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Responses to Water Scarcity: Social Adaptive Capacity and the Role of Environmental Information. a Case Study from Taõiz, Yemen

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Responses to Water Scarcity: Social Adaptive Capacity and the Role of Environmental Information. a Case Study from Taõiz, Yemen RESPONSES TO WATER SCARCITY: SOCIAL ADAPTIVE CAPACITY AND THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION. A CASE STUDY FROM TAÕIZ, YEMEN. by: Yasir Mohieldeen [email protected] Occasional Paper No. 23 Water Issues Study Group School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) September 1999 1 ABSTRACT The main purpose of this study is to demonstrate the importance of the social aspects (dynamics) of water in the highly political process of water policy formulation and implementation. A second purpose is to illustrate the potential usefulness of one type of data in the enhancement of the mutual adaptive capacity of governments and local communities in developing safe and sustainable water allocation and management practices. The type of data used were derived from remotely sensed imagery and have been integrated into geographical information systems. The data enabled rural water use to be detected in the 1980s and in the 1990s. The social dynamics of water scarcity are exceptionally complex. Societies have different abilities to cope with water deficits, which are referred to in the study as 'first order scarcity'. Ohlsson (1999) calls the ability to cope with water deficits the 'adaptive capacity' of a society. Lack of 'adaptive capacity' can be considered as a 'second order scarcity'. A recently developed framework by Turton (1999a) emphasises that it is the 'adaptive capacity' of the society that determines its water development trajectory. The experience of competing water users in the Ta'iz region of Yemen in the 1960-1996 period provides empirical evidence on a number of technical, informational and social factors which contributed to the 'closure' of a groundwater resource. The hydropolitical circumstances were conflictual and, as a result, the resource managing strategies of both the local communities, that is the irrigators, and of the government providing water for the city, failed. Special attention is given to the way that the domestic and drinking water crisis in Ta'iz has been addressed after the failure of the government installed public system. The local community has adapted by developing an unregulated private market operated by well-owners and water-browser operators. The system meets current needs although it is not founded on sound water resource information and therefore may not be sustainable. The crisis in the TaÕiz area represents a case of total water management failure. The failure occurred because of the absence of feedback and support processes between the government and the local societies throughout the implementation of all water strategies adopted by the government. Keywords: Water demand management, water scarcity, adaptive capacity, feedback and support, remote sensing and GIS, information dissemination. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to acknowledge my supervisor, Professor Tony Allan for his enormous and invaluable assistance and support during the entire study. I am indebted to Mr. Chris Handley of the SOAS Department of Geography, for his generous assistance, and provision of valuable information as an expert who worked in the study area. I would also like to thank Mr. Tony Turton for his valuable conversations, and Mr. Gerhard LichtenthŠler, of the SOAS Geography Department, for his continuos support and guidance during the study. Thanks must also be given to the many that offered to proof read this work and, of course, many thanks to those who carried out such an arduous task. 3 CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY. ÔWe made from water every living thing.Õ (Holy QurÕan, 21:30). 1.1 Introduction: ÒWe ask you É your opinion of artesian wells. You think they are unimportant. All right, the hell with you. WeÕll ask somebody else who will give us the answer we want. Nothing personal.Ó (Reisner, 1993; cited in Turton, 1999a) The above quote is what Senator Moody of South Dakota said when he heard John Wesley PowellÕs report on the proposed use of artesian wells in the Dakotas, in the 1870s. One century later, in 1976, Leggette et al., were commissioned by the Yemeni National Water and Sanitation Authority (NWSA) to carry out hydrological studies in Wadi Al Hayma, 12 km north of the city of TaÕiz, Yemen. The objective was to assess the groundwater aquifer in Wadi Al Hayma, and to estimate the amount of water that could be siphoned through a pipeline from Al Hayma to the city of TaÕiz which faced water shortage. In their report, Leggette et al., (1977) estimated a quantity of 10 Mm3/yr to be transported to the city of which 8 Mm3/yr is from Al Hayma and Miqbaba, an Ôeffective end to irrigated farmingÕ in the area, as a Ôreasonable objectiveÕ for sustainable abstraction for the city. 4 In 1982/83, the NWSA started the commissioning of wells. Some locals thought that the NWSA would drill only seven deeper wells in the area, yet now there are more than thirty (Word & Moench, unpub, cited in Handley, 1999). The shaikh1 of Lower Wadi Al Hayma, the late shaikh Sadiq, who agreed to the drilling, managed to get three deeper drilled wells for himself out of the deal (Handley, 1999). The farmers had been informed that pumping water from the deeper wells drilled by the NWSA, its transporting to the city through the pipe line, would not effect their shallow wells or their farms, since there is an aquiclude between their wells and the NWSAÕs wells. The NWSA promised $10M2 compensation for loss of crops (Handley, 1999). However, Why the government should offer such a huge amount of money beforehand and before anything had occurred, is not clear. In 1986, after four years of abstraction for the city, and by local farmers in Wadi Al Hayma, the farmersÕ shallow dug wells dried up. The lower part of the wadi was left barren, apart from a few fields including shaikh SadiqÕs successorsÕ fields which were irrigated from his deeper drilled wells. To date nothing has been received from the promised $10M government compensation. In 1987, and as part of an emergency drilling campaign to rescue the city, the NWSA started drilling new wells in the Lower Wadi Al Hayma, four times deeper than the ones they had drilled in 1982. The locals in Wadi Al Hayma prevented the drilling in the area by force. The army interfered and took school children hostages in the school for one day, and five shaikhs were detained by the Yemeni security services for five days in TaÕiz, while local men went into the mountains with their weapons. The shaikhs were 1 The head man of the tribe 5 released after they had signed an agreement not to stop the drilling; their sons guarded the drilling team. During 1996-99, a hydrological study was completed by Chris Handley of the SOAS Geography Department, University of London, as part of his PhD degree. By using remotely sensed data, processed in SOAS, GIS work carried out by the author, and HandleyÕs results proved that Legette et al., got it wrong. The amount of water that they considered as a safe yield for siphoning to the city was unrealistic. HandleyÕs results suggest that to achieve Legette et alÕs Ôreasonable objectiveÕ of complete demise of irrigated agriculture, only 4.8 Mm3/yr rather than 8 Mm3/yr, would be the sustainable abstraction to the city (Handley, 1999). However, LeggetteÕs report (1976) has provided the ÔanswerÕ the government wanted. This thesis will try to record and analyse water development in Wadi Al Hayma over the past two decades, through a recently developed social framework/model which emphasises the importance of linking the technical and social aspect of water demand management together. The purpose will be to show that social integrity, government legitimacy, accurate information about water resources, sharing of information and participation of local societies in decision making are the basis of effective water strategies that lead to water Ôresources reconstructionÕ. 1.2 Water Crisis and the National Extent: Water is a natural resource of vital importance; no life is possible without water. In arid regions water brings livelihoods and security. These circumstances politicise water 2 10M was really a lot of money in Yemen in the 1970s. Still it is a lot.of money. 6 supply and demands and can make managing water resources a very hot issue. They cause different social sectors in a society act according to water resource availability, and adapt to its scarcity. However, information on water resources in developing countries is blatantly lacking. The need for accurate information and data about water resources and about the pattern of its use and, how this pattern changes, is of vital importance to any water strategy formulation. The Middle East region provides a number of good examples of social entities facing severe water resource scarcity combined with severe lack of data and information about their water resources. Among these societies, Yemen stands out very distinctly. Yemen is one of the oldest irrigation civilizations in the world. When dam irrigation, rainwater harvesting techniques, and water management methods were developed there, Rome was still marsh and America was a trackless waste (The World Bank report, 1997: i). Ibn Khaldun3, in his book ÔMuqaddimahÕ, attributed the development of the Middle East at that time, and the underdevelopment of Europe in general, to the cold environment in Europe, and so can be said to have adopted an environmental determinism approach. In recent times, Yemen has experienced an extreme water crisis, characterised by severe water shortages in the major cities, very limited access of the population to safe drinking water and rapid depletion of groundwater aquifers. The annual replenished renewable water supply is around 2.1 Ð 2.5 billion cubic metres/yr (Abdo, 1997). Which renders an average of 130 cubic metres per person/yr.
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