Researcher Tracks Water Use
Studying how US industry uses scarce water resources
Just think, every time you feed Fido or flip a spoonful of sugar into your coffee cup, you use more than 300 gallons of water.
Checking the amounts of water it takes to make a $1 worth of sugar, cat and dog food or milk is part of a comprehensive study by Carnegie Mellon University researchers to document American industry's thirst for this scarce resource.
Chris T. Hendrickson, the Duquesne Light Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said the study shows that most water use by industry occurs indirectly as a result of processing, such as packaging and shipping of food crops to the supermarket, rather than direct use, like watering crops.
The study found it takes almost 270 gallons of water to produce a $1 worth of sugar; 140 gallons to make $1 worth of milk; and 200 gallons of water to make $1 worth of cat and dog food.
"The study gives us a way to look at how we might use water more efficiently and allows us to hone in on the sectors that use the most water so we can start generating ideas and technologies for better management," said Hendrickson, co-director of Carnegie Mellon's Green Design Institute, a major interdisciplinary research effort aimed at making an impact on environmental quality through design.
Hendrickson, along with civil engineering Ph.D. candidates Michael Blackhurst and Jordi Vidal, said his team is trying to help industries track and make better management decisions about how they use water, which makes up more than 72 percent of the earth's land surface.
The study, featured in the Feb. 23 edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, reports that a lot of water consumption is hidden because companies don't use all the water directly.
"We discovered that among 96 percent of the sectors evaluated, indirect use exceeded direct uses throughout the supply chain," Hendrickson said.
But Hendrickson and Blackhurst are quick to report that their data are national findings and do not apply regionally. In addition, they could only track withdrawals, and were unable to determine how much water was returned to the system or recycled.
"That is a big deal because water that gets degraded during industrial processes might not be suitable for future uses," Hendrickson said. "Effective water management is critical for social welfare and our fragile ecosystems."
Source: Redorbit.com
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Corruption fuels crisis in water-poor Yemen
Published on Eurekastreet.com.au
James Dorsey February 02, 2010
As Yemen struggles to defeat Al Qa'ida, to end a tribal uprising in the north and to prevent the south from seceding, water could turn out to be the thing that tips the country over the edge. Like much of the Gulf, Yemen faces a reduced water supply resulting from climate change and from rising temperatures compounded by poor management.
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, reignite riots against a government already widely viewed as corrupt, nepotistic and incompetent and strengthen Al Qa'ida's Yemeni affiliate, Al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
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 per cent 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 urbanisation. Some 70 per cent 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 Sana'a 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 km 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 non-renewable 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 m 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 majority of Yemeni men, is Yemen's foremost agricultural product. The more water the plant gets, the more productive it 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 per cent 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.
Subsidised 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 that are raked in by the country's elite.
Yet, the more the Salih government postpones biting into the sour apple, the sourer it gets. Donors may be betting on the president's son, whom Salih is grooming as his successor. A ten-point reform plan drafted by deputy finance minister, Jalal Omar Yaqoub, that includes abolishing subsidies and streamlining bureaucracy, has curried favor with the United States and other donors.
The water crisis plays into the hands of Al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula , the Al Qa'ida 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 tribal areas, like Marib and Shabwa, where no such companies were created that AQAP is strongest.
Economic and political reforms demanded by donors will have to go beyond cost-cutting to incorporate more efficient water use and distribution, pricing to encourage water conservation and development of sustainable agriculture. Without such reforms, water could be at the core of Yemen's next generation of conflict.
James DorseyJames M. Dorsey is a freelance journalist who has covered ethnic and religious conflict for the past 35 years for publications like The Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal. He has visited Yemen twice in recent months.
James Dorsey February 02, 2010
As Yemen struggles to defeat Al Qa'ida, to end a tribal uprising in the north and to prevent the south from seceding, water could turn out to be the thing that tips the country over the edge. Like much of the Gulf, Yemen faces a reduced water supply resulting from climate change and from rising temperatures compounded by poor management.
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, reignite riots against a government already widely viewed as corrupt, nepotistic and incompetent and strengthen Al Qa'ida's Yemeni affiliate, Al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
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 per cent 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 urbanisation. Some 70 per cent 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 Sana'a 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 km 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 non-renewable 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 m 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 majority of Yemeni men, is Yemen's foremost agricultural product. The more water the plant gets, the more productive it 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 per cent 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.
Subsidised 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 that are raked in by the country's elite.
Yet, the more the Salih government postpones biting into the sour apple, the sourer it gets. Donors may be betting on the president's son, whom Salih is grooming as his successor. A ten-point reform plan drafted by deputy finance minister, Jalal Omar Yaqoub, that includes abolishing subsidies and streamlining bureaucracy, has curried favor with the United States and other donors.
The water crisis plays into the hands of Al Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula , the Al Qa'ida 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 tribal areas, like Marib and Shabwa, where no such companies were created that AQAP is strongest.
Economic and political reforms demanded by donors will have to go beyond cost-cutting to incorporate more efficient water use and distribution, pricing to encourage water conservation and development of sustainable agriculture. Without such reforms, water could be at the core of Yemen's next generation of conflict.
James DorseyJames M. Dorsey is a freelance journalist who has covered ethnic and religious conflict for the past 35 years for publications like The Christian Science Monitor and The Wall Street Journal. He has visited Yemen twice in recent months.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Water rises to top of Syrian Agenda
As the Syrian capital Damascus braces itself for another exceptionally cold winter week, severe water shortages as a result of climate change is leaping to the top of the government’s priorities. UN and Syrian government officials warn that that the water crisis coupled with environmental degradation is likely to worsen over the coming years. Torrential rains in Damascus that have overwhelmed drainage systems and turned the desultory trickle of the Barada river into a torrent are just one indicator of the mounting crisis.
Increased rainfall is doing nothing, however, to alleviate the country’s water shortage. “A study of rainfall over the past 25 years in Syria shows that the intensity is increasing, but the actual levels are either constant or, in some cases, decreasing,” The National quotes Faris Asfari, an agricultural engineer involved in compiling a detailed report on climate change in Syria, who consults for the UN as saying. “Increasingly the rain is torrential and that actually causes severe damage, especially to soil. It has a severe impact on the sustainability and productivity of the land it adds to desertification problems.”
Similarly, Jordan recently reported to the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC that its water resources will be depleted by climate change even if the kingdom witnesses an increase in precipitation. The report warned that climate change will severely impact the quantity of monthly surface water runoff. It that if current rainfall levels increased by 20 per cent, it would not compensate for the water lost due to the expected rise in temperatures.
A Syrian government report compiled for last month’s environment summit in Copenhagen concluded that most Syrian cities were suffering from shortage of water as a result of reduced rainfall, severe drought and more frequent dust storms. As a result, some 300,000 people in the eastern region, once a thriving farming area have been forced off their land to mostly become internal refugees in Damascus. The government report warns that such dislocations are prompting a decline in standards of health and education. Residents in the central governorate of Hama say drought has dried up the Al Assi River whose water serviced the Al Qantara Hydrostation. They now depend on local wells available only at depths of 600 meters where it contains contaminants that make it unsafe for drinking.
Syrian officials say the situation is further aggravated by the absence of agreements, primarily with Israel, on how to equitably share inadequate water resources. Israel draws some 15 percent of its water supply from the Golan Heights conquered from Syria in 1967. The Heights run up to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s only freshwater lake, and include significant parts of the Jordan River’s catchment area. Control of water resources, and Israel’s insistence that it retain sovereignty over the Sea of Galilee, have been one of the main stumbling blocks in failed peace talks.
Nonetheless, environmental scientists say the Syrian government bears significant responsibility for water shortages and land degradation, with decades of mismanagement, corruption and inefficiency exacerbating existing problems. Land not fit for cultivation was widely farmed in the 1980s as part of a food security policy and although it was stopped in the 1990s, severe damage was done.
Syria uses 90 percent of its water for mostly inefficient irrigation. “Irrigation systems here are only 38 per cent efficient, which means we throw away 62 per cent of all of our national water supplies before it even reaches the crops,” Yousef Meslmani, the national environmental affairs project director with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Damascus told . The National. “We have irrigation channels built on soluble rock – which is the worst thing you can do – and the engineers told them it was bad idea, but they did it.”
Increased rainfall is doing nothing, however, to alleviate the country’s water shortage. “A study of rainfall over the past 25 years in Syria shows that the intensity is increasing, but the actual levels are either constant or, in some cases, decreasing,” The National quotes Faris Asfari, an agricultural engineer involved in compiling a detailed report on climate change in Syria, who consults for the UN as saying. “Increasingly the rain is torrential and that actually causes severe damage, especially to soil. It has a severe impact on the sustainability and productivity of the land it adds to desertification problems.”
Similarly, Jordan recently reported to the the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC that its water resources will be depleted by climate change even if the kingdom witnesses an increase in precipitation. The report warned that climate change will severely impact the quantity of monthly surface water runoff. It that if current rainfall levels increased by 20 per cent, it would not compensate for the water lost due to the expected rise in temperatures.
A Syrian government report compiled for last month’s environment summit in Copenhagen concluded that most Syrian cities were suffering from shortage of water as a result of reduced rainfall, severe drought and more frequent dust storms. As a result, some 300,000 people in the eastern region, once a thriving farming area have been forced off their land to mostly become internal refugees in Damascus. The government report warns that such dislocations are prompting a decline in standards of health and education. Residents in the central governorate of Hama say drought has dried up the Al Assi River whose water serviced the Al Qantara Hydrostation. They now depend on local wells available only at depths of 600 meters where it contains contaminants that make it unsafe for drinking.
Syrian officials say the situation is further aggravated by the absence of agreements, primarily with Israel, on how to equitably share inadequate water resources. Israel draws some 15 percent of its water supply from the Golan Heights conquered from Syria in 1967. The Heights run up to the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, Israel’s only freshwater lake, and include significant parts of the Jordan River’s catchment area. Control of water resources, and Israel’s insistence that it retain sovereignty over the Sea of Galilee, have been one of the main stumbling blocks in failed peace talks.
Nonetheless, environmental scientists say the Syrian government bears significant responsibility for water shortages and land degradation, with decades of mismanagement, corruption and inefficiency exacerbating existing problems. Land not fit for cultivation was widely farmed in the 1980s as part of a food security policy and although it was stopped in the 1990s, severe damage was done.
Syria uses 90 percent of its water for mostly inefficient irrigation. “Irrigation systems here are only 38 per cent efficient, which means we throw away 62 per cent of all of our national water supplies before it even reaches the crops,” Yousef Meslmani, the national environmental affairs project director with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Damascus told . The National. “We have irrigation channels built on soluble rock – which is the worst thing you can do – and the engineers told them it was bad idea, but they did it.”
Islamists try to exploit Pakistani Water Woes
Islamic militants in Pakistan’s central Punjab province, responsible for various terrorist attacks in India, blaming the region’s water woes on their larger neighbor to garner support. Pakistan’s Roohi desert, a recruiting ground for militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir, has seen its irrigation water decrease over the past five years
“There was ample water until 2005 – more than enough to grow our crops. Then, suddenly, the number of days that water was available to each village started to drop off and has now reached the point where it has become a serious concern,” The National quoted Ansar Rasheed Sindhu, a farmer from the village of Chak 205 on the Murad Canal 700km south-east of Islamabad as saying.
The dropping water supply has hit hardest subsistence farmers, who depend on the wheat and sugarcane harvests for much of their food and on the sale of cotton for cash. It is rolling back advances made by better quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, the paper quotes Mohammed Anwar, a father of three who lives off 1.2 hectares in Chak 205, as saying.
Farmers warn that the lack of water could mean that fertile land will be reclaimed by the desert. Militant groups like Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashkar-i-Taiba (LiT) assert that Indian dam projects are to blame for the reduced water supply. . “India wants to destroy Pakistan by cutting off our water. Now it wants to build another dam on the Jhelum river to turn Pakistan into a desert and starve us all to death,” says Jamal Din, a former Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, who heads the local chapter of LiT charity Jama’at-ud-Dawah.
Pakistani government officials concede that the filling of the Baglihar dam has reduced water flows into Pakistan. India contends the dam does not violate its accord with Pakistan in 1962 over the use of water from the Indus River and its tributaries, which flow through both countries from the Himalayas. Under the accord, Pakistan had first right of dam construction on the Chenab, but failed to act within a stipulated time because of political indecision and a lack of funding. Pakistan has asked the World Bank to mediate.
Farmers in the region appear, however, not to be buying into either the government’s or the militants’ argument. “The shortages started before India built the dam, shortly after the last local government elections [in 2005]. After big landlords won and gained control, they started stealing water to fill reservoirs on their farms,” Mr Sindhu told The National . “Corruption within the irrigation department is now the issue that needs to be dealt with, but I can see how the poverty that it has caused could be twisted by the militants to meet their own agenda.”
“There was ample water until 2005 – more than enough to grow our crops. Then, suddenly, the number of days that water was available to each village started to drop off and has now reached the point where it has become a serious concern,” The National quoted Ansar Rasheed Sindhu, a farmer from the village of Chak 205 on the Murad Canal 700km south-east of Islamabad as saying.
The dropping water supply has hit hardest subsistence farmers, who depend on the wheat and sugarcane harvests for much of their food and on the sale of cotton for cash. It is rolling back advances made by better quality seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, the paper quotes Mohammed Anwar, a father of three who lives off 1.2 hectares in Chak 205, as saying.
Farmers warn that the lack of water could mean that fertile land will be reclaimed by the desert. Militant groups like Jaish-i-Mohammed and Lashkar-i-Taiba (LiT) assert that Indian dam projects are to blame for the reduced water supply. . “India wants to destroy Pakistan by cutting off our water. Now it wants to build another dam on the Jhelum river to turn Pakistan into a desert and starve us all to death,” says Jamal Din, a former Taliban fighter in Afghanistan, who heads the local chapter of LiT charity Jama’at-ud-Dawah.
Pakistani government officials concede that the filling of the Baglihar dam has reduced water flows into Pakistan. India contends the dam does not violate its accord with Pakistan in 1962 over the use of water from the Indus River and its tributaries, which flow through both countries from the Himalayas. Under the accord, Pakistan had first right of dam construction on the Chenab, but failed to act within a stipulated time because of political indecision and a lack of funding. Pakistan has asked the World Bank to mediate.
Farmers in the region appear, however, not to be buying into either the government’s or the militants’ argument. “The shortages started before India built the dam, shortly after the last local government elections [in 2005]. After big landlords won and gained control, they started stealing water to fill reservoirs on their farms,” Mr Sindhu told The National . “Corruption within the irrigation department is now the issue that needs to be dealt with, but I can see how the poverty that it has caused could be twisted by the militants to meet their own agenda.”
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Libya Set to Benefit from Strained Turkish-Israeli Ties
Libya may benefit from Turkey’s strained ties with Israel over its December 2008 war on Gaza and recent Israeli treatment of the Turkish ambassador. Libya is negotiating with Turkey the import of 100 million cubic meters of water annually. Turkish officials say an agreement with Libya would jeopardize far advanced talks with Israel over the sale of water.
Turkish officials say both Libya and Israel are seeking to buy water from a $150 millon project on the Manavagat River that has yet to come on stream. That project is currently only able to load 100 million cubic meters per year. Adding additional capacity would be costly.
Israel has been negotiating the purchase of 50 million cubic meters of water annually over a period of 20 years. Turkish officials say three Israeli prime ministers have committed Israel to the purchase. They said the Turkish and Israeli governments intend to agree with shipping companies on the transport of the water to Israel.
Despite the commitments, authorities in Israel are divided about the deal. The country’s Water Authority is believed to favor it as a way of diversifying away from desalination. The Foreign Ministry, however, opposes the deal on financial grounds. Imported Turkish water would cost $0.80 per cubic meter compared to $0.50 for desalinated water.
Despite the commitments, authorities in Israel are divided about the deal. The country’s Water Authority is believed to favor it as a way of diversifying away from desalination. The Foreign Ministry, however, opposes the deal on financial grounds. Imported Turkish water would cost $0.80 per cubic meter compared to $0.50 for desalinated water.
Israeli officials, eager to secure the deal before Libya snatches it away, say the differences are likely to be resolved by splitting the contract into two, one between the two governments and one between Turkey and Israel’s water carrier.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Yemen’s Water Crisis Threatens Unrest and Strengthens Al Qa’ida
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.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Consequences of Inaccessible Water in Haiti
Peter Sawyer of the Pulitzer Center warns failure to prioritize water in Haiti will drive people to water sources they would not have considered before - sources contaminated with human waste, garbage, and industrial byproducts that rapidly spread disease through communities.
Admittedly, providing Haitians with safe water and sanitation has been problematic long before the earthquake. The World Health Organization reports that only 58% of Haitians had sustainable access to clean water in 2006, barely six percent more people than in 1990. Figures for access to safe sanitation facilities are even worse with only 19% having access in 2006, down ten percent since 1990.
Sanitation and water quality experts are proposing various solutions. Steve Solomon, author of Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization, suggests in a New York Times editorial that Haiti focus on local water networkswith flexible piping that can be buried and repaired easily. He also advocates delivering bulk water to distribution points where local leaders handle payments and maintain the system. Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute, has written about the effort to bring emergency water relief to Haiti as noted in this blog. Gleick agrees with Solomon about the need to focus on local systems, and favors small-scale purification systems over bottled water, which is expensive and difficult to ship.
Admittedly, providing Haitians with safe water and sanitation has been problematic long before the earthquake. The World Health Organization reports that only 58% of Haitians had sustainable access to clean water in 2006, barely six percent more people than in 1990. Figures for access to safe sanitation facilities are even worse with only 19% having access in 2006, down ten percent since 1990.
Sanitation and water quality experts are proposing various solutions. Steve Solomon, author of Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power and Civilization, suggests in a New York Times editorial that Haiti focus on local water networkswith flexible piping that can be buried and repaired easily. He also advocates delivering bulk water to distribution points where local leaders handle payments and maintain the system. Peter Gleick, President of the Pacific Institute, has written about the effort to bring emergency water relief to Haiti as noted in this blog. Gleick agrees with Solomon about the need to focus on local systems, and favors small-scale purification systems over bottled water, which is expensive and difficult to ship.
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