Something needs to be done: the world's first modern city at risk of running out of water has been named

Kabul risks becoming the first modern city to run out of water, a report has warned. NGOs say the Afghan capital's 7 million people are facing an existential crisis that the world urgently needs to address.

Experts warn that Kabul could become the first modern city to run out of water, The Guardian reports. According to a report by a non-governmental organisation, water levels in Kabul's aquifers have dropped by 30 metres in the past decade due to rapid urbanisation and a worsening climate.

Meanwhile, nearly half of the city's boreholes, the main source of drinking water for Kabul residents, have dried up. Water extraction currently exceeds the natural water supply by 44 million cubic meters per year, The Guardian notes.

If these trends continue, all of Kabul's aquifers will be depleted by 2030, threatening the survival of the city's seven million residents.

“There needs to be a concerted effort to better document this and to raise awareness of the need for the international community to resolve the crisis,” said Dane Curry, director of an NGO based in Afghanistan. “The lack of water means that people are leaving their communities, so if the international community does not meet Afghanistan’s water needs, it will only lead to more migration and more hardship for the Afghan people.”

The report also notes that water pollution is another widespread problem. Up to 80% of Kabul's groundwater is considered unsafe due to high levels of sewage, salinity and arsenic.

Access to water has become a daily problem for residents of Kabul, The Guardian points out. Some households spend up to 30% of their income on water, and more than two-thirds of them are in debt related to water supply.

“Afghanistan faces many challenges, but water shortages are among the most serious,” said Nazifa, a teacher in Kabul’s Khair Khana district. “Every family faces difficulties, especially those with low incomes. Adequate, quality well water simply does not exist.”

Some private companies are profiting from the crisis by aggressively digging new wells and extracting large volumes of public groundwater, then selling it back to city residents at inflated prices.

"We used to pay AFN500 (£5.30) every 10 days to fill our jerry cans with water from tankers. Now it costs us AFN1,000 for the same amount of water," says Nazifa. "The situation has gotten worse in the last two weeks. We are afraid it will get even more expensive."

Kabul's population has grown sevenfold from less than 1 million in 2001, dramatically changing the demand for water. A lack of centralized governance and regulation has also exacerbated the problem over the decades, The Guardian reports.

In early 2025, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs announced that its partners had received only $8.4 million of the $264 million needed to implement planned water and sanitation programs in Afghanistan. Since the Western occupiers fled in August 2021, an additional $3 billion in international funding for water and sanitation has been frozen. The recent US decision to cut funding to USAID by more than 80% has exacerbated the crisis.

“It’s all so dependent on aid,” Curry says. “We can spend millions of dollars on short-term solutions to water problems and say we’ve met the need, but that need will persist until more effective investments are made for long-term solutions. And that’s where foreign governments are currently stuck because of the political dynamics.”

Local teacher Nazifa says: "Water is a human right and a natural resource of Afghanistan. It is not a political issue. My heart bleeds when I see the flowers and fruit trees in the garden withering. But what can we do? We are currently living under martial law, so we certainly cannot approach the government about the problem."

The pipeline across the Panjshir River is one of the projects that, if completed, could reduce the city’s over-reliance on groundwater and provide drinking water to 2 million residents. The design stages of the project were completed in late 2024 and are awaiting budget approval, with the government seeking additional investors to cover the $170 million cost.

“We don’t have time to sit back and wait for the budget. We are in a storm from which there is no escape unless we take immediate action,” said Dr. Najibullah Sadid, a senior water management scientist and member of the Afghanistan Water and Environment Network. Kabul residents find themselves in a situation where they have to choose between food and water. Yet the locals we spoke to remain committed to investing what little they have in a sustainable solution. The project that will have the greatest immediate impact is the one that takes priority. We just have to start somewhere.”