WASH News MENA
News feed maintained by information specialists from IRC and partners.
Jordan: Sewage network crumbling in city of Zarqa
07 Mar 08
AMMAN, 4 March 2008 (IRIN) - A crumbling sewage system in the city of Zarqa, 30km east of Amman, could trigger the spread of diseases on a large scale, according to community leaders and residents.“We warned officials at the Ministry of Water on several occasions that the city’s sewage network is collapsing at a rapid [...]
Lebanon: ICRC completes primary water supply to ruined refugee camp
07 Mar 08
BEIRUT, 6 March 2008 (IRIN) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has completed rebuilding the primary water supply network in currently accessible areas of the ruined Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp, north Lebanon.Up to 90 percent of the water infrastructure in the areas of Nahr al-Bared outside the official boundary of the [...]
Yemen sleepwalks into water nightmare
05 Mar 08
BEIT HUJAIRA, Yemen (Reuters) - Sat Mar 1, 2008Yemen’s water and environment minister says the collapse of national water resources is so severe it cannot be reversed, only delayed at best. More water is being consumed than resupplied to 19 of the impoverished country’s 21 aquifers. The deepest wells [...]
Egypt: Lack of modern sanitation systems threatens groundwater, health
04 Mar 08
CAIRO, 3 March 2008 (IRIN) - Nearly all Egyptians - 98 percent of the population - have access to piped water but only some have proper sanitation facilities. Not much attention has been paid to the effective and safe disposal of sewage, especially in rural areas, say specialists.In rural areas - deserts and agricultural areas [...]
Yemen - The appalling state of Sana’a school toilets
04 Mar 08
Most of Sana’a’s approximately 270 public schools have no toilets, while those that do are in such unhygienic conditions that neither students nor teachers can use them. Further, at least six to eight schools within the capital’s eight public school districts have no bathrooms at all. At best, Sana’a public schools have three to six [...]
Adapting UASB technology for sewage treatment in Palestine and Jordan [research article]
03 Mar 08
High rate anaerobic technologies offer cost-effective solutions for “sewage” treatment in the temperate climate of Palestine and Jordan. However, local sewage characteristics demand amendments to the conventional UASB [upflow anaerobic sludge blanket] reactor design. A solution is found in a parallel operating digester unit that stabilises incoming solids and enriches the UASB sludge bed [...]
Water fears lead Saudis to end grain output
03 Mar 08
By Andrew England in Cairo and Javier Blas in LondonPublished: February 27 2008 02:00Saudi Arabia plans to halt wheat production by 2016 because of concerns about the desert kingdom’s scarce water resources, according to a US government agency.The Saudi Arabian government has not publicly given details of the move, which comes as global cereal prices [...]
Palestine: Gazans told to boil water as chlorine runs low
03 Mar 08
GAZA, Feb 27 (Reuters) - The Palestinian water utility urged Gazans on Wednesday to boil their drinking water and said contamination was a risk because an Israeli-led blockade was choking off chlorine supplies. 52 of Gaza’s 140 water wells had no chlorine and the others were fast running out.Read more [...]
Egypt: Study says quality of Nile water has improved
03 Mar 08
DUBAI, 23 January 2008 (IRIN) - A study, by Egypt’s Nile Research Institute (NRI) which is part the National Water Research Centre (NWRC), has indicated that water quality in the Egyptian segment of the River Nile improved considerably in the months of October and November 2007, giving rise to hopes that drinking water quality for [...]
Yemen: Reforming the Urban Water Supply and Sanitation (UWSS) Sector
04 Feb 09
Gerhager, B. and Sahooly, A. (2009). Reforming the urban water supply and sanitation (UWSS) sector in Yemen. International journal of water resources development ; vol. 25, no. 1 ; p. 29-46. DOI: 10.1080/07900620802573668AbstractIn the early 1990s, Yemen suffered from low service coverage and national tariffs that were too low to cover public expenditure, as well [...]
