Afghanistan's capital is in the grip of a water crisis
[April 14, 2026]
By ELENA BECATOROS
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The woman was furious. Standing in the muddy
lane sloping up the hill in one of the Afghan capital’s poorer
neighborhoods, she pulled her headscarf aside to reveal thick grey-white
hair.
“You see this hair? Even I with my white hair, I have to carry water,”
said Marofa, 52, a resident of Kabul’s Deh Mazang neighborhood who, like
many Afghans, goes by one name. “These containers are heavy. We have no
strength left in our backs, no strength left in our legs.”
A mosque down the hill has its own well that provides free water, but it
is undrinkable — yellow and brackish — and has to be carried. Potable
water is trucked into the neighborhood on three-wheeled motorcycles and
sold. For many, the price is too steep.
“We have no money for food. How can we get water?” said Wali Mohammad,
90, another local resident who didn’t hide his rage.
Both said that a few months after the Taliban seized power in
Afghanistan in 2021, the new authorities cut pipes some residents had
laid to siphon water from a communal well to their homes.
“They cut off our water. They are powerful and they don’t even give us a
reason why,” Mohammad said.
But another resident, 32-year-old Najibullah Rahimi, said the pipes to
people’s homes made the well’s water level drop, leaving those living
higher up the hill with no water at all. “So the government came and cut
the pipes.”
Kabul’s dwindling water resources
Nestled in a high-altitude valley of the Hindu Kush mountains, Kabul is
rapidly running out of water. Its population relies mostly on
groundwater extracted from wells. But the groundwater has been receding
at an alarming rate, and some wells have to be dug as deep as 150 meters
(nearly 500 feet) to reach it.
An April 2025 report by the aid group Mercy Corps said the level of
Kabul's aquifers had plunged by 25-30 meters (about 80-100 feet) over
the past decade. Aquifers hold massive amounts of water deep under land
surfaces. Water in them collects slowly over years as precipitation
seeps in. Too much extraction from aquifers, or changes to the climate
bringing less water, leads to depletion.
“Without large-scale changes to Kabul’s water management dynamics, the
city faces an unprecedented humanitarian disaster within the coming
decade, and likely much sooner,” it said.
Climate change, mostly caused by the burning of gasoline, oil and coal,
has played its part. Repeated droughts have reduced snowfall, whose
gradual melting can replenish groundwater. Instead, Kabul sees more
sudden, heavy rainfall that leads to flooding but not enough of it
reaches the aquifer.
A long developing crisis
The changing climate has only compounded what has long been a growing
crisis, said Najibullah Sadid, a Germany-based water resources and
environment expert with the Afghanistan Water and Environment
Professionals Network.
“Even without climate change Kabul would have seen this crisis, with the
enormous, unprecedented increase in population and urbanization,” Sadid
said.
The city has more than doubled in size over the past two decades. Kabul
saw a major influx of Afghans returning from neighboring countries after
the fall of the Taliban in 2001. It is seeing another now, since
Pakistan and Iran began expelling Afghans in 2023. From a population of
around 2.5 million in 2001, Kabul now holds an estimated 6 million
people.
In some parts, shallow aquifers have already run dry, Sadid said. And
recent rains have little effect as Kabul is now so built up there is
little unpaved, natural ground where water can penetrate.
“Even if it is raining every day, it will not impact groundwater levels
anymore, because there is no place to impact the groundwater,” Sadid
explained.
Mismanagement of water resources has compounded the problem, he said,
singling out beverage companies and greenhouses that use large amounts
of groundwater.
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A boy and a girl collect water from a hose connected to a well at a
mosque in Deh Mazang, Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, April 2, 2026.
(AP Photo/Siddiqullah Alizai)
Water management efforts
Authorities are acutely aware of the problem.
“The water situation in Kabul city is in a critical state,” said
Ministry of Water and Energy spokesman Qari Matiullah Abid. “The
main reasons are that the population has increased significantly,
rainfall has decreased and consumption has increased.”
He said the government is taking action. It imposed restrictions on
groundwater extraction by beverage companies, farmers and other
commercial users. Water meters have been installed and quotas
imposed on businesses such as car washes and large buildings, and
those exceeding their limit are told to move out of Kabul.
To help replenish groundwater, check dams – small, temporary
structures across waterways – have been constructed in Kabul’s 14
districts, and thousands of absorption wells that help manage
stormwater have been dug, Abid said.
He also pointed to the completion of Kabul’s Shah wa Arous Dam,
inaugurated in 2024 and designed to hold 10 million cubic meters
(353 million cubic feet) of water, and the removal of millions of
tons of sediment from the Qargha Dam, increasing the reservoir’s
capacity.
But those are not enough.
Potential solutions are still out of reach
Two major projects which could significantly alleviate the crisis
have been delayed.
One is a roughly 200-kilometer (124-mile) pipeline from the Panjshir
River north of Kabul, and the other is a planned dam and reservoir
known as the Shah Toot Dam about 30 kilometers (18 miles) southwest
of the city. Together, they could provide water for around 4 million
people, according to the Mercy Corps report.
“A combination of both would be a sustainable solution for the
future,” said Sadid. Although constructing the dam would take
several years, the pipeline could be completed relatively fast, he
said.
Shafiullah Zahid, Kabul Zone Director in Afghanistan’s Urban Water
Supply and Sewage state corporation, said the Panjshir pipeline’s
roughly $130 million budget has been approved. The original survey,
completed under the previous government, “has been completely
revised, and now another review is needed,” he said. Once that is
completed, “practical work can begin.”
The Shah Toot Dam, announced months before the Taliban takeover, was
to have been a joint Afghan-Indian project. It too has run into
funding delays. If construction begins, it would take six to seven
years to complete, Zahid said.
But Sadid said Afghanistan’s governments, both current and previous,
prioritized other infrastructure over critical water projects.
“Numerous roads are being built, flyovers are being built with a lot
of money. But there is no priority for water projects,” he said.
“They are just doing the projects which are eye-catching and not the
projects which are fundamental to the people’s health and people’s
fundamental rights. Water is essential. Water is more important than
roads.”
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Abdul Qahar Afghan in Kabul contributed
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