The Need for Water

Back in September, the Carnegie Endowment issued a report that stated that Sana'a might be the first modern capital to run out of water.

This is shocking, yet signs of it are everywhere. Even in the main residential district where I live, on a major road, water is trucked in on a daily basis to homes and businesses. The photo above shows the truck that brought water to my apartment building last night.

UNICEF statistics show that only about 65% of the population has access to safe drinking water nationwide. The levels of access in rural and urban areas are about the same.

According to Carnegie:

Yemen is running out of water. Rising domestic consumption, poor water management, corruption, the absence of resource governance, and wasteful irrigation techniques are creating frequent and widespread shortages.

Yemen’s lack of food and water is complicated by the population’s dependence on qat, a quick-cash crop that requires heavy irrigation to thrive. Farmers devote so much land to qat production that Yemen is now a net food importer.

Related: Sana'a basin to drain away by 2025