the Yemeni Public Prosecutor's website
Water supply and sanitation in Yemen are characterized by multiple challenges as well as some achievements. A key challenge is severe water scarcity, especially in the Highlands, prompting The Times of London to write "Yemen could become the first nation to run out of water". A second major obstacle is a high level of poverty, making it very difficult to recover the costs of service provision and infrastructure maintenance. Access to baseline water supply and sanitation in Yemen is as low as, or even lower than that in many sub-Saharan African countries. Yemen is both the poorest country and the most water-scarce country in the Arab world. Third, the capacity of sector institutions to plan, build, operate and maintain infrastructure is severely limited. Finally, the ongoing conflicts and instability make it even harder to improve or even maintain existing levels of service.
The average Yemeni has access to only 80 to 86 cubic meters of water per year (58-62 gallons per day) for all uses, far below the internationally defined threshold for absolute water scarcity of 500 cubic meters per year, and much lower than the Middle Eastern regional average. Yemen's groundwater is the main source of water in the country, but the water tables have been severely depleted, leaving the country without a viable source of water. In the critical highland basins, including Sana'a and Taiz, the natural water tables are dropping by 1 to 8 meters each year. This has forced public and private well-drilling to reach deep fossil aquifers at excavation depths exceeding 1,000 meters in some areas. The groundwater has not been regulated effectively by Yemen's governments. Even before the conflicts, Yemen's water conditions were described as increasingly dire by experts, who worried that Yemen would be the "first country to run out of water". Agriculture in Yemen takes up about 90% of water in Yemen even though it only generates 6% of the nation's GDP. However, a large portion of Yemenis are dependent on small-scale subsistence farming. About half of agricultural water in Yemen is used to grow khat, a psychoactive plant that most Yemenis chew. This means that in such a water-scarce country as Yemen, where half the population is food-insecure, 45% of the water withdrawn from the ever-depleting aquifers is used to grow a narcotic crop rather than addressing widespread food insecurity.
Following the 2015 Yemeni Civil War, the water shortage situation became increasingly dire, causing a widespread humanitarian and public health crisis. Between 14.4 million and 17.8 million people—about half of whom are children—struggle to access safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. Fighting has forced millions of internally displaced Yemenis to relocated. Consequentially, wells in these areas went under increasing pressure. Additionally, water infrastructures, including municipal pipelines and coastal desalination plants, were targeted during the conflict. For example, on January 8, 2016, a major desalination plant in the city of Mokha was destroyed by a Saudi bomb, which caused the disruption of water supply not only in Mokha but also in Taiz. Centralized power grid failures and the high cost of fuel have heavily damaged public pumping stations, forcing more than 70% of the population to rely entirely on expensive, unregulated private water markets and mobile water tankers. Additionally, global warming and human overpopulation have also been contributing to the destruction of Yemen's water supply. This persistent lack of clean drinking water and functional sanitation utilities directly triggered serious public health emergencies, including historically severe outbreaks of cholera and waterborne illnesses. Over 2000 people died from the highly contagious bacterial infection in the four months from April to August 2017. To prevent a total cessation of public networks, international aid operations have managed to partially bypass the collapsed grid by transitioning urban and rural pumping stations to decentralized solar energy systems.
Access
Historical access trends (1990–2014) In 2014, around 11.2 million people lacked access to "improved" water, while around 11.5 million people did not have access to "improved" sanitation in Yemen.WHO/UNICEF (2015) Progress on sanitation and drinking water - 2015 update and MDG assessment , Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation
In 2012, 55% of the total population had access to "improved" water, divided as 72% of the urban population and 47% of the rural population. As for sanitation, in 2012, 53% of the total population had access to "improved" sanitation, (93% of the urban population and 34% of the rural population).
Running water is available in many parts of the country, but most villages remain have no access to it. Women in remote areas typically draw water from wells or from cisterns, sometimes walking up to two hours each way twice a day. They may carry the water in pots on their heads or load them onto donkeys."Yemen." CultureGrams Online Edition. ProQuest, 2011.
Statistics on access to water supply and sanitation in Yemen are contradictory. For example, the data from the latest census, carried out in 1997, are very different from data in a Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) carried out in the same year. According to the census, 61% or urban households had access to water connections in their home, while according to the DHS the same figure was 70%, but for rural areas the order is reversed. The census gives higher figures for access to house connections (25%) than the DHS (19%). The latest data used by the United Nations are from the 2004 Family and Health Survey and the 2006 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Estimates for 2011 are made based on an extrapolation of trends from previous years.Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation:Estimates for the use of Improved Sanitation Facilities:Yemen, March 2010
In 2011, the United Nations' Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) estimated that only 55% of the Yemeni population had access to improved water source – including 40% from house connections and 15% from other improved water sources such as standpipes. Only 53% had access to improved sanitation. Access to improved water supply, using a broad definition of access, is estimated to be much higher in urban areas than in rural areas (72% vs. 47%). The urban-rural gap is much higher for improved sanitation (93% vs. 33%). Because of the rapid population growth, access to water supply actually declined in relative terms from 66% in 1990 to 55% in 2011 despite a substantial increase in absolute access. However, access to improved sanitation increased from 24% to 53% during the same period, according to the estimates.WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation - Data Tables , accessed on 7 March 2014 By 2012, this baseline remained similar, with 55% of Yemenis maintaining access to improved water (72% urban, 47% rural) and 53% holding access to improved sanitation (93% urban, 34% rural). By 2014, around 11.2 million people lacked access to improved water, and approximately 11.5 million people did not have access to improved sanitation.
Impact of conflict on current access (2020s) The escalation of armed conflict undid historical gains, causing structural collapse across both urban and rural water networks. According to United Nations humanitarian assessments, more than 17.8 million people inside Yemen lack sufficient access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services, half of whom are children. The complete decay of centralized public utilities has forced over 70% of the population to rely entirely on expensive, unregulated private water markets, mainly by mobile water tankers and informal neighborhood commercial wells.
Rural communities remain severely affected by the war. In remote villages which don't have pipe systems, the physical work of water collection continues to fall mainly on women and children, who need to travel up to two hours each way to draw water from vulnerable wells or old cisterns. This dynamic is one of the factors that contributes to high school dropout rates among rural girls. Because of the loss of centralized electrical grids and no public financing, the sustainability of remaining localized water services relies largely on international aid interventions, which focus on switching local city and village networks to decentralized solar-powered pumping systems to keep minimal water supplies functioning.
Service quality Service quality for water supply and sanitation has several aspects. For example, water supply service quality can be measured by the continuity of supply, which is generally low in Yemen, or customer satisfaction, which is high. One indicator of the service quality of sanitation is the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants in removing pollutants, which is often low in Yemen.
Continuity of water supply
Continuity of water supply is poor in most Yemeni cities, and has been deteriorating into a severe crisis due to ongoing conflict and infrastructure decay.
Pre-war baseline (2007–2008) According to a survey performed in 2007 by the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE), municipal water deliveries have been highly intermittent. For example, in Taiz, public piped water is delivered only about once every 40 days. More and more people had to rely on more costly water supplied by private wells and water tankers. The quality of this water was questionable because these tankers were often cross contaminated. According to MWE, in 2007 only 15 out of 23 urban water utilities reported providing water daily for between 12 and 24 hours. However, these metrics did not distinguish between continuous supply and intermittent moderate (more than 12 hours daily water) supply. The 15 utilities were included in cities like Sana’a and Aden, which provide intermittent water supply. Four other towns provided water on a daily basis, but for less than 12 hours per day. During this period, the city of Ibb and the town of Bajil provided water only once a week, with utilities in Taiz and Mahwit delivered water less than once a week. There were conflicting data about the continuity of supply. For example, MWE reported that water was being provided daily in Amran in 2007, while 100% of the respondents to a household survey living there indicated that they had access to water weekly or even monthly in 2008.
Systemic collapse and current status (2026) Following years of armed conflict, state neglect, and fuel blockades, the remaining operational capacity of Local Corporations (LCs) of potable water has severely collapsed. By 2026, the average per capita share of annual renewable freshwater in Yemen dropped to between 80 and 86 cubic meters—much less than the international absolute water scarcity threshold of 500 cubic meters. Groundwater in critical highland basins, including Sana'a, Saada, and Taiz, is being pupmed at twice the natural replenishment rate, causing local water tables to drop by up to 6 meters each year, and forcing public and private well-drilling to reach increased depths.
Centralized power grid failures and the elevated cost of diesel fuel have eventually eliminated relatively reliable municipal pipeline continuity. To prevent a total cessation of water supply, international humanitarian interventions by agencies such as the World Bank and UNOPS switched dozens of urban pumping stations to decentralized solar energy networks in municipalities like Al-Shihr, Dhamar, and Amran.