Water supply and sanitation in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World... : Water and Sanitation

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|-
!align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="3"|Data
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Water coverage (narrow definition)
|valign="top"| 97% in urban areas (1993)
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Sanitation coverage
|valign="top"| n/a
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Continuity of supply (%)
|valign="top"| n/a
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Average urban water use (l/c/d)
|valign="top"| 235
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Average urban water tariff (US$/m3)
|valign="top"| 0.08
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of household metering
|valign="top"| Low
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Annual investment in water supply and sanitation
|valign="top"| US$ 200/capita and year (Estimated needs for 2002-2022)
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of self-financing by utilities
|valign="top"| Nil
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of tax-financing
|valign="top"| High
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Share of external financing
|valign="top"| Low
|-
!align="center" bgcolor="lightblue" colspan="3"|Institutions
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Decentralization
|valign="top"| No
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|National water and sanitation company
|valign="top"| National Water Company (NWC)
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Water and sanitation regulator
|valign="top"| None
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Responsibility for policy setting
|valign="top"| Ministry of Water and Electricity (MOWE)
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Sector law
|valign="top"| No
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Number of service providers
|valign="top"| One (National Water Company) with management contracts for specific cities
|-
|}

Water supply and sanitation in Saudi Arabia is characterized by significant investments in seawater desalination, water distribution, sewerage and wastewater treatment leading to a substantial increase in access to drinking water and sanitation over the past decades. About 50% of drinking water comes from desalination, 40% from the mining of non-renewable groundwater and 10% from surface water, especially in the mountainous South-West of the country. The capital Riyadh

Riyadh

Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of Riyadh Province, and belongs to the historical regions of Najd and Al-Yamama. It is situated in the center of the Arabian Peninsula on a large plateau, and is home to 5,254,560 people, and the urban center of a...

, located in the heart of the country, is supplied with desalinated water pumped from the Persian Gulf over a distance of 467 km. Given the substantial oil wealth

Economy of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia has an oil-based economy with strong government control over major economic activities. Saudi Arabia possesses 18% of the world's proven petroleum reserves, ranks as the largest exporter of petroleum, and plays a leading role in OPEC, although its influence has waned in recent...

, water is provided almost for free. Despite improvements service quality remains poor. For example, in Riyadh water was available only once every 2.5 days in 2011, while in Jeddah it is available only every 9 days. Institutional capacity and governance

Governance

Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...

in the sector are weak, reflecting general characteristics of the public sector in Saudi Arabia. Since 2000, the government has increasingly relied on the private sector to operate water and sanitation infrastructure, beginning with desalination and wastewater treatment plants. Since 2008, the operation of urban water distribution systems is being gradually delegated to private companies as well.

Access

There are no reliable and up-to-date data on access to drinking water supply

Water supply

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...

and sanitation

Sanitation

Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...

in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

.

According to the WHO

Who

Who may refer to:* Who , an English-language pronoun* who , a Unix command* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism- Art and entertainment :* Who? , a 1958 novel by Algis Budrys...

, the latest reliable source is the 1993 census. It indicates that in urban areas, where 88% of the population lives, 97% had access to drinking water from house connections and 100% had access to improved sanitation. Urban sanitation was primarily through on-site solutions and only 43% of the urban population was connected to sewers. In rural areas, however, only 63% had access to an improved source of water supply. There are no reliable figures on access to sanitation in rural areas.
However, according to a 2004 study of Elie Elhadj from the School of Oriental and African Studies “one half of Saudi householders still have no municipal water connections and two thirds are without sanitation connections”. Also, Saudi cities have no rainwater drainage systems to deal with the brief and occasional, but severe deluges of winters.

Service quality

Drinking water. The quality of service remains below the standards of OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organisation of 34 countries founded in 1961 to stimulate economic progress and world trade...

countries. For example, the discontinuity of service is a serious problem. Few cities enjoy continued service, and water pressure is often inadequate. In Riyadh water was available only once every 2.5 days in 2011, while in Jeddah it is available only every 9 days. This is still better than in 2008, when the respective figures were 5 and 23 days. While systematic data on service quality are now available for several cities, they are not publicly available.

Most desalination plants in Saudi Arabia use distillation technologies, such as multi-stage flash distillation, which remove all minerals from the water. The water thus needs to receive post-treatment to add minerals before it is being distributed.

Wastewater. There are 33 wastewater treatment plants with a capacity of 748 million cubic meters per year, and 15 more are under construction. Much of the treated wastewater is being reused

Reclaimed water

Reclaimed water or recycled water, is former wastewater that is treated to remove solids and certain impurities, and used in sustainable landscaping irrigation or to recharge groundwater aquifers...

to water green spaces in the cities (landscaping), for irrigation

Irrigation

Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...

in agriculture and other uses.

Concentrated sewage from septic tanks is collected through trucks. In Jeddah the trucks dumped sewage for 25 years in a valley that was euphemistically called the "Musk Lake". The pond, holding more than 50 million cubic meters of sewage, almost overflowed during heavy rains in November 2009 threatening to flood parts of the city. After that, the King ordered the lake to be dried up within a year with the help of the National Water Company.

Water use

Total municipal water use in Saudi Arabia has been estimated at 2.1 cubic kilometers per year in 2004, or 9% of total water use. Agriculture accounts for 88% of water use and industry for only 3%. Demand has been growing at the rate of 4.3% per annum (average for the period 1999-2004), in tandem with urban population growth (around 3%). Water supply is usually not metered

Water metering

Water metering is the process of measuring water use through water meters.- Prevalence :Water metering is common for residential and commercial drinking water supply in many countries, as well as for industrial self-supply with water. However, it is less common in irrigated agriculture, which is...

, neither at the source nor the distribution point. It is tentatively estimated that average water consumption for those connected to the network is about 235 liters per capita per day, a level lower than in the United States

Water supply and sanitation in the United States

Issues that affect water supply and sanitation in the United States include water scarcity, pollution, a backlog of investment, concerns about the affordability of water for the poorest, and a rapidly retiring workforce...

.

Water reuse in Saudi Arabia is growing, both at the level of buildings and at the level of cities. For example, ablution

Wudu

Wuḍhu is the Islamic procedure for washing parts of the body using water often in preparation for formal prayers...

water in mosques is being reused for the flushing of toilets. At the city level, treated wastewater

Wastewater

Wastewater is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. It comprises liquid waste discharged by domestic residences, commercial properties, industry, and/or agriculture and can encompass a wide range of potential contaminants and concentrations...

is being reused for landscaping, irrigation and in industries such as refining. In Riyadh 50 million cubic meter per year is pumped over 40 km and 60m elevation to irrigate 15,000 hectares of wheat, fodder, orchards and palm trees.

Water conservation measures, such as awareness campaigns through the media and educational pamphlets, have been carried out. In addition, in Riyadh a leakage control program has been carried out and a special, higher water tariff has been introduced. Furthermore free water appliances (taps, shower heads, toilet boxes) were distributed, reportedly resulting in a decrease of residential water use of between 25-35%.

An unknown, but large proportion of the population is dependent on supply through water tankers. For example, Riyadh experiences water shortages and intermittent supply, especially during the summer peak demand. To cope with the shortage, 18 million cubic meters of water was distributed during one summer by private contractors. With the commissioning of a new large well field at Al Honai this problem has been reduced.

Water resources

Saudi Arabia is one of the driest regions in the world, with no perennial rivers. Water is obtained from four distinct sources:

non-renewable groundwater
Groundwater
Groundwater is water located beneath the ground surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated deposit is called an aquifer when it can yield a usable quantity of water. The depth at which soil pore spaces or fractures and voids in rock...

from the deep fossil aquifers
Fossil water
Fossil water or paleowater is groundwater that has remained sealed in an aquifer for a long period of time. Water can rest underground in "fossil aquifers" for thousands or even millions of years...
desalinated water
surface water
renewable groundwater from shallow alluvial aquifers

Only the last two sources are renewable. Their volume, however, is minimal. Current levels of groundwater extraction far exceed the level of natural recharge: Groundwater is being “mined”. For example, the Al-Ahsa

Al-Hasa

Al-Ahsa is the largest governorate in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, named after Al-Ahsa oasis. The name Al-Ahsa is also given to the biggest city in the region, Hofuf. In classic Arabic, Ahsa means the sound of water underground. It has one of the largest oases in the world with Date Palms of...

aquifer in the Eastern Province experienced a drop of 150 meters over the past 25 years. Since the usable volume of the aquifers is not known, it is not clear how long groundwater mining can be sustained.

Overview of water resources

Fossil aquifers. Estimates of the groundwater stored in the principal aquifers are controversial. Ongoing resource assessments are expected to provide reliable estimates of the volume of water left in storage in each aquifer, and estimates of the portion of that volume that can be extracted on a sustainable basis.

Desalination. In 2004 the volume of water supplied by the country’s 30 government-operated desalination plants reached 1.1 cubic kilometres. 6 plants are located on the East Coast and 24 plants on the Red Sea Coast. By the year 2009, new plants will add an additional 0.58 cubic kilometres of water per year. Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of desalinated water in the world. In 2010 the largest floating desalination plant in the world with production capacity of 25,000 cubic meters per day (9 million cubic metres/year) was launched on a barge in Yanbu. While this capacity is just a small fraction of total installed desalination capacity, it is sufficient to supply a city with more than 100,000 inhabitants with drinking water. Just like smaller desalination barges that operate since 2008 they are designed to meet high seasonal demand for potable water anywhere along the Red Sea coast of the Kingdom.

Surface water and alluvial aquifers. The country’s mean annual surface runoff has been estimated at more than 2 billion cubic meters per year. The country has eleven renewable alluvial aquifers with an estimated combined mean annual recharge of nearly 1 billion cubic meters per year. According to the World Resources Institute the renewable groundwater and surface water resources overlap, i.e. the entire renewable groundwater resources originate in recharge from rivers (Wadi

Wadi

Wadi is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some cases, it may refer to a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain or simply an intermittent stream.-Variant names:...

s) so that total renewable water resources are in the order of 2 cubic kilometres/year.
Surface resources and renewable aquifers are concentrated in the west and southwest, where rainfall is higher.

Sources of water for municipal supply

Desalination plants provide about half the country’s drinking water. About 40% comes from groundwater. The remainder comes from surface water (about 10%). Desalinated water is prevalent along the coasts, surface water in the southwest region and groundwater elsewhere. The capital Riyadh

Riyadh

, however, is supplied to a great extent with desalinated water pumped from the Persian Gulf over 467 km to the city located in the heart of the country.

History and recent developments

The Saudi water sector, like the entire country, has undergone tremendous changes over the past decades from a system based on the use of local renewable water resources for small-scale irrigation and limited domestic uses to a system largely based on the use of desalinated water and fossil groundwater for large-scale irrigation and domestic, commercial and industrial uses at a level comparable to developed countries. The Saline Water Conversion Corporation, created in 1965, has been an important player in this process of change.

Until 1994 domestic water use was entirely free in Saudi Arabia. Only then a very moderate tariff has been introduced.

The main public institutions in charge of overseeing this transformation were, until 2003, two separate Ministries: The Ministry of Agricultural and Water was in charge of irrigation and water resources management; and the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs was in charge of water supply and sanitation. With the creation of the Ministry of Water and Electricity in 2003 the water functions from these two Ministries were transferred to this new Ministry, which is now the sole Ministry in charge of the water sector in the country. In the same year the Water & Electricity Company was created as an off-taker for water and electricity produced by privately owned combined power and desalination plants.

The government has launched an ambitious program to promote the participation of the private sector in the water sector, beginning with desalination and wastewater treatment through BOT

Build-Operate-Transfer

Build-own-operate-transfer or build-operate-transfer is a form of project financing, wherein a private entity receives a concession from the private or public sector to finance, design, construct, and operate a facility stated in the concession contract...

contracts in the early 2000s and expanded to water distribution in 2008 when the Kingdom's first management contract was signed for the capital Riyadh.

Responsibility for water supply and sanitation

Until the establishment of the National Water Company (NWC) in 2008 there was no separation between institutions in charge of policy and regulation on the one hand, and service provision on the other. Instead all key sector functions were the direct responsibility of a single Ministry, the Ministry of Water and Electricity.

The quality and efficiency of service provision are hampered by the many weaknesses afflicting the public sector in Saudi Arabia in general. These include an inadequate civil servants recruitment policy, insufficient salaries, limited skills, no accountability

Accountability

Accountability is a concept in ethics and governance with several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and other terms associated with the expectation of account-giving...

for action taken (or not taken), a lack of strategic planning, and ad-hoc investment decisions.

Policy and regulation

Since 2003 the Ministry of Water and Electricity (MOWE) is responsible for policy and regulation of water and sanitation services. There is no separate regulatory agency for the sector. The recently established Electricity and Co-generation Regulatory Authority (ECRA) only regulates privately owned desalination plants. The functions of the Ministry of Agriculture overlap with those of MOWE, since agriculture is by far the main water user in the country and contributes in the depletion of fossil aquifers on which a large share of the country’s drinking water supply depends. There is also some overlap between the two Ministries in the area of wastewater reuse. There is no Ministry of Environment in Saudi Arabia.

Service provision

The responsibility for service provision is shared by the private and public sectors. Private companies operate the water infrastructure in the largest cities - Riyadh, Jeddah as well as (from January 2011) onwards Mecca and Taif - under management contracts with the National Water Company (NWC). The sewerage system remains under public management, while many wastewater treatment plants are run by private companies under BOT

Build-Operate-Transfer

contracts. The older desalination plants are run by the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), while newer desalination plants are run by private companies under a concept known as Integrated Water and Power Plants (IWPPs) under which the public Water & Energy Co. acts as an off-taker.

MOWE had 13 regional directorates that were further divided into 47 branches, each differing greatly in size and geographical coverage. Local government, which in charge of service provision in most countries of the world, has no role in service provision in Saudi Arabia.

The National Water Company

The National Water Company (NWC) oversees management contracts for water supply provision in the largest cities of the country. It also plans and oversees infrastructure projects. When it was created in 2008 the government announced it would take over service provision in a period of "three to five years". As of 2011 it is in charge of Riyadh

Riyadh

, Jeddah

Jeddah

Jeddah, Jiddah, Jidda, or Jedda is a city located on the coast of the Red Sea and is the major urban center of western Saudi Arabia. It is the largest city in Makkah Province, the largest sea port on the Red Sea, and the second largest city in Saudi Arabia after the capital city, Riyadh. The...

, Mecca

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

and Taif. It is expected to take over Medina

Medina

Medina , or ; also transliterated as Madinah, or madinat al-nabi "the city of the prophet") is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, and...

in 2011, as well as Damman and Al-Khobar in 2013. MOWE estimated in 2008 that some shares of NWC would be offered in an IPO "at some point in the future". According to its Strategic Plan, NWC plans to become a "leading water utility in the region" within 4 to 7 years after its creation. NWC's twelve-member Board is chaired by the Minister of Water and Electrity and includes the CEO of the company.

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), an entity under the authority of the Ministry, is in charge of operating the country’s 30 publicly-owned desalination plants and operating a network of pumping stations, reservoirs and 2300 miles (3,701.5 km) of pipes to transport the water in bulk from the plants to the major consumption centers, some of them located far inland such as Riyadh

Riyadh

. SWCC is not an independent company run on commercial principles, but rather a branch of the government. Its water is provided for free to the branches of MOWE and to NWC. SWCC has a research department and a training center. In 2008 the government announced plans to "privatize" SWCC by transforming it in a holding company. The holding company would initially supervise affiliated production firms that would run the desalination plants. Subsequently it would sell off the firms and include the private sector in a way similar to what has been done with the Independent Water and Power Projects (see below). The first plant to be privatized would be in Yanbu. However, the plants have subsequently been modified: The Yanbu 1 and 2 plants will continue to be operated by SWCC, and the Yanbu plant will be built by a private company, but operated by SWCC.

Independent Water and Power Producers for desalination

Since the early 2000s, Saudi Arabia has invited the private sector not only to build, but also to finance and operate new desalination plants. An example is the Shoaiba III Independent Water and Power Prdoducer (IWPP), which is the country's largest desalination plant with a production capacity of 150 million cubic meters per year, built at a cost of US$ 1.06 billion and completed in 2005. It is located on the Red Sea and provides water to Jiddah, Mecca

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

and Taif. A Water and Energy Corporation (WEC) has been established as an off-taker that would buy the water from the IWPP. The government fully guarantees the payments due from WEC to IWPP. This follows the example of the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

countries, which had introduced IWPPs several years earlier.

Saudi Arabia plans to launch ten IWPPs by 2016 at a total investment of $16 billion. The first phase of this plan, to be completed by 2009 at an approximate cost of US$7.3 billion, will consist of three IWPPs:

Shuqaiq, Phase II - a US$2.5 billion project to produce 850 MW (1020 MW gross) of electricity and 212,000 cubic meters (216,000 gross cubic meter per day) of desalinated water per day. Shuqaiq II will be modeled after the Shoaiba III IWPP project, with similar guarantees and a 20-year power and water purchase agreement (PWPA).
Ras Azzour - a US$2.4 billion project to produce 2,500 MW of power and 176 million gallons of desalinated water per day.
Jubail
Jubail
Jubail , is a city in the Eastern province on the Persian Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia. It consists of the Old Town of Al Jubail, which was originally a small fishing village, up to 1975 and the new industrial area....

, Phase III – The project will produce 1,100 MW of electricity and 25,000 gallons of desalinated water per day.

The Water & Energy Company

The Water & Energy Company, created in 2003, is the off-taker for desalined water produced by privately operated desalination plants. It is jointly owned by SWCC and the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC).

BOTs for wastewater treatment plants

In May 2002 the first wastewater BOT

Build-Operate-Transfer

contract in Saudi Arabia was awarded to a consortium of local firms. The consortium would rehabilitate, operate, maintain and upgrade the wastewater system of the Jeddah

Jeddah

Industrial City over a period of 20 years and invest US$32 million. The government has awarded many more BOT wastewater treatment contracts since then.

Management contracts for water distribution

The National Water Company (NWC) contracts out water distribution services for individual cities to the private sector under management contracts. One key objective usually is to improve service continuity. The contracts are preceded by one-year quick-win technical assistance contracts. Once signed, they include a further 1-2 year validation period during which the baseline and target data for key performance indicators are being reviewed. In April 2008 the first management contract of the Kingdom, covering six years and valued at $60m, was awarded to the French firm Veolia for the capital for Riyadh

Riyadh

. It was followed by the award of a seven-year contract to the French firm SUEZ

SUEZ

Suez S.A. was a leading French-based multinational corporation headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, with operations primarily in water, electricity and natural gas supply, and waste management. Suez was result of a 1997 merger between the Compagnie de Suez and Lyonnaise des Eaux, a...

for Jeddah

Jeddah

. An important objective is to improve the continuity of supply. Tariff levels will not be affected. The scope of the contracts includes training and qualifying Saudi nationals, as well as research and development with the aim to transfer technology. In June 2010 a $46m five-year management contract for Mecca

Mecca

Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...

and Taif was awarded to the French firm Saur. As required by Saudi law Saur's team working in Mecca consists entirely of Muslims. Further management contracts are expected to be tendered for Medina

Medina

and Greater Dammam

Dammam

Dammam is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the most oil-rich region in the world. The judicial and administrative bodies of the province and several government departments are located in the city. Dammam is the largest city in the Eastern Province and third largest in Saudi...

Efficiency

The operational efficiency of water and sanitation services is typically measured through the level of non-revenue water and the ratio of staff per 1,000 connections.

Because of the low level of metering it is difficult to estimate the level of non-revenue water

Non-revenue water

Non revenue water is water that has been produced and is “lost” before it reaches the customer. Losses can be real losses or apparent losses . High levels of NRW are detrimental to the financial viability of water utilities, as well to the quality of water itself...

in Saudi Arabia. Only in the case of Riyadh

Riyadh

, where meters exist, a meaningful estimate has been done, resulting in an estimated 58% of non-revenue water. It is broken down into 21% physical losses; 13% commercial losses from undermetering, illegal connections and authorized unbilled consumption such as for mosques; and 24% billed consumption that is not being paid. The overall level is high by international standards.

A recent benchmarking study showed that the regional directorates are employing 10,500 people to serve 5.7 million customers. This corresponds to about 10 staff per 1,000 connections, which is more than three times higher than in the case of efficiently run utilities. The actual number of people employed in service provision is even higher because many directorates contract out specific services.

Tariffs and cost recovery

Tariffs. Average water tariffs

Water tariff

A water tariff is a price assigned to water supplied by a public utility through a piped network to its customers. The term is also often applied to wastewater tariffs...

range from US$0.06 to US$0.10/m3, which are among the lowest in the world. The Kingdom has an increasing block tariff structure, but the majority of the consumers fall in the first two blocks where water charges are minimal. Customers with a water use of less than 100 cubic meter per month pay only 0.1 Riyals/m3 (US$0.03/m3). In other countries where increasing-block tariffs are used, the lifeline consumption benefiting from a lower tariff level is typically set at 20 cubic meters per month or less. The tariff level and structure, combined with a low share of metering, provide little or no incentive to conserve water. Proposals for water tariff adjustments have been formulated, most recently through a study by a Saudi think tank, the Al-Aghar Group in partnership the Bushnak Academy, presented at the Saudi Water and Power Forum 2010. But so far no decision has been taken.

A cubic meter of water supplied by a water tanker may cost as much as 6 Riyals (US$ 1.50), or about 20 times more than water supplied through the network. The combination of low tariffs for those connected and low coverage forces non-served citizens, which are often poor, to pay up to 40 times more for water than connected households. The monthly water bill is about 1 Riyal (US$0.27), compared to an average mobile phone bill of 200 Riyals.

Cost recovery and subsidies. Few – if any – of the regional branches of MOWE have sufficient revenues to recover costs, despite the fact that they receive desalinated water for free. For example, the Riyadh branch – probably one of the best performing branches - had revenues of 370 million Riyals in 2004, but expenses of 570 million Riyals. On average, "the government is only recovering one or two percent of its costs, and the (subsidy) plans are benefiting the rich, not the poor", according to Adil Bushnak. There is no recovery at all of the cost of wastewater collection and treatment. According to a 2000 estimate by the World Bank, the government paid annual subsidies of US$3.2 billion, equivalent to 1.7% of GDP and 7% of oil revenues.

Investment and financing

All investment for water and sanitation, including desalination, is funded directly by the central government’s budget. The 7th and 8th Development Plans (covering the periods 2000-2005 and 2006-2010 respectively) allocations for water (including irrigation), covering a period of ten years, amounted to Saudi Riyal 34.9 billion (US$9.2 billion) and Saudi Riyal 41.6 billion (US$11.1 billion) respectively, equivalent to US$ 2 billion per year.

It has been estimated that between 1975 and 2000 a total of more than US$100bn has been invested in water supply and sanitation, and that a further US$130bn will be needed between 2002 and 2022, corresponding to US$6.5 billion per year or more than US$200 per capita and year. This level of investment in water per capita is among the highest in the world, higher than in the US, the UK or Germany, due to the high cost of desalination and the need to transport water over long distances. It corresponds to about 1.5% of GDP.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Access

Service quality

Water use

Water resources

Overview of water resources

Sources of water for municipal supply

History and recent developments

Responsibility for water supply and sanitation

Policy and regulation

Service provision

The National Water Company

The Saline Water Conversion Corporation

Independent Water and Power Producers for desalination

The Water & Energy Company

BOTs for wastewater treatment plants

Management contracts for water distribution

Efficiency

Tariffs and cost recovery

Investment and financing

Further reading

External links