PARENT SESSION
Poster Session #38: Landscape Ecology.
Thursday, August 9, 2001. Presentation from 10:30 AM to 12:00 PM. Exhibition Hall
133
Facing the water scarcity problem in Yemen.
Alkaff, Huda1, 1
ABSTRACT- Yemen is located within an extremely arid region. It has limited renewable freshwater supplies, and is most dependable on its fossil groundwater reserves. In some neighboring areas, depletion of these nonrenewable groundwater resources is taking place at an alarming rate due to overpumping in order to meet agricultural requirements. Population growth, improvement in the standard of living, and urban migration, coupled with the absence of conservation programs, have brought about high domestic water consumption, which itself doubled from 1980 to 1990. As a result, Yemen became a water scarce country in 1990. Based on current trends and future projections, renewable water resources such as surface runoff, desalination, rechargeable alluvial aquifer and reclaimed wastewater are already insufficient to meet the expected demand. Since the whole Arabian peninsula region, in which Yemen lies in its southwest corner, is suffering from the same water scarcity and imbalance problems, there is an urgent need for regional water plans and solutions. Mutually agreeable water-sharing terms and treaties among neighboring countries, expansion of available water supply through conservation, efficiency, and reuse, and environmental education, research, and management are some of the important steps towards reducing the current and near-future imbalance between water demand and supply in Yemen and the Arabian peninsula.
KEY WORDS: water scarcity, groundwater depletion, yemen, arabian peninsula