page_title: Water supply and sanitation in Lebanon
section_title: Example: Greater Beirut water supply
hierarchical_section_title: Water supply and sanitation in Lebanon / Water resources and water use / Example: Greater Beirut water supply
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the western part of the bay of Saint George in Beirut with snow-capped Mount Sannine in the background.
context_page_description: Water supply and sanitation in Lebanon is characterized by a number of achievements and challenges. The achievements include the reconstruction of infrastructure after the 1975–90 Civil War and the 2006 war with Israel, as well as the reform of the water and sanitation sector through a water law passed in 2000. The law created four Regional Water Establishments to consolidate numerous smaller utilities.
context_section_description: The public water supply system in Greater Beirut receives its water from the Jeita springs (50 million m3/year) as well as well fields in the Damour region (30 million m3/year). The Jeita spring is the source of drinking water for about 1.5 million Lebanese. Water is treated in the Dbaiye water treatment plant north of the city with a capacity of 430,000m3/day (157 million m3/year). Besides the public network, around 1,000 mostly private wells are scattered in the area of Beirut. Their depth varies between 50 and 300m and their average individual discharge is 35 liters/second. Total water supply from these wells could be higher than through the public water supply, depending on how many hours the pumps run. Overpumping from wells in the Beirut area has led to seawater intrusion into aquifers.
  The government plans to tap the Awali River to the Southeast of Beirut to provide the growing capital with 90 million m3/year of additional water, more than double the current resources. The project involves the construction of a dam at Bisri, a 3 km tunnel from the river to a new water treatment plant at Ouardaniye, and a second 22 km tunnel to Khalde south of Beirut, from where water will be transported through two twin pipelines, one going North to the center of Beirut and the second northeast to Baabda. The Islamic Development Bank has agreed to finance the construction of Bisri dam in 2008, while the World Bank has approved a US$200m loan  in December 2010 to partly finance the transmission tunnels and pipelines. Lebanese critics of the project argue that the Awali River and especially the Litani River, from which water is diverted to the Awali River upstream of the planned intake, are highly polluted. They also say that less expensive alternatives, such as the less polluted Damour River that is also closer to Beirut, were not considered by the government and the World Bank. As of December 2013, less than 1 percent of the loan has been disbursed and no civil works contract has been awarded.
caption: Beirut receives most of its drinking water from the Jeita spring in Mount Lebanon (shown in the background).
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