Algeria · Operational
In Salah–Tamanrasset Water Conveyance
Fossil water drawn from the Continental Intercalaire and pushed 746 km across the Sahara to Tamanrasset.
Data & Tools
Major water projects
The schemes that shape water supply across the region, with budget, technology, owner, contractors and current stage for each. Switch between a sortable table and a map.
A selected register, not a census. Compiled from public sources and last reviewed 29 September 2026. Every record names the source it was checked against.
420
projects in the register
$126.6 bn
US$ bn disclosed capital cost
20
countries covered
309
operating today
The landmarks
The schemes that changed how water is supplied in their country, or that stand as the clearest example of an approach. Listed by country rather than ranked.
Egypt · Operational
Bahr El-Baqar Wastewater Treatment
Agricultural drainage treated at a scale nothing else matches, to irrigate reclaimed land in Sinai.
Egypt · Operational
High Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser
The dam that ended the Nile flood, and still the single control point for Egypt's whole water year.
Iran · Operational
Karkheh Dam and Hydroelectric Plant
5.3 km3 held on the Karkheh, regulating 3.3 billion m3 a year for 340,000 hectares of Khuzestan.
Iraq · Operational
Mosul Dam
Founded on gypsum that dissolves beneath it, and held upright by a grouting programme that is never allowed to stop.
Israel · Operational
Ashkelon Desalination
The 2005 concession whose record-low bid price set the template the Gulf's IWP programmes still follow.
Israel · Operational
National Water Carrier
The 1964 spine that made one national water market possible, and the reason desalination could be concentrated on the coast.
Jordan · Under construction
Aqaba–Amman Desalination & Conveyance (AAWDC)
Designed to carry desalinated Red Sea water 445 km inland to Amman, at a cost near EUR 4 billion.
Jordan · Operational
Disi Water Conveyance (BOT)
Jordan bet its capital's supply on fossil water, pumped 325 km north under a 25-year concession.
Kuwait · Awarded
North Kabd Wastewater Treatment Plant
One million m3 a day in a single contract, roughly doubling the treated wastewater Kuwait can produce.
Kuwait · Operational
Sulaibiya Wastewater Reuse
Municipal sewage pushed through reverse osmosis at 600,000 m3/day, among the largest reuse schemes anywhere.
Lebanon · Operational
Qaraoun Dam
Lebanon's largest reservoir, built on the Litani for power and irrigation, and now the focus of a national depollution effort.
Libya · Operational
Great Man-Made River Sarir-Sirte and Tazerbo-Benghazi System
The first and largest phase of the Great Man-Made River: 1,586 km of conveyance carrying Saharan fossil water to the coast.
Morocco · Operational
Agadir Desalination & Irrigation
One plant, two customers: a city and its export farms share the cost of desalinated water.
Oman · Out of service
Ghubrah 1 Power and Desalination
Oman's first desalination plant, in service from 1976 until the last of its units was retired in 2018.
Palestine · In tender
Gaza Central Desalination
Tendered since 2013 and still unbuilt, the plainest measure of what conflict costs water infrastructure.
Qatar · Operational
Qatar Mega Reservoirs
Five reservoir sites and about 200 km of pipeline, built so one broken supply line cannot empty the taps.
Saudi Arabia · Under construction
Jubail–Buraydah IWTP
587 km of pipeline moving desalinated Gulf water into the Saudi interior, procured as a transmission PPP.
Saudi Arabia · Operational
Ras Al-Khair Power and Desalination Plant
The largest desalination plant in the world, running thermal and membrane trains side by side, with its own line to Riyadh.
Syria · Operational
Tabqa Dam
Lake Assad holds 14 km3 behind it, and filling it in 1975 cut the Euphrates reaching Iraq by a quarter.
Tunisia · Operational
Sidi Salem Dam
The largest dam on the Medjerda, and the anchor of the northern system that carries water to Tunis, the Sahel and Sfax.
Turkey · Operational
Atatürk Dam and Hydroelectric Plant
The centrepiece of the GAP programme: 48 km3 held on the Euphrates, and the water that reaches the Harran plain.
United Arab Emirates · Operational
Fujairah F1 IWPP
The region's first large hybrid, running thermal units beside reverse osmosis, and the start of the Gulf's shift to membranes.
United Arab Emirates · Operational
Taweelah RO IWP
Reverse osmosis at 909,000 m3/day, and the clearest sign that RO has displaced thermal desalination in the Gulf.
The register
Filter by country, technology or stage, sort any column, or switch to the map. Open a row for the full record and its source.
What is in
- Schemes that shape national supply: desalination plants, large wastewater and reuse works, strategic conveyances, bulk storage, and dams and irrigation programmes of basin scale.
- Smaller schemes that carry weight for another reason: a country's first plant of its kind, its only one, or a scheme whose progress says something about the market around it.
- Every stage from tender to operating, because what a country is trying to build is as telling as what it has already built. Schemes that stopped part-built read as stalled, and assets that were finished but no longer work read as out of service.
What is not
- Municipal pipe-laying, network renewals and small works, procured constantly and recorded nowhere in a form worth republishing.
- Consultancy, supply and equipment contracts. Those sit in the procurement pages instead.
- Household, camp and resort-scale installations, unless the setting makes them significant.
- Schemes announced with no identified procurer, site or scope. An announcement is not a project.
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