Walid Fayyad, the Minister of Energy and Water, confirmed that “his country is facing a water shortage crisis,” adding that “all Arab countries fall below the water scarcity line, which is estimated at less than 1,000 cubic meters per capita of water annually,” with Beirut being one of the countries closer to this extent.

“Lebanon has significant prospects to benefit from rainfall, and from renewable groundwater, since there are initiatives to gather and utilize it in the coming period,” Fayyad said in an interview with “Sputnik.”

“Lebanon has a lot of projects to address the water scarcity situation, the most important of which is the construction of a number of dams,” he explained. “Work to install them has already begun, and a substantial portion has been done,” he added, “but it was recently interrupted due to a lack of funds and the economic crisis.”