Yemen
The ever-booming population and the level of groundwater decreasing at the alarming rate of four meters each year is slowly but surely creating a major drinking water issues for some regions of Yemen.
In Tiaz city, local residents say they only have access to running water inside the house one day a month. For the rest of the month, they either send their children to fetch water from the bathroom of the local mosque, or buy water from the private owners of water trucks.
Outside the city, the water crisis is just as apparent, especially in winter. In Same’a district, for example, some women and young girls spend the whole day fetching water. Along the road from the district to the city, women and girls carry 20-litre water containers on their heads from the water wells to their homes.
Sometimes, when water is at its most scarce in winter, they are forced to scramble down very high mountains to the valley for water. With the heavy containers expertly balanced on their head, they then climb back up the mountain home.
If Taiz’s population growth is proportional to that expected for the country by the United Nations, it will have doubled again by 2025.
Coupled to the fact that some shallow aquifers are depleted or near depletion, or to say it in other words, the recharge during the summer rains is insufficient to refill the shallow aquifers, and the city’s water pipes are damaged, due to an increase in the number of houses depending on an old water network, Yemen clearly has some issues to face at some stage soon.
A number of solutions have been considered such as storing the available rainwater, reducing water used for irrigation, particularly of qat, encouraging an active water market or piping desalinated water from Mokha however as yet no sustainable solution has been implemented.
Kenya
However Yemen is not the only part of the world to be facing severe water shortages. Kenya is facing a severe shortage of food and water with more than 10 million people requiring urgent assistance.
Kenya’s Prime Minister Raila Odinga warned of a “catastrophe” if the short rains expected between October and November also failed. He named Nairobi, the Athi, the Tana, Ewaso Ngiro North, greater Baringo, Nakuru, Turkana, West Pokot, Keiyo, Marakwet, Narok, Nyandarua, Kajiado, Machakos, Makueni, Taita Taveta, Kwale, Mwingi, Kitui, Laikipia, parts of Nyeri, North Eastern Province, Upper Eastern and Kilifi as already experiencing an acute water shortage.
To address the biting water shortage facing the country, Mr Odinga said the Water ministry had embarked on drilling boreholes across the country. He said that the government had also bought water tankers and leased private ones to supply water to some regions.
Immediate need
Desalination might provide a long term solution, if the capital is available to construct the infrastructure, however cannot address immediate humanitarian need. This is where the importation of bulk water would solve the issues immediately while long-term solutions are found and implemented.
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