Even in peacetime Yemen struggles with water shortages. The country’s annual rainfall is only ¼ of what the people need. But in wartime the perennial water problem is being strained to the limit.
For nearly a year, Yemen has been battered by a conflict that has drawn in major regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran. The result has been mass civilian casualties, destroyed infrastructure, an economy that has ceased to function and at least 7.6 million Yemenis struggling to get enough food. In all of this chaos, water is a serious issues that is getting minimal attention.
Normally, Yemen imports the water it needs. But in addition to the obstacles of war, Saudi Arabia has been blocking imports from reaching the country. Humanitarian aid routes have also been been obstructed.
But the Yemeni people are resilient.
As water supplies plummet, people are turning to an unlikely ally: fog.
More specifically, they’re extracting water from fog.
Logically this makes sense: fog, after all, is water vapor.
But practically speaking, how does this work? It’s not like you can just head into a cloud of fog and open your mouth.
It turns out that harvesting fog--the river in the sky--is an ancient art. Archaeologists have found evidence of circular walls built around vines or plants to collect condensation.
Today, countries such as Chile, Morocco, Guatemala and Haiti harvest fog.
Yemen has experimented with this type of water harvesting since 2003, but the program only really took off after 2013 when the UNDP ramped up its efforts.
The process basically involves large mesh screens that collect moisture from fog.
One screen can collect up to 40 liters of water per day. That’s enough water for at least 20 people. In wartime, (when people are rationing so heavily) probably double or triple that amount.
And since the screens only cost $15 USD and are easy to operate, there’s no reason why they can’t be rolled out to every part of the country.
Fog is normally thought of as something that obscures vision, gets in the way. But now, amid all this turmoil, it’s acting as a well-lit path, a beacon, to survival.