© 2017 Agriculture and Forestry Journal This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 3.0 International License Agriculture and Forestry Journal Available online at: Vol. 1, Issue 1, pp. 10-17, June, 2017 http://ojs.univ-tlemcen.dz/index.php/AFJ/ Published by university of Tlemcen - ALGERIA Impact of Sewage on Health, Economic and Social Life of Rural People in Al-Hair - Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Fahad ALDOSARI 1,* , Hazem S. KASSEM 1,2 , Mirza Barjees BAIG 1 , Muhammad MUDDASSIR 1 , Muhammad MUBUSHAR 1 1 Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agriculture Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 1,2 Agricultural Extension and Rural Society Dept., Mansoura University, Mansoura 35516. Egypt * Correspondence author: Email: fadosri@ksu.edu.sa ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history: Received 9 May 2017 Received in revised form 6 June 2017 Accepted 15 June 2017 Keywords: Sewage, Health issues, Economic declines, Social aspects, Extension education, Improvement measures, Policies This paper aimed to evaluate the health, social and economic effects of sewage on rural people's life in Al-Hair, Saudi Arabia. A total of 90 rural people, representing about 1% of the population of the study area, were interviewed using a questionnaire. Percentages, arithmetic means, and standard deviations were calculated. The study revealed that 26.7% of the respondents had expressed a high degree of health impact from sewage and high social and economic effect with the percentages of 85.6% and 84.4% respectively. The interrelation between the perception of the diverse effects of sewage and people's personal characteristics indicate that age, gender, household size and education level, are key determinants of rural people’ perception on health, social and economic-related risks due to sewage. Therefore, there is need to sensitize rural people about risk-reduction measures of sewage. Additional research is required to suggest intervention framework for dealing with sewage in the study area with collaboration from different stakeholders. This will provide additional information to decision-makers for policy formulation in sewage treatment by considering the adverse effects on people's life and different potential roles from all partners. 1. Introduction The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is situated in the southernmost part of western Asia. The area of the Kingdom is about 2,250,000 km 2 which occupies 80% of the Arabian Peninsula (Al-Rushaid, 2010). The Kingdom’s economy is one of the largest in the Middle East and North Africa, indicating 25% of the region’s Gross Domestic products (GDP) and ranking among the top 20 largest economies of the world. The mean real GDP growth of the Kingdom averaged 4% per annum over the past decade. During this period, the government invested US$454 billion in capital projects including infrastructure, education, and healthcare (Public Statement Copy, 2017). Water is an important natural resource for the survival of all the living things comprising human, production of food and economic development. Globally, there are many cities that are faced with the severe shortage of water. Environmental and economic growth and all other developments are highly affected by water availability and the quality of surface and ground-water. The quality of water is influenced by human activities, and hence water pollution is a major threat to the welfare of both the world and its population (Halder and Islam, 2015). Sewage is running waste water that is discharged from houses, shops, and factories which are generally transported in small liquid form with some small solid in big pipes known as sewers. The sewage waste water (SWW) might also be directed to a particular pace for recycling or be disposed-of far away from humans as it can cause diseases (FAO, 1992). Sewage is a mixture of nutrients, suspended solids, pathogens and different pollutants that have a dissimilar effect on the environment and human health (Ladan, 2014). Disposal of sewage is considered as the main issue of the urban world because of increase in human populace, urbanization, and industrialization. According to United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), waste water generation is enhancing with a rapid speed globally due to increase in population and urbanization. A large portion of Asian and African people have no access to waste water management and treatment services. A large volume of sewage waste water is put openly into the water resources that threaten the human health, environment, food security and sustainability of water resources (Zandarya, 2011). Due to the increase in water demand, there are focusing on water quality because 95% of the water comes from inland rivers. The sufficient sewage system played a vital role in the reduction of water pollution.