Yemen: new plan envisages more effective rainwater harvesting

A senior official at Yemen’s Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) has said a plan has been drafted to boost the country’s water resources and make water for drinking and irrigation more readily available.

Hussein al-Junaid, deputy water and environment minister, who is also an engineer, said the plan is designed to ensure effective management of water resources and rainwater harvesting through the building of water barriers, small dams, concrete tanks in valleys, and water harvesting systems in or on houses.

By 2010, the plan would analyse data on climate change and the impact on water resources, wetlands, Yemen’s coastline that stretches over 2,200km, archipelagos and islands. It would also improve climate change surveillance and rainfall monitoring by providing stations with modern technology and trained workers.

Entitled A Road Map to Harvesting Rainwater in Yemen, the plan does not require highly-advanced techniques or technologies, the deputy minister said.

[...] The plan aims to gather and harvest 70 percent of rainwater by 2012 in Sanaa and use that to feed the Sanaa basin and provide drinking and irrigation water to the city. [O]ther parts of the country would collect 40 percent of the rainwater by 2020 for the same purpose.

The plan also envisages gathering and harvesting 100 percent of the rainwater in Sanaa city by 2020, and in other areas like Taiz city in the south, and big valleys such as Hassan, Tuban and Bana, by 2030.

See also: Wikipedia – Water supply and sanitation in Yemen

Source: IRIN,17 Jul 2008

Yemen: recap of environmental issues in 2008

In 2008, water scarcity has remained Yemen’s most worrying environmental reality. Many areas in Yemen suffer a severe crisis in terms of drinking water supply, water for irrigating agricultural lands, and other vital needs. Most Yemenis have stopped drawing water from many wells, which have recently dried up.

[...] Experts have estimated that more than 60 percent of the water consumed in Yemen is used to irrigate qat crops.

While Yemen suffers from grave water shortages, specialists and officials keep on warning that the country’s water supply relies on limited groundwater. Only 125 cubic meters are available annually per capita, and the groundwater has been polluted and heavily overexploited for more than two decades, according to a German Technological Cooperation (GTZ) document.

[...] However, for the first time in its history, Yemen is making use of the ferro-cement technique to alleviate the water crisis [...]. The Minister of Water and Environment, Dr. Abdul-Rahman al-Eryani, launched two ferro-cement reservoirs to harvest rainwater in two schools in Sana’a on June 18, [2008].

Source: Thuria Ghaleb, Yemen Observer, 30 Dec 2008