Yemen’s Vulnerability to Climate Change: How to Strengthen Adaptation

Moreover, in recent decades, climate change has affected the timing and quantity of rain differently in the country’s five agro-ecological zones, increasing it in some areas and decreasing it in others.[7] The high mountain range close to the Red Sea coast catches the monsoon rains and benefits from the humidity carried from the sea,[8] resulting in an area where rainfed agriculture is possible, a. [...] Deforestation is partly due to the continuous cutting of trees for firewood and charcoal production, a problem worsened by poverty and the war, as people can’t afford cooking gas and thus resort to the felling of the few remaining trees and bushes[16] as well as overgrazing. [...] These landsides and heavy rains have led to a rise in the level of the valleys with sediments and running water, which in turn led to an imbalance in the slopes, the burial and sweeping away of agricultural lands, the destruction of buildings and roads, and the expansion of areas unsuitable for agriculture and construction.”[27] Throughout the country, rising temperatures are a worsening problem.[. [...] The war has further contributed to environmental issues through the scattering of exploded and unexploded munitions such as landmines and cluster bomblets.[33] I nadequate Sanitation and Human Waste Disposal Systems Population increases and the ’modernization’ of housing have increased domestic water usage and led to the abandonment of the traditional waterless ‘long drop’ sanitation mechanisms fo. [...] The law remains institutionally weak, primarily because the authority over irrigation, the main user of water, was promptly returned to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation thus depriving the Ministry of Water and Environment of the ability to address and control this crucial issue.