The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has announced that despite this year’s rainfall, water resources across Afghanistan remain at alarming levels, and a single wet season cannot compensate for the impacts of five consecutive years of drought.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, July 28, OCHA posted on its X page that communities in many provinces across the country face sharp declines in water sources, increased climate pressures, and concerns about the conditions of upcoming seasons. The agency emphasized that people still struggle to access safe drinking water and livelihood resources.<\/p>\n
According to OCHA’s data, last year 3.4 million people across 12 provinces were affected by drought. Furthermore, in 2025, groundwater levels dropped to the lowest recorded levels, with reductions of up to 30 percent, an unprecedented occurrence in Afghanistan\u2019s drought history. This situation has directly negatively impacted agriculture, livestock, and family incomes.<\/p>\n
Earlier, OCHA had warned that in 2026, approximately 16 million people in Afghanistan will require water and sanitation-related assistance. The agency stated that water scarcity not only disrupts residents’ daily lives but also exposes children to greater health risks and forces families to undertake arduous efforts to find safe water.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, OCHA recently reported that only 17 percent of the required funding for Afghanistan\u2019s humanitarian programs has been secured\u2014a shortfall that could severely hinder efforts to address the water and drought crisis. As the Taliban administration holds responsibility for managing resources and addressing citizens’ livelihoods, experts stress the urgent need for effective planning and transparent accountability to prevent the worsening of this crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN warns Afghanistan\u2019s water resources hit record lows amid drought; millions face water scarcity and urgent humanitarian needs in 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-social-affairs","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}