,000 tonnes a day of desalinated water. Operations are expected in 2028.⁶

Storage

Storage is the backbone of Qatar’s water security. Strategic reserve capacity reached 10.6 million m³ in 2021, and Kahramaa planned five mega reservoirs through 2026, with five more for 2036 demand.¹ In 2018 it completed 15 of the world’s largest concrete drinking-water reservoirs, each holding about 100 million imperial gallons.⁴ The utility committed US$4 billion to that programme in 2018.¹

Wastewater and drainage

Ashghal runs eight wastewater treatment plants, 13 effluent pumping stations and 120 foul sewer pumping stations.¹⁹ Its networks include 3,326 km of sewers and 2,084 km of treated-water distribution mains.¹⁹ The drainage network grew from 2,836 km in 2013 to 9,707 km in 2025.¹⁹ Almost all wastewater is treated. Ashghal reports 98% treated and reused, and the national communication 99.7%.¹⁹¹ Sewer coverage reached 68% of buildings nationally in 2005, and 95% in Doha.⁸

Networks

Leakage in the distribution system was cut to 4% by 2016.¹ Losses of desalinated water then rose from 4% in 2016 to 6% in 2021.¹

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.

In northern and central Qatar, the Rus and Umm er Radhuma aquifers hold water at 500–3,000 mg/L, rising to 10,000 mg/L near the coast.⁸ The Dammam aquifer is now mostly dewatered in Qatar and Bahrain, and the Rus is at risk of salinisation or total depletion.¹⁰ Satellite gravity data show groundwater thinning by 0.24 cm a year from 2002 to 2020.¹⁵

Supply depends on clean seawater. Red tide, algal blooms and oil spills could stop Gulf desalination plants for days, possibly months.¹⁴ Kahramaa sampled water at about 11,500 points in 2022, and its laboratory is accredited to ISO 17025.¹⁸²²

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.

Qatar shares no rivers. Its groundwater lies in the central Umm er Radhuma–Dammam system, shared with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, and no water agreement governs it.¹⁰ About 11,300 km² of the system lies in Qatar.¹⁰ Inflow from Saudi Arabia is about 2.2 million m³ a year, against 71.6 million m³ of rainfall recharge.¹⁵ ESCWA warns that this part of the aquifer is threatened by complete salinisation in the near future.¹⁰

Storage and the 2026 war

Storage is Qatar’s defence. A 2021 study estimated that up to 182.8 million m³ could be recharged into depleted aquifers, about three months of supply.¹⁴ Law No. 23 of 2025 on water security followed in October 2025.²⁴ In March 2026 Iranian strikes hit Qatar’s gas facilities at Ras Laffan.²⁵ That month the interior minister said the strategic water reserve covered about four months of consumption.²⁶ Independent estimates were far lower: 7–10 days of municipal needs, or under a week.¹²¹³ On 30 June 2026 GCC delegations met to review a feasibility study for a Gulf water interconnection.²³

The record

Shared aquifers

• Umm er Radhuma-Dammam Aquifer System (Centre): GulfBahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE · data good

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

Water and electricity were brought under one ministry in 1997.⁹ Kahramaa, the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation, was established in July 2000 under Emiri Law No. 10.⁹ It owns and operates the transmission and distribution systems.¹ Ashghal, the Public Works Authority, runs sewage, drainage and treated-effluent infrastructure.¹⁹

Strategy and law

The current national development strategy calls for groundwater metering, protection zones and enforcement of the Water Act, including limits on groundwater for fodder.¹ It targets a 15% cut in drinking-water losses and in consumption per person.¹ An earlier strategy aimed to reuse 70% of treated wastewater by 2022.¹ Law No. 13 of 2024 protects public electricity and water facilities. Under it, Decision No. 10 of 2026 bans mechanical equipment within 1.5 m of network boundaries without authorisation.⁷

Qatar’s system is manufactured, efficient and exposed. Desalination supplies most of the water, the aquifer runs at a deficit, and the Gulf it draws from is warming faster than the global ocean.¹ Days above 35 °C could rise from about 162 a year to about 220 by the end of the century under high emissions.²

The answer so far is storage, reuse and efficiency. Reserves reached 10.6 million m³ in 2021 and are growing, and almost all wastewater is already reused.¹¹⁹ Facility E adds capacity in 2028.⁶ The open questions are demand-side pricing for nationals, and how a hotter Gulf changes intakes, brine and the energy bill of staying cool.