Compounding the shortage is a major safety crisis. Up to 80 per cent of remaining groundwater is contaminated, laced with sewage, arsenic, nitrates, and excessive salinity.

Kabul, Afghanistan’s sprawling capital, finds itself on the edge of an unprecedented crisis: according to a recent Mercy Corps report, the city’s underground water reserves could be entirely depleted by 2030. With groundwater levels falling a staggering 25–30 meters over the past decade and extraction surpassing natural recharge by roughly 44 million cubic meters annually, millions of residents face a grim future unless swift action is taken.

Once home to less than 1 million people in 2001, Kabul now houses between 6 and 7 million inhabitants. This rapid urban expansion, fuelled largely by rural migration driven by conflict and economic hardship, has placed staggering strain on water infrastructure. The city’s population surge has fuelled the drilling of more than 120,000 unregulated bore wells, an unsustainable practice with catastrophic consequences.

Today, nearly half of all bore wells in Kabul have already gone dry, while many others operate at just 60 per cent efficiency.

Water Safety Concerns

Compounding the shortage is a major safety crisis. Up to 80 per cent of remaining groundwater is contaminated, laced with sewage, arsenic, nitrates, and excessive salinity. The result: rising cases of waterborne illnesses, malnutrition, and disruptions in health and education services. As noted by relief agencies, such as UNICEF and IMC, the lack of safe water is fuelling disease outbreaks and maternal-child malnutrition across Afghanistan.

The Human Toll

For Kabul’s poorer residents, especially women and children, the crisis hits hardest. Women and girls, often the sole providers of household water, spend hours queuing or trekking long distances to fetch water, sacrificing income, education, and safety. The financial burden looms large: some families report spending 30 per cent of their income on water, with many forced to borrow just to survive.

Private water vendors have flourished amid the chaos. With extraction unregulated, companies, such as soft-drink bottlers, have drilled deep wells, selling water at steep rates . This dynamic amplifies inequality, as wealthier households can afford deeper bore wells while poorer ones are further marginalized .

Climate and Governance in Crisis

The crisis is rooted in climate change, weak governance, and war-induced devastation. Winter snowpack and spring melt from the Hindu Kush, which historically replenished groundwater, has diminished, with recent winter precipitation reaching just 45–60 per cent of normal levels. Over the past decades, rising temperatures, frequent droughts, and glacier retreat have turned Afghanistan into one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations .

Decades of conflict and the 2021 Taliban takeover further hampered water management. Billions in international funding, roughly $3 billion, for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) projects have been frozen, and only a fraction of pledged resources have been delivered. In early 2025, just $8.4 million of the required $264 million for WASH in Afghanistan reached intended projects, leaving critical infrastructure high and dry.

Infrastructure Stalled

Several high-profile water infrastructure initiatives have halted amid the funding freeze. The 2021-stalled Panjshir River pipeline project, designed to provide Kabul with 44 billion liters of clean water per year, remains incomplete. Similarly, a dam project on the Kabul River, backed by India, was abandoned after the Taliban took over. Other smaller initiatives, like localized check dams and pilot recharge projects, have also faltered.

Voices from Kabul paint a stark picture:

A schoolteacher named Nazifa in Khair Khana shared: “Every household is affected, especially low-income families… there’s simply not enough clean well water.”

Environmentalist Abdullah Achakzai described lines of children and families waiting daily for tanker water, warning that deep wells now often require drilling to 300m to find water once accessible at shallower depths.

Experts from Mercy Corps, UNICEF, and Afghan environmental agencies stress that urgent action is possible and necessary:

Artificial groundwater recharge: through check dams, reservoirs, rainwater harvesting.

Piped water network expansion: sourcing from rivers like Panjshir or the Kabul River, not just bore wells.

Regulated drilling: establishing water rights, curbing profiteering, and equitably allocating resources.

Climate-adaptive infrastructure: solar-powered pumps, community-led water councils (especially empowering women), and sanitation upgrades.

Yet progress hinges on international engagement. Access to frozen WASH funds and renewed donor commitments will be pivotal. Otherwise, Kabul risks becoming the world’s first modern capital running completely dry, a humanitarian disaster with regional reverberations.

What’s at Stake

Displacement: Up to 3 million residents could be forced to leave the city by 2030.

Health: Widespread disease and malnutrition may surge further without clean water .

Social tension: Communities already grappling with poverty face water debt, rising prices, and environmental conflict .

Regional impact: Upstream projects like the Qosh Tepa Canal and new dams may threaten shared water systems, risking tensions with neighbours like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Iran.

Kabul’s water crisis isn’t a distant threat – it’s evolving into a real-time catastrophe. Climate change, rapid population growth, and decades of inadequate governance have created conditions ripe for disaster. With aquifers collapsing, bore wells failing, and international funding stalled, the city teeters on the verge of collapse. Without immediate, coordinated investment in sustainable infrastructure and governance, Kabul – and perhaps other cities in climate-vulnerable contexts – may serve as a cautionary tale of urban collapse under hydrological strain.