The Stream, April 16: Yemen’s Food Security Further Deteriorates

The Global Rundown

Vanuatu‘s access to safe water has not been fully restored one month after Cyclone Pam, and a small Philippine island’s shallow aquifer is still contaminated 17 months after Typhoon Haiyan. Single-serve brewers are reducing overall coffee demand, and fighting in Yemen is further threatening Yemenis’ food security. Celebrities and CEOs in California are using their wealth to escape brown lawns.

“How would we feel if you could pay extra to smoke on airplanes? When we decide something is a bad idea in general for society, we don’t want the rich to be able to buy their way out of it.” — Peter Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute, on wealthy Californians’ ability to pay for green lawns amid urban water restrictions. (Bloomberg Politics)

By The Numbers

110,000 – Number of residents of Vanuatu still without safe drinking water supplies in the wake of Cyclone Pam, according to Unicef. Some islands are using any means necessary to get water, including but not limited to helicopters and desalination plants on boats. Radio New Zealand

27 percent – Portion of consumers that own single-serve coffee brewers. The single-serve brewers are more efficient in their use of coffee (and water), since standard 10-cup machines often end up being partially dumped. As a result, coffee farmers are seeing a decrease in demand. Bloomberg Business

Science, Studies, And Reports

It may be 10 years before shallow groundwater on the Philippine island of Samar returns to normal, after a storm surge during Typhoon Haiyan fouled it with salt and bacteria. According to a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, it could be a decade before the aquifer recovers from a saltwater inundation that lasted an hour. Bloomberg Business

On The Radar

Fighting in Yemen has threatened its 2015 crop, and the country’s stockpiles of grain are dwindling, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Airstrikes may have interrupted farmers when they would normally be preparing their land for planting, and the war has certainly interrupted the usual flow of grain imports (Yemen imports 90% of its wheat and 100% of its rice). Reuters