By: John Collins Rudolf
Posted October 25th, 2010
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/25/in-yemen-water-grows-scarcer/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Yemen has recently been having increasingly sharp water shortages. This could cost many people their jobs, 750,000 jobs to be exact. It will also decrease peoples incomes by 25% in the next 10 years. Yemen, a Middle Eastern Nation, is already very troubled and they don't need a problem like this too. This city could run out of water by 2025 and then what happens to them? Yemen relies mostly on groundwater and rainfall for its water supply. Also another city named Sana is 100 miles inland of Yemen and at about 7,400 feet elevation and is also very vulnerable to water shortages in a few years. They are expecting many of the wells to dry up very soon and they are either going to have to find a new water source, or keep drilling deeper.
I think that it is very bad that Yemen is almost out of water, and that Sana will be running out shortly. These people are going to need some help because it is already a very poor city and they will not be able to afford to keep drilling deeper or finding a new water source considering it may be very expensive. I know that if i were in Yemen right now, i would want others to come and help us out so that we could have enough water and have deeper wells. If no ones helps Yemen then i think they may have to find a new place to live since they cant afford drilling deeper.
Questions:
Is it possible for them to keep drilling, and drilling, and drilling, and just not hit any water at all?
What happens when they do run out of water, will there be another source they can get water from?
When do you think that this problem will start hitting other cities, besides just Yemen and Sana?
WOWOWOW! Hey guys! It's kind of wierd that I'm so hyper after reading this incredibly upsetting article :( Hey, I just had an apple and they have a ton of sugar. But, that's besides the point. I agree with Marisa when she says that it is very bad for Yemen to be losing all the water, and running out of it for that matter. If you are thinking about losing a job, just think about all of the lives that will be lost without a sufficient water source. I know i couldnt live without water simply because i would have a severe panic attact, but also because a human can't live without water for a set period of time... it's just a fact.
ReplyDeleteTo answer the second question about the water source, of course there will be another source as to where they can get water from, the question is, will Yemen be able to afford it and how will they transport it across the country? Oh, right, almost forgot: that source would be the OCEAN! They can put in a desalination plant which can clean ocean water for the people.
Hey guys. Gret article. i found this article to be very interesting. In the past i've heard about cities with poor sanitation running out of water. I do not know exactly where this city is located, but if they live near a usable body of water, im sure they could find a way to filter and use this surfa water.
ReplyDeleteI have a few un answered questions about this article:
1. Is it posible for this villge to obtain surface water
2.Do they live in the desert where it is dry and water is extermely difficult to come by?
3.Are either of these cities being helped by other countries such as the U.S.?
Thanks guys.
Hey guys again. after rereading my earlier response I found that I had a bunch of spelling errors, and that I missed a few points that I did not earlier adress.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to comment on about where they live. If this city is poor like the cities we saw in Africa it would make it even more difficult to obtain water. But considering that they had so many jobs in the first place, and therefore had many people, couldn't they import water from some place else. This could solve both their water problem, and people would have more jobs available to them; such as building a deeper well to reach the aaquifer, or gathering water from other reliable aqifers.
Thanks again guys
WOW! I never heard about water scarcity in Yemen before, and my dad works with cleaning water and such. Well, I think that it's horrible that Yemen will be running out of water soon, and that they can't easily get to clean resources. Like Marisa said, people living in Yemen probably want other countries to come help them as soon as possible. I know I would if I was in their shoes:)You can't live for very long without clean water, and if Yemen loses all water supply, people will die very quickly. That would be devastating to our global community, because it is our responsibility to help other countries if we can. Like Maddy said, we can build desalination plants to help them clean water. That's what my dad sells, along with more advanced technologies such as reverse osmosis (no need to get into what that is here:)
ReplyDeleteI found an awesome website about this issue in Yemen, and it goes into alot of what Marisa talked about. It even has a picture!!
http://www.yobserver.com/environment/10013725.html
Enjoy!
wow! this article is really interesting! it's horrible that Yemen may soon run out of water! What would we do without a water supply? If humans don't get enough water, they could die! That would be tragic!
ReplyDeletein response to your question:When do you think that this problem will start hitting other cities, besides just Yemen and Sana?
I think it will hit other cities eventually. I'm not sure about if that "eventually" is near or far, but it will definitely happen if we don't clean up our water. We need to preserve our water so we can have healthy drinking water!