May 25, 2005—Dr. Lia Sieghart is blunt when describing the water problem facing her country, Yemen. "The scarcity of water is basically the biggest problem in Yemen," Sieghart says. "It is the biggest obstacle to the development process." Sieghart is all too well aware of Yemen's water problems. An environmental management expert with the Republic of Yemen's Ministry of Water and the Environment, she says Yemen's groundwater levels are dropping by up to six meters a year. "Basically this is the main issue at the moment in Yemen. There are forecasts the capital of Yemen will run out of water in ten years so we have to do drastic measures to try and stop the situation," she says. Sieghart is one of the people behind an innovative approach to conserve Yemen's water - reusing water from the country's mosques. Her department, partnering with a water engineering firm, Parsons Brinckerhoff Ltd., has just been granted nearly US$127,000 by the World Bank's Development Marketplace to pilot a program to re-use the water from mosques in three communities in Yemen. Sieghart says the mosques are heavy users of water. People go to the mosques to pray five times a day. Before they pray, they perform a cleansing ritual. "Water is basically constantly running. But the water is of very high quality, because people don't use soap for the washing," she says.  |  |  | | Development Marketplace 2005: Reusing Mosque Water for Irrigation in Yemen |
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The water used in that ritual is considered "grey water" and simply enters the sewerage system, furthering adding strain to the already scarce water supply in the country. But under the project, the water used in the cleansing ritual would be captured, treated and distributed for use to irrigate land around the mosques, where agricultural crops are grown. "Yemen has 75,000 mosques, which are a huge number, and that's only the mosques that are officially registered," Sieghart says. "We calculated with the average mosque having about one hundred people a day, if you collected water from all the mosques, you could irrigate an additional 17% of agricultural land." Sieghart says the concept of reusing mosque water already has public acceptance. "First of all, it's mentioned in the Koran that it's allowed and encouraged to re-use waste water," she says. "And we've have had very positive feedback from the Imams, the sheiks and from the local communities to re-use the water." To further promote social acceptance, a public awareness campaign will be conducted as part of the project, seeking the support of religious leaders, sheiks and government officials. Seighart has just spent the past two days displaying the project for Development Marketplace at the World Bank's Washington headquarters. She says it's been an important experience. "For us, it has meant a lot because it brought the idea to a broader community. Very often when you tackle big problems like water, you look at big issues like infrastructure. But you don't very often see the small ideas which are very efficient." Another important factor Sieghart says is that the idea can be undertaken elsewhere. "It can easily be replicated in the whole region because the Middle East and North Africa has the greatest water scarcity in the world. And you can also use the system not only for mosques, but for schools, other government buildings, and hotels - wherever there is a big need for water." |
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