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''This page was last comprehensively updated in March 2014.'' Water supply and sanitation in Yemen is characterized by many 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 first nation to run out of water". A second key challenge is a high level of poverty, making it difficult to recover the costs of service provision. Access to water supply sanitation is as low as in some 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 remains limited. Last but not least the security situation makes it even more difficult to improve or even maintain existing levels of service. The average Yemeni has access to only 140 cubic meters of water per year (101 gallons per day ) for all uses, while the Middle Eastern average is 1000 m3/yr, and the internationally defined threshold for water stress is 1700 cubic meters per year.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability )〕 Yemen's groundwater is the main source of water in the country but the water tables have dropped severely leaving the country without a viable source of water. For example, in Sana'a, the water table was 30 meters below surface in the 1970s but had dropped to 1200 meters below surface by 2012. The groundwater has not been regulated by Yemen's governments. Even before the revolution, Yemen's water situation had been 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 GDP - however a large portion of Yemenis are dependent on small-scale subsistence agriculture. Half of agricultural water in Yemen is used to grow khat, a narcotic 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 This means that in such a water-scarce country as Yemen, where half the population is food-insecure, 45% of the water withdrawn from the ever-depleting aquifers is used to grow a crop that feeds nobody.〔 Due to the 2015 Yemeni Civil War, the situation is increasingly dire. 80% of the country's population struggles to access water to drink and bathe. Bombing has forced many Yemenis to leave their homes for other areas, and so wells in those areas are under increasing pressure.〔 ==Access== Running water is available in many parts of the country, but most villages remain without it. Women in remote areas typically draw water from the nearest well or from a cistern, 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%. 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 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%). Due to 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.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Water supply and sanitation in Yemen」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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