ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the socio-economic and political forces that acted as a catalyst to groundwater exploitation by modern tube-well technology. A central part in this discussion will be the extent to which tribal perceptions vis-à-vis government politics triggered the acceleration of groundwater-irrigated agriculture. Hydrogeological data and water assessment studies of the region will be analysed and explained in the context of socio-economic and socio-political developments and changes that affected the area between the mid-1970s till the 1990s. It is argued that environmental degradation, and especially the unsustainable mining of the Sa’dah basin’s groundwater resources from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s, can be explained as the outcome of unequal power relations, political interests, and the changing ability of actors to control or resist other actors. It will be shown that within Sa’dah’s politicised environment notions of political autonomy and resistance to state control have remained core values and objectives of many actors and tribal communities. Attempts by the state to establish control over the Sa’dah region have had direct repercussions on groundwater development.
