Yemen’s Water Crisis Could Worsen Security

Photo retrieved from: www.greenphrophet.com

“Recently this harsh stretch of land, which shares its northwestern and most volatile border with Saudi Arabia and is flanked by Oman in the east, has been the scene of much hullabaloo over a terror plot in the US. Most of the country’s problems are attributed to Al-Qa‘ida’s presence in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a disruptive presence indeed. But scientists are trying to draw attention to another crucial source of present and future danger: water scarcity.

The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) claim that within the decade, Yemen’s capital city Sana’a could exhaust its water reservoir. Meanwhile, the population, a third of which is malnourished and 40% of whom live on less than $2 each day, is set to double in the next two decades. The city’s fossil reservoir is being drained at an unsustainable rate of 5m each year. In part this water is being used to souse the country’s ghat habit – as both a moderate cash cow and recreational stimulant -  as well as other crops, and in part it is being squandered.

While a tribal management system was long effective in regulating water use, it largely disappeared with the creation of the Republic of Yemen and the deployment of diesel well pumps; what remains is an unregulated and unsustainable use pattern across the country—a race to use more water, faster, before it disappears.”

Read more: Green Prophet