The Water Supply Augmentation Project will benefit the 1.6 million people living in the densely populated Greater Beirut and Mount Lebanon region by significantly increasing the volume of water availability. Around 406,000 people in that live on less than US$ 4 per day.
Lebanon stores only 6% of its total water resources as compared to an average of 85% across the MENA region. The Greater Beirut and Mount Lebanon region has over 20,000 illegal wells and residents pay up to 15% of their total household expenditure on securing water to their homes. This past summer and fall, residents received less than three hours of water per day.
The project will significantly reduce the cost of securing water to households, and will directly benefit the poor. By providing a safe and sustainable alternative to groundwater wells, tanker trucks and bottled water, the project will significantly reduce the cost of water provision to beneficiaries.
A water supply dam will be constructed on the Bisri river and will store water for use during the dry period spanning April – October. The 125 million cubic meters to be stored at the dam are otherwise lost to the environment every year. The stored water will flow to Beirut entirely by gravity and will not incur pumping costs through a 26Km underground tunnel, water treatment plant and large storage tanks currently under construction.
The capacity of government agencies will be strengthened so that they are better able to manage water resources and demand as well as operate the dam in a safe and sustainable way.
Original source: World Bank.
Posted on 30 October 2017
