The WaterBlog

Rains in Yemen: A blessing or a curse?

Yemen is ranked amongst the top five most water-scarce countries in the world with an annual average rainfall of 125mm. Over the past few years, war has destroyed almost everything and most of the damages are affecting the water and sanitation infrastructure. Like many other countries, Yemen is also facing multiple effects of climate change. Over the least three years, these effects have come strongly to the fore. There have been unprecedented rainfall events, mostly due to cyclones originating in the Indian oceans that empty themselves onto the Arabian peninsula. Some Yemeni cities had not experienced such rain events for a long time and were thus not prepared, and had to suffer catastrophic damages to humans, livestock, agricultural lands and infrastructure. Some waterfalls and rivers, which were dried for years or didn’t exist, were flooded for days. For example, the Ma'rib dam, since its construction 35 years ago, has overflowed, meaning that its capacity reached more than 400 million cubic… Continued