As Yemen struggles to defeat Al Qa’ida, end a tribal uprising in the north and prevent the south from seceding, water could turn out to be the lubricant that tips the country over the edge. Without radical reform of agricultural and other policies, the Yemeni capital Sana’a stands in a decade at most to become modern history’s first capital to run out of water, according to a recent projection by the World Bank-funded Sana Water Basin Management Project. Rapidly dwindling water resources are likely to lead to disputes and reignite riots against a government already widely viewed as corrupt, nepotistic and incompetent.
One of the world’s water poorest nations, Yemen is consuming its limited water resources at a far faster rate than it is able to replenish them. At Yemen’s current seven percent population growth rate, consumption can only increase. Yemen’s population is set to almost double from 23 to 40 million over the next two decades.
Alongside unemployment, water is driving increased internal migration and urbanization.
Some 70 percent of Sana’a’s population either buy their water from private vendors or collect free water from local mosques. Vendors sell a liter of water for $0.15, a steep price in a country where incomes average $2 a day. The vendors draw their water from wells near the capital and deliver it in tanker trucks or jerry cans. With no enforced standard for potable water, quality varies.
Water extraction rates in Sanaa are believed to outstrip replenishment by a factor of four. Sana’a’s water basin is close to collapse. So is the basin in Amran, 50 kilometers north of Sana’a. Of the 180 wells tapped a decade ago by Sana’a’s municipal water company, only 80 remain active. In some districts of the capital, taps have shut down. In others, supply is interrupted at least once a month.
In 2008, the Eurasia Group reported that 19 of Yemen’s 21 aquifers were not being replenished and that in some cases nonrenewable fossil water was being extracted. Wells in several parts of the country have run dry. The falling water table means wells have to be dug deeper at levels of 200 meters and more where the water is contaminated.
Alongside rising domestic consumption, Yemen’s water crisis is fueled by corruption, poor or no resource management and wasteful irrigation. Agriculture consumes most of Yemen’s water. Qat, whose leaves are consumed as a daily stimulant by the vast majority of Yemeni men, is Yemen’s foremost agricultural product. The more water the plant gets, the more productive is, making water conservation a non-starter.
Alongside rising domestic consumption, Yemen’s water crisis is fueled by corruption, poor or no resource management and wasteful irrigation. Agriculture consumes most of Yemen’s water. Qat, whose leaves are consumed as a daily stimulant by the vast majority of Yemeni men, is Yemen’s foremost agricultural product. The more water the plant gets, the more productive is, making water conservation a non-starter.
Yemen’s lack of resource management is evident from the fact that the government created a separate ministry for water and environment only in 2004. Six years later, the country still suffers from lack of effective regulation and oversight, particularly with regard to groundwater. As a result, digging of wells remains uncontrolled and so does extraction of groundwater. Water Minister Abdul Rahman Fadhl Iryani, unable to enforce licensing of new wells, estimates that 99% of water drilling in Yemen is unlicensed. Moreover, Yemen does not regulate the import of drill rigs, which are not subject to custom duties or taxation. Yemen is estimated to have some 800 privately owned drill rigs, a number far higher than most other countries.
Subsidized diesel powers landowners’ water pumps. Yemen has so far resisted donor demands that it abolish diesel subsidies ever since rioters fearing price hikes and higher inflation in 2005 forced the government to drop efforts to do so. Abolishment of subsidies would also cut into profits from diesel smuggling being raked in by the country’s elite.
The water crisis plays into the hands of Al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the AQAP offshoot that claimed responsibility for the failed Christmas day bombing of a USA airliner. To compensate for its lack of control in large parts of the country, the government has delegated responsibility for water to local authorities, establishing water companies primarily in urban areas. It is in those areas like Marib and Shabwa where no such companies were created that AQAP is particularly strong.
