Knowledge & Intelligence Platform
MENA Water Review
The knowledge platform for water in the Middle East & North Africa
Featured
Reported 2026 Strikes on Gulf Desalination Plants Exposed Water Systems Dependent on a Single Sea and Strait
About a third of the world’s desalination capacity sits around one narrow, contested sea.
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Water in Egypt
Egypt is almost rainless, and the Nile provides about 93% of its renewable water resources.
Groundwater & Aquifers
The most relied-upon water source in at least 11 of the 22 Arab states, and the least visible: fossil aquifers, falling water tables, salinity and the recharge schemes trying to slow the decline.
The Saudi Arabia market
The authorities that procure water infrastructure, how the deals are put together, and what is in the pipeline.
The machines that halved the price of seawater
Between 2018 and 2020 the winning bid for desalinated water nearly halved, to 27.7 cents.
Read the briefData & Tools
The databases behind the reports: live tenders, the projects register, the atlas, market briefs, price benchmarks and the directory.
Live tenders
Open water tenders from national portals, the World Bank and the UN, refreshed nightly.
Major projects
The schemes that shape supply, the PPP pipeline, and who won what.
Market briefs
Each country as a market: demand, financing, PPP framework and buyers.
Region atlas
Plants, dams, conveyances and rivers with an optional water-stress overlay.
Tariffs & benchmarks
What households pay, and what desalinated water is bid at.
Organization directory
Ministries, regulators, utilities and financiers, and how each one buys.
Calendar
Upcoming events
WETEX (Water, Energy, Technology and Environment Exhibition)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA)
Cairo Water Week 2026
New Cairo, Egypt
Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, Egypt
The 7th Arab Water Conference
New Cairo, Egypt
Arab Water Council, with Egypt's Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation
The region
Country profiles
Twenty reports, one for every country from Morocco to Iran: resources, institutions, infrastructure and the market each creates.
Morocco
Morocco's rain and surface water are concentrated in the north-west and the mountains, and rainfall varies strongly from year to year.
Lebanon
Lebanon receives more rain than its neighbours in the Levant, and mountain snow sustains about 2,000 springs through the dry season.
Iraq
Iraq lies in the Mesopotamian plain of the Tigris and Euphrates, and most of its river water comes from Turkey, Iran and Syria.
United Arab Emirates
The UAE has little rain and no perennial streams.
Reference
Knowledge hubs
Region-wide themes, each pairing an in-depth reference file with interactive data and live project intelligence.
Reporting
Stories
Long-form reporting with maps, photographs and data, on the human side of the numbers in the rest of the platform.
Utilities · Non-revenue water
Reducing Non-Revenue Water Could Provide MENA With New Water
In several of the region’s countries, between a quarter and a half of the water put into city networks earns no revenue. How utilities hunt it d…
Dead Sea · Jordan, Israel & Palestine
How Water Diversions and Industrial Pumping Are Shrinking the Dead Sea and Opening Thousands of Sinkholes
The Dead Sea is dropping about a metre a year and taking its shoreline with it. More than 6,000 sinkholes, a river spent before it arrives, and a resc…
Yemen · Groundwater collapse
How Unregulated Well Drilling Put Sanaa’s Water Supply at Risk Despite Yemen’s Ancient Water Management Systems
In ancient times Yemen was among the world’s leaders in farming a dry country. Then it learned to drill, and Sanaa started racing its own water …
Iraq, Türkiye & Syria · The Tigris and Euphrates
The Tigris and Euphrates Are Running Low as Upstream Dams and Drought Threaten Iraq’s Marshes and Water Supply
The rivers that invented irrigation now reach Iraq with less water and more salt. Upstream dams, a marsh drained and half-restored, and a basin shared…
Analysis
Intelligence
Technology briefs and monthly market briefings.
Market briefing: MENA water, August 2026
Gulf desalination plants come under attack for the first time since 1991, Hormuz stays mined, and procurement carries on around both. Kuwait signs, Jordan's carrier finds its lenders, Sharakat's plan slips past its own dates.
Read this editionWater for the machines: data centres in the desert
The Gulf is announcing AI campuses at gigawatt scale, with little said about water. What cooling actually draws, what operators disclose, and the column they leave blank.
Banking water underground: the region's other reservoirs
Open reservoirs lose water to the desert sky. Recharge dams, infiltration basins and injection wells store it underground, and Abu Dhabi banked an emergency reserve in its dunes.
Hero video: Asad Ansari and Kenan Turguç (Pexels); AlonaMalakh, Şeyhmus Kino and livesmart (Pixabay).