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CIAO DATE: 3/5/2007
Household water and sanitation services in Saudi Arabia: an analysis of economic, political and ecological issues'
Elie Elhadj
May 2004
Abstract
This study evaluates Saudi Arabia's investment in household water and sanitation services (WSS) over the past three decades or so. It finds that over one half of Saudi householders still have no municipal water connections and two thirds are without sanitation connections. Saudi cities have no rainwater drainage systems to deal with the brief and occasional, but severe deluges of winters. Desalinated water is transmitted across hundreds of kilometers of desert terrain to two major urban centers (Riyadh and Qaseem) that are rich in groundwater reserves while their local water is used in irrigation.
The study addresses the subject in six sections: 1) the inadequate coverage of WSS facilities in a country that received US$1,034 billions from crude oil exports between 1972 and 2001 (Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), Annual Report, 2002: p.388). 2) Possible causes behind this poor state of affairs. 3) The sources of Saudi household water. 4) Comparisons among the economic cost of water production and pipeline transmission of the various sources of domestic water: a) groundwater, b) modern desalination plants and, c) Saudi Arabia's existing 30 desalination plants. An opportunity cost of capital will be included in the computations. 5) Availability, or lack of availability, of sufficient groundwater reserves near main Saudi urban centers. 6) Policy implications of sections (4) and (5). The data are from government and other official sources.
