Since April of this year, heavy seasonal rains and flash floods have devastated 19 of Yemen’s 22 provinces, impacting some 562,000 Yemenis. The reported death toll from the downpours has risen above 150 so far, and the UN’s Refugee Agency has reported that these are the worst floods Yemen has seen in decades. A man whose father is among those who lost their lives told the agency, “We haven’t seen rain like this in 50 years.”[1]
Among the hardest hit provinces, all 24 districts of Hodeidah have been impacted by the summer’s severe weather and floods, with the highest death toll (95) and 564 related injuries having been reported there so far. The deluges have displaced over 50,000 people in the province, as poorly built homes and structures inhabited by families already displaced by war were swept away. In addition to the loss of shelter, much of the farmland that sustained Hodeidah’s families washed away, too, and hundreds of livestock drowned in the mud and debris flows, which also buried wells. Food supplies, drinking water, and water projects used for domestic and agricultural use were partially or entirely destroyed, along with dozens of schools, mosques, and other communal facilities. Furthermore, families in Hodeidah lost hundreds of legal documents, such as deeds verifying property ownership or that were crucial for identity verification and access to essential services including relief aid.[2]
In addition to lives and livelihoods, Yemen’s recent heavy rains have also been washing away some of Yemen’s ancient history. The city of Zabid, in the west of Hodeidah, is one of Yemen’s oldest settlements that is still inhabited and was once one of the most notable cities of the eastern world. With its proximity to the Indian Ocean’s vibrant trading routes, Zabid was already flourishing when Islam was established in Yemen in the 7th century. A companion of the Prophet Mohammad, Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari, is said to have been a native of Zabid, and some claim he built Zabid’s Al-Asha’ir mosque as Islam’s fifth mosque while the Prophet was still alive. For centuries following its construction, Zabid would receive students from all over the world seeking Islamic knowledge and scientific learning.[3]
During the 9th century, Islam’s Abbasid Caliph,[4] ruling from Baghdad in Iraq, sent his emissary Muhammad Ibn Ziyad to calm an uprising in Zabid. However, rather than imposing the Abbasids’ rule, Ziyad instead established his own empire on the far reaches of the Arabian Peninsula—with Zabid as his capital. During his reign, Ibn Ziyad further developed the city, which grew rich in commerce as its status as a major intellectual hub in the Islamic world also rose. The city supported dozens of Islamic schools representing various religious and philosophical traditions while trading with the ancient civilizations of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea who offered amber, panther skins, and slaves.[5] In the 10th century, Palestinian geographer Al Muqaddasi described the city as the “Baghdad of Yemen,” writing, “Their wells are sweet, their baths clean… Around it are villages and cultivated fields… It is an attractive town, without equal in al-Yaman.”[6]
The dynasty Ibn Ziyad founded was overthrown early in the 11th century by those it had enslaved. However, the city of Zabid continued to rise and would go on to reach its zenith as the capital of Yemen’s Rasulid dynasty.[7] The Rasulid’s ruled from Zabid from the 13th to the 15th centuries and their numerous construction projects further established the walled, circular city as a cultural and political hub. At the time it was supplied with water by extensive canals, and the city’s network of narrow alleys winding between houses built of burnt brick, limestone, and wood is largely still intact today.[8]
The demise of the Rasulids brought Zabid’s glory days to a close, and with the first Ottoman conquest of Yemen in the mid-16th century, the city’s decline accelerated. By the 20th century, Zabid’s population had dwindled to just above 800 people—though it still boasted 86 mosques, or more than one mosque for every 10 people, giving it the highest concentration of mosques in Yemen. Meanwhile, the city’s distinct architecture was still well-preserved, with private and public buildings graced by beautifully elaborate stucco work facades influenced by Arabic, African, and Indian traditions and featuring geometric drawings, floral patterns, animals, and calligraphy. These decorative compositions extended to the interior walls, niches, and ceilings of some houses, and some buildings even featured the Star of David—further attesting to Zabid’s diverse legacy.
In 1993, the city’s unique features earned it a spot on UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites. However, by 2000 it had already been moved to the List of World Heritage in Danger due to construction violations and other damage to its medieval structures. Fifteen years later, Yemen would enter a decade of war that has further endangered the heritage site[9]—yet most of Zabid’s intricate architecture and rare manuscripts managed to survive the conflict into 2024.[10] Thus, rather than the weapons of war, it is now intensifying rain and flooding precipitated by climate change that most imperil Zabid’s ancient cultural wealth.
So far, 2024’s downpours have mostly affected northern parts of Zabid—where part of the city’s old market roof collapsed, and residents reported serious damage to a nearby historic corridor. Those losses follow the collapse of several archeological sites in 2020 due to heavy rains that also damaged many historic homes.[11] Ironically, these seasonal torrents now sweeping sections of the city away, likely once played a key role in the productivity of the land that gave rise to it.
In 2009, international archeologists working in Zabid described it as a destitute place where afternoons were “interminably shrouded in a hot dry dust.” That forbidding climate is typical of Yemen’s entire western coastal region, known as the Tihama—which, in Arabic means severe heat and lack of wind. The mystery of how such a complex, arid ecosystem could have ever supported the survival of even primitive settlements—much less a thriving capital like Zabid—is one the excavators sought to explain in an article published by World Archeology. The city’s medieval fortunes, they wrote, likely stemmed from the successful management of its agricultural lands—emphasizing that it was “no small feat, as agriculture is only able to flower in desert places like Zabid thanks to an ability to work with a regular pattern of seasonal rains.”[12]
Then, as now, seasonal monsoon rains[13] that fell in the mountains of the Yemeni interior quickly turned into voluminous spates that raced out onto the lowland plains. Zabid, situated on a rise above one such floodplain, was strategically positioned to harness these sudden floodwaters by using barriers and sluice gates to divert them into canals that channeled them to fields. The ancient inhabitants of Zabid thus tapped into the significant production potential of the flows that rushed their way in a testament to both their engineering ingenuity as well as the effectiveness of their water distribution laws—which have been preserved in the city’s ancient texts. Rather than deferring to the privilege of those living upstream, those rulings safeguarded the political stability and social cohesion their technology depended on by fairly apportioning the region’s precious water wealth to ensure equitable access for the society as a whole.[14]
For millennia this traditional water management allowed each generation of Zabid’s inhabitants to meet its own needs without compromising the ability of future generations to provide for themselves. Rather than rigidly or blindly applying inherited practices, the continuity of ancient knowledge was enhanced with gradual adjustments to ensure the long-term livelihood of the local community. This produced an adaptive system refined by long experience that responded to an interplay of environmental and social forces until the late 1970s. It was then that the Tihama Development Project attempted to solve an underlying problem of sedimentation—which was causing field levels to rise to the point where irrigation from the flash floods was no longer possible—by raising the region’s timeless earth-and-stone diversion barrages and primary canals and replacing them with permanent concrete fixtures.
While the project’s modifications were well intended, Ingrid Hehmeyer explains in her book A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yemen, how such imposition of modern technologies on traditional systems can have disastrous consequences. Rigid cement disrupted the social contracts underlying the equitable distribution policies essential in the water-scarce region. Meanwhile, people’s appreciation for their inherited skills honed over centuries diminished as technology introduced via external expertise inadvertently devalued their accumulated know-how.[15] Thus, today, the fluid infrastructure that once supported Zabid’s efficient water management has been lost to the ages, while the steady erosion of the social cohesion that undergirded it has been accelerated by a decade of war. Moreover, that same decade has also brought an increase in both the frequency and duration of droughts as well as episodes of extreme weather events such as the heavy rains now threatening the remaining traces of a civilization that once lived in harmony with its natural environment.
Like Zabid, much of ancient Yemen long thrived on seasonal rain as its diverse topography, ranging from coastal plains to mountainous regions, supported a wide range of traditional rainwater harvesting techniques, including terracing and cisterns. Now, that same topography—with steep slopes and low-lying areas—drives intense runoff during heavy rains and has made floods the nation’s most frequent and severe disasters. Last year floods and associated rockslides killed 248 people across the country.[16] Meanwhile, the increased rainfall that is spawning Yemen’s increasingly deadly floods has been outpaced by Yemen’s population growth rate—one of the highest in the world. Among other factors, this has led to the pernicious depletion of Yemen’s non-renewable aquifers, while per capita water availability has decreased by roughly 60 percent nationwide since 1990. Without meaningful improvement in governance and water management, Yemen is likely to continue rushing towards deeper water insecurity and greater vulnerability to climate disasters that are mostly driven by forces outside its borders.[17] Dr. Arturo Pesigan, the World Health Organization’s representative in Yemen, has stated that international support and climate justice are essential to help Yemen recover from its current crisis and adapt to a changing global climate, insisting that “Long-term strategies must focus on rebuilding infrastructure and restoring traditional water management systems, improving health risk preparedness and enhancing the resilience of communities against future climate shocks.”[18]
Whether Zabid’s traditional water management technology would have been able to adapt adequately to rein in even Yemen’s modern-day floods swollen by climate change is impossible to know. However, what Yemen’s National Center of Meteorology has forecasted is continued heavy rainfall, floods, and strong winds in Hodeidah and all across Yemen through the end of September. For now, it’s safe to assume that both Zabid’s living residents and the ancient features of the city they live in will have little support to help them weather the coming storms.
[1] The United Nations, IFRC, Xinhua, Video: Reuters, Video: Al Jazeera, The Associated Press (AP), Agence France Presse, Al Jazeera, Barrons, UNHCR, UNICEF
[2] Video: IOM, Agence France Presse (AFP), Anadolu Ajansi (AA), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Islamic Relief, Video: Video: WION
[3] https://atlasislamica.com/historic-town-of-zabid/
[4] The Abbasid Caliphate was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, ruling from 750 CE until it was destroyed by the Mongol invasion in 1258 CE. The Abbasids were descendants of Al-Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad, of the Hashemite clan of the Quraysh tribe in Mecca.
[5] https://www.alfusaic.net/civilizations-101/ziyadid
[6] A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yemen
[7] A Turkish Sunni dynasty that ruled southern Yemen from 1229 – 1454 CE after the Ayyubids of Egypt abandoned the area.
[8] https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/brick-buildings-of-zabid
[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUwNpAGgbLU
[10] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/611/
[11] https://english.aawsat.com/culture/5047791-yemen%E2%80%99s-historic-zabid-becomes-latest-casualty-houthis?_wrapper_format=html&page=6
[12] https://www.world-archaeology.com/features/medieval-city-of-zabid-revealed/
[13] Yemen typically experiences two main rainy seasons in the highlands: the saif (summer) rains fall in April and May, and the kharif (autumn) rains fall from July through September.
[14] https://www.world-archaeology.com/features/medieval-city-of-zabid-revealed/
[15] A History of Water Engineering and Management in Yeme
[16] https://reliefweb.int/report/yemen/acaps-thematic-report-yemen-impacts-2024-heavy-rains-29-august-2024
[17] Yemen Poverty and Equity Assessment 2024, UNFPA
[18] https://www.emro.who.int/fr/yemen/news/yemen-when-the-rain-hits-hard.html
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