Water in Lebanon

Lebanon receives more rain than its neighbours in the Levant, and mountain snow sustains about 2,000 springs through the dry season.^1 2 Yet water supply at the tap is intermittent, much of the water earns no revenue, and most wastewater goes untreated.^3 4 5 A financial crisis has left the utilities short of power and money, and Lebanon hosts the world’s highest number of refugees per head of population.^6 7 8 The 2024 war damaged pumping stations, reservoirs and canals.⁹

Lebanon has long relied on its springs. South of Tyre, the karstKarst Terrain formed where underground water dissolves massive soluble limestone, typically with caves, sinkholes and underground rivers, and an absence of surface streams and lakes. Source: Karst, Encyclopædia Britannica springs of Ras al-Ain supplied the city through a system that probably dates from around 1200 BC, and an aqueduct already existed by 832 BC.¹⁰ The ruins still visible at Tyre are Roman, and UNESCO counts the aqueduct among the city’s World Heritage vestiges.^10 11 The same springs still water farms: the Ras al-Ain pools and the lower LitaniLitani Lebanon's longest and largest river, about 170 km long. It rises at the Al-Aleeq springs, ten kilometres west of Baalbek, and its water is used for hydroelectric power and for irrigation and drinking water in the Bekaa, the south and the coast. Source: Litani River Basin, Litani River Authority feed the Qasimiyah–Ras al-Ain irrigation project of the Litani River Authority.¹² Formed in 1954, the authority also runs the Qaraoun reservoir on the upper Litani, now the country’s main store of water.^13 2

Pipes reach most homes, but water often does not flow. In 2012, 79% of households were connected, yet in summer the capital area received water for as little as three hours a day, and storage equalled only 6% of total resources.³ Power shortages made matters worse. From mid-2021, the grid delivered only three to four hours of electricity a day; pumping stations and treatment works ran on diesel that the utilities could not afford, and UNICEF warned that the public water system was “on the verge of collapse”.^6 7 The 2024 war damaged water, wastewater and irrigation assets worth an estimated US$356 million.⁹ It also reached the system fed by the springs of Ras al-Ain: on 8 October 2024, the Litani River Authority reported that an Israeli airstrike had hit the main carrier of the Qasimiyah–Ras al-Ain project.¹⁴

One interactive map of Lebanon's water, built from real geodata. Climate & drought maps the aridity gradient (WorldClim) with warming projections. The Water risk layer's WRI Aqueduct indicators, 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. Shared waters outlines the transboundary river basins and aquifers that Lebanon shares with other countries, each drawn in full across the border; hover an outline for the countries that share it. Hover any sub-basin or marker for detail; sources are cited under each view.

Lebanon is small and mountainous. It covers 10,400 km², about 60 km wide and 225 km along the Mediterranean.² Four bands run north to south. A narrow coastal strip lies below the Mount Lebanon range, which peaks at 3,087 m at Qurnat as Sawda.² Behind it lies the Bekaa Valley at about 900 m, and the Anti-Lebanon range rises to 2,800 m along the Syrian border.² About 70% of the land is carbonate rock.² Coastal rivers have small catchments of about 200 km² and courses under 50 km. FAO reported in 2008 that their flow had fallen drastically over the previous three decades.²

Rainfall and snow

FAO’s 2008 profile estimated average annual rainfall at 823 mm, ranging from 700–1,000 mm on the coast and 1,500–2,000 mm in the high mountains to 400 mm in the east and under 200 mm in the north-east.² Above 2,000 m it falls mostly as snow, which helps sustain about 2,000 springs through the dry season.² FAO AQUASTAT now gives a long-term average of 661 mm a year.¹ The Fourth National Communication reports that most rain and snow fall between November and March, peaking in January at 160–180 mm a month, with 60–80 rainy days a year and more than 30 snowy days at altitude. April to October is dry.⁵ Years swing widely. Rainfall was under 500 mm in 1960–61, 2001, 2010 and 2019, and about 900 mm in 1968–70, 1994 and 2004.⁵

In the World Bank Climate Change Knowledge Portal’s ERA5 reanalysis, averaged over the whole of Lebanon, about 571 mm of rain falls in a year (1991–2020). Station records and national averages use other sources and baselines, so their figures can differ (the text cites FAO’s 823 mm in its 2008 profile and AQUASTAT’s long-term 661 mm). About 54% of the rain falls in December, January and February, and 3 months average less than 5 mm. Average rainfall in 1993–2022 was about 7% lower than in 1951–1980, and single years swing widely around that.

Temperature and trends

The coast averages 20 °C a year, from 13 °C in winter to 27 °C in summer. The Bekaa averages 16 °C, and the high mountains less than 10 °C.² Summer highs reach 30–40 °C in July and August.⁵ Annual mean temperature rose by 1.6 °C over 1901–2020, faster after 1991.⁵ Natural disasters have become more frequent since 2010. There were three times as many floods in 2015, and heatwaves grew more intense in 2020.⁵

The same reanalysis gives a mean temperature of 15.5 °C for 1991–2020 and a warming of about 0.48 °C a decade over 1971–2022. Station records and national reports use other sources and periods, so their warming rates can differ (the text cites a rise of 1.6 °C in annual mean temperature over 1901–2020 from the national communication).

Projections

Regional models project warming of 1.6–2.2 °C by mid-century and 2.2–4.9 °C by the end of the century, against 1986–2005.⁵ Under high emissions (SSP5-8.5), the CMIP6 projections the national communication cites project 10% less rainfall by mid-century and 16% less by the end of the century, against 1995–2014; its RCP projections give declines of 6.5–9% and 9–22%.⁵ For the same scenario and baseline, the World Bank portal’s CMIP6 multi-model median in the table below gives −4% for 2040–2059 and −19% for 2080–2099, so the two CMIP6 estimates differ. The incidence and extremes of heatwaves and droughts could increase about fivefold in 2041–2060.⁵ Winter floods could rise by up to 30%, while river flows fall.⁵ Mediterranean sea level is likely to be 37–90 cm higher around 2100 than at the end of the 20th century.⁵

Projected change for Lebanon

The table gives the CMIP6 multi-model median from the same World Bank portal, as change against 1995–2014. Projections cited in the text may use other models, scenarios or baselines, so their figures can differ.

Nature delivers more water than Lebanon manages to use well. FAO counts eight major aquifers with an estimated volume of 1,360 million m³.² Springs fed by mountain snow carry much of the dry-season flow.² Pressure is rising. An estimated 2.45 million people face extreme water stress, up from 2.1 million before the Syrian crisis, and 3.2 million face high stress.⁵ In 2012 the World Bank put groundwater abstraction at 0.7 BCM a year against recharge of 0.5 BCM. Well permits were not enforced, and a large number of wells were reported as illegal.³ The Litani, the national river, is also among the most polluted, as the water quality section sets out.

Supply by source

The main rivers

The table ranks the rivers of Lebanon by the largest natural flow they reach inside the country. Natural flow is the modelled long-term average before any withdrawals. For a heavily used river it measures what the river could carry, not what arrives today.

The dams on these rivers, from the FAO AQUASTAT inventory, are listed river by river under Infrastructure.

Lebanon diverts and pumps about 1.6 BCM a year, against a theoretical availability of 2.7 BCM, the World Bank estimated in 2012.³

Irrigation

Irrigation takes more than 60% of all diversions. About 90,000 ha are equipped, two-thirds of them in public schemes. Open canals and flood irrigation still cover more than 70% of that area, while sprinklers serve 21,000 ha and micro-irrigation 13,000 ha. In 2012 more than half of the schemes lacked adequate operation and maintenance.³

The Litani is the backbone. The Qaraoun Dam (see Infrastructure) irrigates about 36,000 ha in the south and 1,400 ha in the Beqaa, roughly 30% of the country’s irrigated land.¹⁹ Irrigated farming in the Beqaa itself covered about 54,000 ha in 2010.¹⁹

Use by sector

Withdrawals over time

FAO’s AQUASTAT estimates put Lebanon’s freshwater withdrawals at 751 million m³ in 1975 and 1,812 million m³ in its latest estimate (2015). In AQUASTAT’s figures agriculture’s share of total withdrawals was about 80% in 1979 and 38% in 2015.¹⁶ Over the same years AQUASTAT’s industrial estimate rose from 0.225 billion m³ (2006) to 0.9 billion m³ (2015), 49% of the 2015 total; the national water strategy puts non-domestic demand at 111 million m³ in 2020, about 8% of its total.⁴

Of the roughly 630 million m³ used for irrigation in 2020, the strategy estimates 315 million m³ from surface water and the rest from groundwater.⁴ IWMI estimates that the country has some 100,000 private wells, of which 21,800 are licensed.²¹ The strategy puts the irrigated area at around 100,000 ha in 2020, rising to 138,000 ha by 2035, with irrigation efficiency of 50–60%, to be raised to 75%.⁴ Water balances and the supply mix are under Water resources, and the public schemes and their condition under Water use.

Methods

IWMI found in 2022 that most irrigation systems were run by local committees, with historical water rights and local arrangements prevailing, and that the regional water establishments do not monitor irrigation water use.²¹

Policy and projects

The 2024–2035 strategy prioritises rehabilitating and modernising existing schemes, converting open channels to pressurised pipes and expanding on-farm modernisation and solar irrigation. It lists new dams, hill lakes and Conveyor 800 that would irrigate about 38,000 more ha.⁴ The Litani River Authority describes Conveyor 800 as under implementation, to take about 100 million m³ from Lake Qaraoun to irrigate about 15,000 ha between western Bekaa and Bint Jbeil.²⁶ The World Bank approved a US$200 million project on 29 June 2023 that includes rehabilitating selected irrigation schemes, to be built by the Green Plan.²⁷ FAO runs a project to rehabilitate the El-Bared irrigation canal in Akkar, financed by Norway.²⁸

Treated wastewater

IWMI counted 81.2 million m³ of treated wastewater in 2020, no direct reuse, and fewer than 10 ha on an implemented reuse scheme, at Ablah, which was on hold; it judged 28 million m³ fit for reuse.²¹ Only 41 of the 104 treatment plants were fully operational.²⁹ Farmers in places break sewage pipes or use polluted river water.²⁹ LIBNOR approved a Lebanese standard for water reuse in irrigation, NL 819:2024, on 18 August 2024: raw-eaten vegetables need the best class and drip irrigation only.³⁰ The strategy still lists mechanisms to enact the standard as a task, and IWMI noted in October 2024 that it had not been issued officially.^4 29 Wastewater plants are under Infrastructure; irrigation and reuse projects across the region are on the Agriculture & Food hub.

The Qaraoun Reservoir on the upper Litani is the main store of water. It holds about 220 million m³, of which 160 million m³ is effective storage.² The World Bank describes the 160 million m³ as used for irrigation and hydropower, at Awali, Joun and Markaba, with the rest held for the dry season.¹⁹ It feeds three hydroelectric plants that meet about 7–10% of power needs.² The Shabrouh dam near Faraya, inaugurated in 2007, adds 8 million m³ for Kesrouan and parts of Metn.² Storage equals only 6% of total resources, against a regional average of 85%, the World Bank reported in 2012.³ The Lebanese Strategy for Surface Water Storage proposed US$3 billion of new storage.³

Tracked projects

Open the project database for Lebanon

Water for Beirut

Under a 1970 presidential decree, Lake Qaraoun supplies 3 m³/s of drinking water to Greater Beirut from April to October.¹³ In December 2010 the World Bank approved US$200 million for the Greater Beirut Water Supply Project.¹³ It was designed to add 250,000 m³ a day and, for the first time, to bring surface water to Beirut from the Awali River.¹³ The Wardanieh treatment plant was 78% built by October 2024 but unfinished when the project closed, because of the regional conflict.¹³ A follow-on project aims to raise dry-season demand coverage in the served zones from 24% to more than 70%.¹³

Wastewater

Lebanon generates about 310 million m³ of wastewater a year, FAO estimated, but treated only 4 million m³ in 2006.² In 2012 only two of twelve large coastal treatment plants were operating. Four major plants, at Tripoli, Chekka, Batroun and Nabi Younes, stood idle for lack of collection networks.³ In 2019, by the national communication’s figures, 53% of wastewater was discharged untreated to rivers, lakes or the sea, 13% received primary and 6% secondary treatment.⁵ By the World Bank’s 2025 damage assessment, only 6–7% of wastewater was treated before the 2024 war; the assessment does not give the level of treatment, so its figure is a different measure from the 2019 shares.⁹ By July 2024 only 8 of 13 treatment plants were working, mostly with donor support.¹³ Power cuts have repeatedly shut plants and sent raw sewage into rivers.⁵

Networks and losses

Pipes reach most homes, but water often does not. In 2012, 79% of households were connected and unaccounted-for water averaged 48%. In summer the capital area received water for as little as three hours a day.³ The 2024–2035 national water strategy puts non-revenue water at a national average of about 50%. That excludes water billed but never paid for; counting it, the figure rises to around 65%.⁴ The Beirut and Mount Lebanon establishment estimates its own non-revenue water at around 40%, mostly commercial losses from unregistered users and misclassified accounts. It has no customer-level metering, so the figure is uncertain.¹³ The strategy aims to cut non-revenue water by 25 percentage points by 2035, and to meter 15% of domestic connections by 2029 and 40% by 2035.⁴ The second Beirut project will install at least 40,000 household smart meters.¹³

War damage since 2023

The 2024 war damaged water, wastewater and irrigation assets worth an estimated US$356 million. Recovery needs reach US$508 million.⁹ In the areas assessed, 58% of pumping stations and 64% of community distribution reservoirs were damaged or destroyed. So were three wastewater treatment plants and 77 km of irrigation canals.⁹ On 8 October 2024 an Israeli airstrike hit the main carrier of the Qasimiyah–Ras al-Ain irrigation project.¹⁴ Hostilities intensified sharply again from 2 March 2026. The UN flash appeal sought US$40 million for water and sanitation, warning that damage and fuel shortages at pumping stations put safe water at risk.³¹

Dams and reservoirs

The Litani is Lebanon’s principal river and among its most polluted: large stretches of it and of Lake Qaraoun are polluted. In 2010 the Beqaa generated an estimated 45 million m³ of municipal wastewater a year, most of it discharged untreated into the river. Industry added about 4 million m³. Of the 294 industrial establishments in the region, 120 were large-scale plants within 400 m of the river, its tributaries or the lake. Farmers applied pesticides at almost twice the recommended rates.¹⁹

The response has lagged. A US$55 million World Bank loan for Lake Qaraoun was signed on 2 September 2016, and Law 63 of 27 October 2016 allocated appropriations for projects to combat pollution in the Litani basin, from source to mouth, to be implemented over seven years. A mid-term review in March 2020 found only 18 of 441 km of planned sewers built and just 168 of 9,150 houses connected. Sewage from 69 towns, about 47 million m³ a year, still reached the river and the lake.³² Beyond the Litani, untreated sewage severely pollutes the Nahr el Kabir on the Syrian border, and olive-oil residues threaten the Hasbani.^33 34

Toxic blooms in the reservoir

Lake Qaraoun now suffers annual blooms of potentially toxic cyanobacteria.³⁵ A toxin-producing species was first reported there in 2009.³⁶ During the blooms of 2019 and 2020 researchers identified eleven microcystins in water and fish samples, with MC-LR reaching 211 µg/L.³⁷

Cholera returns

On 6 October 2022 Lebanon notified the WHO of two confirmed cholera cases, the first outbreak since 1993 and six weeks after Syria declared its own. Vibrio cholerae was found in drinking-water sources, irrigation water and sewage.³⁸ By the end of the outbreak in June 2023 the WHO counted 8,007 suspected cases, 671 confirmed by laboratory and 23 deaths.³⁹ A peer-reviewed study by ministry and WHO authors reports 8,072 cases.⁴⁰ In September 2024 the Litani River Authority found cholera bacteria at two upper-Litani sampling points. A new case was confirmed in Akkar that October.^41 39

The reported indicators

Lebanon shares three river systems. Each carries a different history: a crisis over the Hasbani, an allocation on the Orontes and a joint dam on the Nahr el Kabir that was never built.

The Hasbani and the Wazzani springs

The 1955 Johnston Plan allotted Lebanon 35 MCM a year of the Jordan basin. The Arab League rejected ratification that October.³⁴ In 1964–65 Arab states moved to divert the Hasbani and Banias headwaters to the Yarmouk, and Israel bombed the works in 1965.³⁴ The Hasbani carried 122 MCM a year on average between 1944 and 2008, and as little as 30 MCM in 1989–90.³⁴

Israel held the Wazzani springs until it withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000. In March 2001 the Council of the South installed two small pumps there. An official called them the first step towards liberating Lebanon’s water.⁴² A larger station followed in 2002, designed to supply 13 villages with 4.4 MCM a year.³⁴ On 10 September 2002 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the plan a casus belli.⁴³ Lebanon said it would take less than 10 million m³ and wanted the dispute settled in a UN framework. President Lahoud said the project would continue.^44 45 US, UN and EU mediation failed. The station opened in 2002. Power shortages and poor maintenance kept abstraction to at most 2.45 MCM a year, the ministry reported in 2011.³⁴ By the ministry’s figure, Lebanon abstracts almost 7 MCM a year from the Hasbani sub-basin, river and wells together, 4.2 MCM of it for irrigation; UN-ESCWA estimates total use at 9 to 10 MCM.³⁴ In February 2024 Xinhua reported that Israeli strikes had damaged the station’s electrical equipment and pumps and halted pumping, and a May 2025 report found the Wazzani intake still out of service.^46 47

The Orontes

A first Lebanon–Syria water agreement in 1972 never entered into force. The 1991 Treaty of Fraternity created a joint committee for shared water.⁴⁸ In September 1994 the two states divided the Orontes water originating in Lebanon. Lebanon received 80 MCM a year and Syria the remaining 323 MCM, provided resources inside Lebanon reach 400 MCM. The UN-ESCWA inventory notes that the agreement’s terms were deemed unfavourable to Lebanon; a 1997 annex identified four sub-basins and a main spring to be excluded from Lebanon’s 80 MCM share. A 2001 amendment allowed Lebanon to build a dam on the river.⁴⁸ Lebanon’s water use from the Orontes is estimated at 21 MCM a year.⁴⁸ Mean flow at Hermel was 410 MCM a year between 1932 and 2010, and in 2013 UN-ESCWA described cooperation on the river as strong.⁴⁸

The Nahr el Kabir

The Nahr el Kabir is 77.8 km long and forms much of the northern border between Lebanon and Syria. Lebanon holds 26% of its 954 km² basin.³³ After eight years of talks, an April 2002 agreement drew on the UN Watercourses Convention. It split the annual yield 40% to Lebanon and 60% to Syria, and provided for a joint dam near Noura al Tahta storing 70 MCM, with costs shared equally.³³ Tenders followed in 2003 and 2011, and both governments released study funds in August 2011. The war in Syria then stalled the work.³³

The record

Shared river basins

The agreements

Shared aquifers

• Anti-Lebanon Mountain rangeSyria · data moderate
• Eocene AquiferIsrael · data limited

Law No. 221 of 2000 organises the sector under the Ministry of Energy and Water.² Four regional Water Establishments, for North Lebanon, Beirut-Mount Lebanon, Bekaa and South Lebanon, run supply and wastewater.⁹ They set tariffs and rely on their own funds, without central budget support.¹³ The Litani River Authority, formed in 1954, governs the Litani basin.¹³ The crisis has hollowed out staff. The Beirut-Mount Lebanon establishment employed 782 of 1,120 authorised staff in 2020, and its workforce has fallen sharply since.¹³

Strategy

The government issued a National Water Sector Strategy in March 2012.³ An update followed in 2020, and the current strategy runs from 2024 to 2035.^5 13 It aims to improve water security, service delivery, utility finances and governance.¹³ Lebanon’s 2025 NDC names water services, including irrigation, as its third adaptation priority.⁴⁹ The Water Code requires homes not connected to sewers to pay a wastewater fee, as a kind of pollution tax.⁵

Tariffs

Households pay a flat yearly fee for 1 m³ a day, which gives no reason to save water.³ The economic crisis cut its value from about US$200 to under US$20.¹³ After adjustments it stood at about US$150 a year in 2024.⁹ Even so, the sector lost 16% of accrued revenue a year.⁹ Irrigation shows another model. In 2012 the World Bank reported that farmers served by the Litani River Authority paid their bills, with collection rates of 97%.³

Lebanon’s water problem is institutional before it is hydrological. The country has relatively abundant water resources compared with most of its neighbours, yet much of its water earns no revenue and most wastewater goes untreated (see Infrastructure).^4 5 Climate change will tighten the margin, with higher temperatures, less rain and snow, more frequent droughts and larger winter floods (see Geography & climate).⁵

The fixes are known: power for pumps and plants, working meters and collections, and a finished conveyor for Beirut. The 2024–2035 strategy and the second Beirut project point that way.¹³ Whether they deliver depends on staff, tariffs and a stable grid, all of which the crisis has eroded.