UNDP and Pardee Publish New Report: Land Degradation and Human Development in Yemen

Land Degradation and Human Development in Yemen

The United Nations Development Programme, in collaboration with the Pardee Institute, has released a new report titled Land Degradation and Human Development in Yemen. 

The report hones in on a region extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change and explores the links of environmental issues to the current humanitarian crisis and lack of human development in that region. The report culminates with recommendations for several policy strategies intended to mitigate the effects of land degradation and desertification in Yemen and support vulnerable communities across the region.

The Institute’s Associate Director of Development Analysis, Taylor Hanna, co-authored the report alongside independent researchers Andrew Kruczkiewicz and Michael Owen. Pardee Institute Director Jonathan D. Moyer, Senior Scientist Barry B. Hughes, Senior Systems Developer José Solórzano, Lead Operations Manager Yutang Xiong, and Pardee Fellow Researcher Victoria Pepera also contributed to the report.  

The report is intended to explore, and to help policymakers understand, the connections between land degradation and human development; it also offers key interventions aimed at mitigating the effects of land degradation and supporting improvement in human development. Notably, the report uses the International Futures (IFs) integrated assessment model to explore scenarios that analyze how land degradation may affect human development in Yemen. In addition, the authors present pathways for further development in the region under differing IFs scenarios.

This report begins with a literature review exploring both the main drivers of desertification and land degradation, and the links between precipitation and net primary land productivity, and then moves into a detailed analysis of climate data within Yemen, including historical and projected data on temperature and precipitation. The authors note that the relationship between precipitation and land productivity is not especially strong. While land degradation may be driven in some of the regions by climate change, the larger problem lies in unsustainable agricultural practices and water use, in addition to conflict and governance challenges. Hence, reforms of these practices and policies in the region can, and should be, made to mitigate land degradation in Yemen.

Despite the weak linkage between precipitation and net land productivity, the authors note that the future evolution of precipitation patterns in Yemen could shift land degradation levels.

Many regions within Yemen are likely to see increased precipitation in the future, but exactly how is uncertain. If that increase is gradual and steady, this may provide an opportunity to strengthen “ecosystem resilience” by improving water management infrastructure and thus supporting agricultural productivity. But this increase could also come in the form of increased sporadic rainfall events which could exacerbate land degradation due to extreme flooding and interruptions in consistent agriculture yields. The authors propose new methods for analyzing precipitation in Yemen to improve accuracy in forecasting and encourage further data enhancement in the region.
 

The second part of the report delves into the socioeconomic impacts of land degradation in Yemen. This section uses scenario analysis with the IFs tool to demonstrate the effects of continued land degradation in the region on the Yemeni economy, agricultural yields, hunger, and poverty.

The first scenario created in the IFs tool is the Baseline scenario. This scenario is one that simulates a world without future effects of land degradation on economic and human development. This serves as a counterfactual against which we can compare the Land Degradation scenario.

In contrast, a continued Land Degradation scenario, which models the effects of land degradation on water and agricultural resources, results in lower economic and agricultural production. By 2050, this model leads to five million more people experiencing  poverty and four million more experiencing hunger than the Baseline scenario forecasts. This scenario yields lower agricultural production and leads to a reduction in gross domestic product (GDP) of 5.6 percent compared against the Baseline scenario.

The Land Restoration scenario demonstrates an effort to focus directly on preventing further land degradation, rehabilitating agricultural yields, and implementing policies to aid in environmental improvement. This scenario forecasts an increase in economic output by 15 percent by 2050 when compared against the Land Degradation scenario. It also prevents further increases in hunger and significantly decreases the undernourished population by 9 million.

The Integrated Restoration scenario builds on the previous Land Restoration scenario by adding to it an end to the current conflict, improving governance and inclusion, and addressing other key human development deficits. This scenario forecasts that GDP per capita can reach pre-conflict levels by 2055. Twenty-two million fewer Yemenis experience poverty and 13 million fewer are undernourished in this scenario’s forecast compared to the Land Degradation scenario for the same year

(Refer to the report appendices for detailed information about how each scenario was created.)

The report concludes with several targeted, restorative recommendations for policymakers and key regional constituents to consider. These efforts include reaching a peaceful end to the current conflict; continuing to develop and understand quality data and research regarding desertification in Yemen; enhancing water resources and agriculture practices that prevent environmental degradation; and investing in extreme-weather infrastructure. A concerted and determined effort to follow these recommendations may lead Yemen into a peaceful and sustainable future, economically and environmentally.

The Pardee Institute’s ongoing partnership with UNDP reflects the Institute’s commitment to using quantitative modeling tools to identify strategic policy interventions to advance human development and sustainability. Similarly, this research highlights our efforts to understand the linkages between environmental challenges and conflict, governance, and peace.  This project is notable as the first time IFs was used to forecast the effects of land degradation.