water supply and sanitation in yemen water supply and sanitation in yemen water supply and sanitation in yemen is characterized by many challenges as well as some achievements. a key challenge is severe water scarcity, especially in the highlands, prompting the times of london to write "yemen could become the first nation to run out of water". a second key challenge is a high level of poverty, making it very difficult to recover the costs of service provision. access to water supply sanitation in yemen is as low or even lower than that in many sub-saharan african countries. yemen is both the poorest country and the most water-scarce country in the arab world. third, the capacity of sector institutions to plan, build, operate and maintain infrastructure remains limited. last but not least the security situation makes it even more difficult to improve or even maintain existing levels of service. yemen: water and sanitation data access to an improved water source 55% (2014) access to improved sanitation 53% (2014) continuity of supply mostly not continuous average urban water use (liter/capita/day) between 37 (in taiz) and 94 (in aden) average urban water and sewer bill (us$/month) n/a share of household metering n/a share of collected wastewater treated n/a annual investment in water supply and sanitation n/a sources of investment financing mainly by external donors institutions decentralization to municipalities yes national water and sanitation company being phased out (nwsa) water and sanitation regulator planned responsibility for policy setting ministry of water and environment sector law yes (2002), focused on water resources number of urban service providers 15 number of rural service providers n/a the average yemeni has access to only 140 cubic meters of water per year (101 gallons per day) for all uses, while the middle eastern average is 1,000 m3/yr, and the internationally defined threshold for water stress is 1,700 cubic meters per year. yemen's groundwater is the main source of water in the country but the water tables have dropped severely leaving the country without a viable source of water. for example, in sana'a, the water table was 30 meters below surface in the 1970s but had dropped to 1200 meters below surface by 2012 in some areas. the groundwater has not been regulated by yemen's governments. even before the revolution, yemen's water situation had been described as increasingly dire by experts who worried that yemen would be the "first country to run out of water". agriculture in yemen takes up about 90% of water in yemen even though it only generates 6% of gdp - however a large portion of yemenis are dependent on small-scale subsistence agriculture. half of agricultural water in yemen is used to grow khat, a narcotic that most yemenis chew. this means that in such a water-scarce country as yemen, where half the population is food-insecure, 45% of the water withdrawn from the ever-depleting aquifers is used to grow a narcotic that does not feed yemenis. due to the 2015 yemeni civil war, the situation is increasingly dire. 80% of the country's population struggles to access water to drink and bathe. bombing has forced many yemenis to leave their homes for other areas, and so wells in those areas are under increasing pressure. in addition, water infrastructure itself has been targeted by warplanes. for example, on january 8, 2016, a major desalination plant in the city of mokha was destroyed by a saudi bomb, which caused the disruption of water supply not of mokha but also of ta'iz. in addition to the impacts of the war, global warming and human overpopulation have also contributed to the destruction of yemen's water supply. as of june 2017, yemen is facing the world's worst outbreak of cholera, caused by lack of clean drinking water. over 2000 people died from the highly contagious bacterial infection in the four months from april to august 2017. access in 2014, around 11.2 million people lacked access to "improved" water and around 11.5 million people were without access to "improved" sanitation in yemen. previously, in 2012, 55% of the total population had access to "improved" water, or 72% of the urban population and 47% of the rural population. regarding sanitation, in 2012, 53% of the total population had access to "improved" sanitation, or 93% of the urban population and 34% of the rural population. running water is available in many parts of the country, but most villages remain without it. women in remote areas typically draw water from the nearest well or from a cistern, sometimes walking up to two hours each way twice a day. they may carry the water in pots on their heads or load them onto donkeys. statistics on access to water supply and sanitation in yemen are contradictory. for example, the data from the latest census, carried out in 1997, are very different from data in a demographic and health survey (dhs) carried out in the same year. according to the census, 61% or urban households had access to water connections in their home, while according to the dhs the same figure was 70%, but for rural areas the order is reversed. the census gives higher figures for access to house connections (25%) than the dhs (19%). the latest data used by the united nations are from the 2004 family and health survey and the 2006 multiple indicator cluster survey. estimates for 2011 are made based on an extrapolation of trends from previous years. in 2011, the united nations' joint monitoring programme for water supply and sanitation estimated that only 55% of the yemeni population had access to improved water source – including 40% from house connections and 15% from other improved water sources such as standpipes. only 53% had access to improved sanitation. access to improved water supply, using a broad definition of access, is estimated to be much higher in urban areas than in rural areas (72% vs. 47%). the urban-rural gap is much higher for improved sanitation (93% vs. 33%). due to rapid population growth, access to water supply actually declined in relative terms from 66% in 1990 to 55% in 2011 despite a substantial increase in absolute access. however, access to improved sanitation increased from 24% to 53% during the same period, according to the estimates. service quality service quality for water supply and sanitation has many dimensions. for example, service quality for water supply can be measured through the continuity of supply, which is generally low in yemen, and customer satisfaction, which is surprisingly high. one indicator for the service quality of sanitation is the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants at removing pollutants, which is often low in yemen. continuity of water supply in the town of mahwit, piped water comes less than once a week. continuity of water supply is poor in most yemeni cities. for example, in taiz, the frequency of the public piped water delivery is only once about every 40 days. more and more people have to rely on more costly water provided by private wells supplying water tankers. the quality of this water is questionable because these tankers have often been used for other purposes without appropriate cleaning. according to the ministry of water and environment, 15 of 23 urban water utilities provided water every day for between 12 and 24 hours in 2007. these data do not differentiate between utilities with continuous supply and those with intermittent supply of a “moderate” sort (more than 12 hours daily water supply). the 15 cities thus include sana’a and aden that provide intermittent water supply. four other towns provided water on a daily basis, but less than 12 hours per day. the city of ibb and the town of bajil provide water only once a week. and the utilities in taiz and mahwit provided water only less than once a week in 2007. however, there are potentially conflicting reports about the continuity of supply. for example, the ministry reported that water was being provided on a daily basis in amran in 2007. however, 100% of the respondents to a household survey in the same town in 2008 indicated that they received water only once a week or even once a month. customer satisfaction according to a survey carried out in 2008 in 7 towns 88% of the customers of water utilities said they were satisfied with the service level of their water utility, and only 9% were dissatisfied. even in the city of ibb, where water supply is intermittent, 47% of customers declared they were satisfied. in the town of amran, where the situation was similar, even more customers - 74% - were satisfied. it may be that customers have become accustomed to poor service quality and have correspondingly lowered their expectations. 77% of households said that they drank tap water. wastewater treatment yemen has more than 17 urban and more than 15 rural wastewater treatment plants. they use the following technologies: activated sludge in sana'a and ibb (2) imhoff tanks or trickling filters in hajjah (1) imhoff tanks followed by stabilization ponds in zabid (1) septic tanks followed by stabilization ponds in al mahwait (1) stabilization ponds in aden, al-hodeidah, bajil, thamr, yarim, al bayda, radaa, 'amran, bayt al-faqih (9) and other cities or towns. according to a 2002 report by staff from the yemeni environment protection agency, there were also wastewater treatment plants in taiz, dammar, yarem, and radaa. most of the plants use the stabilization pond technology. the largest wastewater treatment plant in the country, located in sana'a, was completed in 2000, but it had to be upgraded between 2003 and 2005 due to "deficiencies in its operation, unacceptable odor emissions, and inadequate management of the generated sludge". while data on the quality of treated effluent are limited, available data show that the effluent of at least two plants complied with the relatively lenient national standard of 150 mg/l of biological oxygen demand, a measure of organic pollution. however, none of the four analyzed plants complied with the standard for fecal coliform, a measure of biological contamination. reuse of treated and untreated wastewater in agriculture is common in yemen. wastewater from hospitals and medical laboratories is discharged into the sewer system, but cannot be adequately treated in the existing municipal wastewater treatment plants. water resources sana'a, the capital of the republic of yemen, is supplied entirely by groundwater, with water levels declining by 6–8 m per year with renewable water resources of only 125 cubic meters per capita/year yemen is one of the most water-scarce countries in the world. this level is less than one tenth of the threshold for water stress, which is defined at 1,700 cubic meters per capita/year. total water demand of 3,400 million cubic metres per year exceeds renewable resources of 2,500 million cubic metres per year, thus leading to a steady decline in groundwater levels, varying between 1 m per year in the tuban-abyan area and 6–8 m per year in the sana’a basin. today, there are between 45,000 and 70,000 wells in yemen, the majority of which are under private control. no one can be certain of the exact number, as almost all were drilled without license. agriculture takes the lion's share of yemen's water resources, sucking up almost 90 percent, and it is estimated that khat production accounts for 37 percent of all water used in irrigation. furthermore, climate change has apparently led to a reduction in the level of rainfall. for example, in sana'a the average rainfall has declined by one sixth from 240mm (average 1932–1968) to 200mm (1969–1982) and 180mm (1983–2000). sana'a sana'a could be the first capital city in the world to run dry. even today, many wells have to be drilled to depths of 2,600 to 3,900 feet (790 to 1,190 m), extremely deep by world standards. the combined output of the 125 wells operated by the state-owned sana'a local corporation for water supply and sanitation barely meets 35 percent of the growing city's need. the rest is supplied either by small, privately owned networks or by hundreds of mobile tankers. in recent years, as water quality has deteriorated, privately owned kiosks that use reverse osmosis to purify poor-quality groundwater supplies have mushroomed in sana'a and other towns. future supply options include pumping desalinated water from the red sea over a distance of 155