Report reveals why African countries face persistent water woes

Africa is facing increasing conflicts and disputes over water resources since 2019 as a result of poor or no management procedures by the governments.

A report on the state of Africa’s environment released by Indian Scientists indicates that incidents of violence arising from water conflicts rose to 34 per cent between 2022 and 2023. The numbers went up from 53 in 2022 to 71 cases in 2023.

The ‘State of Africa’s Environment’ report prepared by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and DownTo Earth found out that African countries are not prioritising water problems and lack guidelines to restrict malpractices and misuse of water.

The report released in Nairobi on September 16 through the collaboration of CSE, Down To Earth and Media for Science, Environment, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) covered topics on water security, urban water poverty, water-related migration and conflicts, disease burden, climate change-induced water poverty, and the potential of harvesting rainwater to eliminate water poverty.

Population growth

All the 54 countries in Africa are ‘water-insecure’, with key drivers of the water insecurity being population growth, climate change and pollution.

Globally, three of the five most critically water insecure countries are in Africa. They are Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia. Eritrea is the second most critically water insecure nation in the world followed by Sudan and Ethiopia.

CSE Director General and Indian environmental writer and activist Sunita Narain, who released the report, noted a paradox of water scarcity amidst plenty; blaming African leaders for lacking the resilience to build water security systems.

“We are water-stressed not because it doesn’t rain or we don’t have water in our rivers but because of the way we are managing it,” said Ms Narain.

She said the water crisis in Africa is about inability to build affordable systems of water management at the time the continent is faced with challenges of climate change, population pressure, infrastructural gaps and governance crisis.

Ms Narain said: “The scarcity of water that is being faced by Africa and other regions of the world is as much about the lack of the resource as its mismanagement. Climate change is adding to the water crisis and heat stress in our world. But climate change is not the reason for the water crisis – it is just an exacerbating factor.” 

She noted that unless proper water storage systems are put in place, Africa faces one of the biggest challenges in the coming decades - the balance of increasing demands against the diminishing availability of water.

Africa accounts for 22 per cent (about 1.4 billion) of the world’s critically water insecure population.

Thirteen African countries have been assessed to be in the critically insecure category. They are Eritrea, Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, South Sudan, Niger, Sierra Leone, Chad and Comoros.

The CSE findings point out that as per the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), global warming has been more rapid in Africa than in the rest of the world. 

The report indicates that up to 700 million Africans are set to be displaced by water stress caused by global warming by 2030.

It reads in part: “Food production will be affected severely because heat and water stress could lead to 6-14 per cent food production decline by 2050.”  

The Middle East and Northern African regions face the greatest expected economic losses from climate-related water scarcity – estimated at between six and 14 per cent by 2050.

Kenya, for instance, faces an unprecedented water crisis in its expanding urban areas - one third of its population lacks access to clean drinking water, according to the CSE report.

Lakes are the new battlegrounds in Africa. They are impacted by climate change, face massive degradation, and increased pressure from rising population growth. 

With 17 major river basins, over 160 lakes and vast wetlands, Africa is endowed with abundant water resources, but despite this, the continent remains water-stressed.

Mr Mathew Herrnegger, a senior scientist at the Institute of Hydrology and Water Management (HyWa), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, recently studied the Kenyan lakes in the East African Rift Valley on why water levels were rising.

Flooding

His study revealed that Kenyan lakes in the Rift have witnessed significant water level increases.

Homes, schools and hospitals have been affected by floods. Mr Herrnegger highlighted a Kenyan government report which estimates that about 80,000 households and 400,000 people have been affected by floods since 2010. 

The study pointed out how the lake ecosystem is undergoing changes and impacting local livelihoods.

 It said: “The results of our study illustrate that minor changes in the water balance are enough to explain the lake level rises. An increase of only 0.4-2 per cent of mean annual effective rainfall leads to the observed phenomena.”

Kenyan lakes have shown low fluctuations and smaller water areas between 1984 and 2010, which have increased dramatically since 2010, the study concluded. 

For instance, Lake Baringo had a water area of 118 square kilometres in 1995, the lowest value from 1984-2020. The water area expanded by over 52 per cent in the years 2020 and 2014 to reach 195 km. 

The water area of Lake Solai, a smaller and less-known lake south of Lake Bogoria, increased from 3km in 1984 to nearly 12 km in 2014 and 2020, a four-fold increase.

In Eastern Africa, witnessed intermittent spells of drought as well as wetter periods in the past have contributed to fluctuations in unusual lake water levels.

Mr Herrnegger said: “Compared to the past, much higher population densities around the lakes put more people, their homes and their crops in danger. The massive flooding that followed in lake-adjacent areas displaced over 200,000 people in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. These are three of the five countries that the Lake Victoria Basin covers, also including Burundi and Rwanda.”

In 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) warned that lakes were in fact staring at a wetter future, which threatens livelihoods and also can trigger migration. 

For instance, Lake Turkana, the world’s largest desert lake, has been predicted to be 'dead' in near future as its river inflows have been drastically curtailed due to a large number of dams being built upstream.

Since 1988, Ethiopia has built a series of hydroelectric dams on its main tributary, the Omo River, leading to predictions of Lake Turkana’s demise. 

The new Unep study has predicted that in the next two decades, climate change would result in more intense rain over Lake Turkana thus raising its levels and also causing severe flooding. This could impact the 15 million people who live on the lake shores.

 Unep warned governments in Kenya and Ethiopia (both share a border with the lake) that rare floods like the ones that hit the region in 2019 and 2020 would be regular occurrences.

Africa is known for its lakes, a major source of fresh water. According to the WORLDLAKE database, there are 677 lakes in the continent, out of which 88 are listed as principal lakes. 

Three of the 10 largest freshwater lakes on Earth, in terms of area and volume, are located in Africa — Victoria, Tanganyika and Malawi.

Many lakes are transboundary. According to Unep, 15 principal lakes cross the political boundaries of two or more countries.

According to Narain and Richard Mahapatra, managing editor of Down To Earth, all African nations are water-insecure, hosting 22 per cent of the world’s critically water insecure population.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's most water-stressed region, with 36 per cent people reported to be water insecure.

 For example, the World Bank estimates that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has over 50 per cent of Africa’s surface water reserves and approximately one in four of the continent’s water resources. 

The Congo River Basin – Africa’s largest river by volume having a consistent flow throughout the year – covers 98 per cent of the country.

But the report noted that despite this overwhelming natural endowment of water, nearly three in four of Congo’s 70 million citizens don’t have access to safe drinking water. 

The report on the State of Africa’s Environment pointed out how rich Africa is endowed with rainwater.

“As water levels continue to dip, we should plan for rainwater harvesting. This will save us from taxes on water supplied to consumers, sometimes which are impure and have to be treated or boiled before use. Harvesting rainwater can not only help bolster water supplies, it can also involve the community in managing water and making water everybody’s business,” said its authors.

The CSE report recommends water harvesting and integrated land-water management.

Rainwater harvesting, the report observes, can not only provide a source of water to increase water supplies but also involve the public in water management, making water management everybody’s business.

It reads: “It will also reduce the current demand on government institutions to meet water needs, reduce the need for government subsidies, and help everyone to internalise the full costs of their water requirements, thus encouraging the public to be more conserving in its water demand.”

According to Ms Narain, to meet future water demands, there is a need to augment supply and this calls for focusing on rainwater harvesting to mitigate flood risk and recharge groundwater. 

This will build resilience of rural communities to deal with variable rain and for cities to deal with water stress.

Further, the report by CSE notes that at least 24 large cities in 15 countries across Africa are likely to be water-scarce by 2050 - Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan and Tunisia.

 In Kenya, Nairobi’s water demand beats supply with a deficit of about 265,000 cubic metres per day.  Leakages due to old infrastructure and pipe interference, illegal connections, vandalism and catchment degradation among others are some of the challenges affecting water access in Nairobi City, notes the report.

 These challenges often leave city dwellers, especially in informal settlements, at the mercy of cartels who sell clean water at exorbitant prices of between Sh20 to 50 (about half a dollar) for a 20 litre jerry can.

In Nigeria, there will be a 277 per cent increase in water-scarce urban residents while in Egypt there will be about 3,155 per cent increase.

According to Susan Masila, a Water and Sanitation consultant at Amazi Water in Burundi, rainwater harvesting has the potential to solve some of the pressure in urban water systems.

 Rooftops of homes, schools and office buildings can be fitted with rainwater harvesting systems to provide supplementary water especially for non-portable uses such as irrigation and sanitation, thus reducing the burden on municipal water supplies.

 Calculations by CSE indicate that Sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to harvest 13,365,000 million cubic metres through rainwater harvesting. This is nearly 44,550 times the average volume of water that flows through the Nile River per day.

 However, Ms Masila noted water quality and contamination by pollution or debris alongside high costs of additional filtrating and treating of the water as well as lack of space for large scale storage tanks are some of the challenges that come with rainwater harvesting in urban areas. 

She highlighted: “Cities also lack policies and incentives to promote widespread adoption of rainwater harvesting at the household or institutional levels. Therefore, raising awareness and integrating rainwater harvesting into urban planning is essential.”

Already, several countries have started implementing or are gearing up for rainwater harvesting in urban areas. 

The report identifies Tanzania to have adopted a rainwater harvesting policy to promote sustainable and efficient use of rainwater.

Ethiopia has launched a national rainwater harvesting initiative called “My dam at My door”. The Ethiopian government has observed that as a result of the initiative, an additional four million Ethiopians plus are getting access to clean drinking water.

“Rainwater harvesting, although traditionally rural, can play a critical role in urban water management provided that the necessary systems are in place to overcome the challenges posed by the urban environments,” she said.