Nairobi — Wallace Kantai – www.AllAfrica.com 23 November 2009

There is a very useful principle in economics called the diamond-water paradox.

It captures the oddity of the relative value placed on diamonds (which serve no useful purpose, but are highly prized) against that of water — crucial for sustenance of life itself, but whose unit cost is usually negligible.

Normally, water is a utility that is easily available — simply by turning on the tap.

It is thus an unremarked-upon part of urban life.

Its value only becomes obvious in its scarcity, which may be why East Africans have begun thinking hard about our urban (and rural) water supplies.

East Africa is today at the forefront of global water issues, in more ways than one.

First, the raison d’etre for the regional bloc is the shared resource of Lake Victoria, which we are fond of boasting of as the world’s second largest freshwater reservoir.

However, mismanagement, unplanned use and environmental degradation have meant that cities that should have a natural water supply from such a source, such as Entebbe, Kampala and Kisumu, have unpredictable supplies.

How East Africa manages an internationally shared freshwater resource may provide very useful lessons for the rest of the world.

Second, a great deal of East Africa, especially “upper” Kenya and “upper” Uganda, is in a rapidly drying out ecological zone.

A city such as Nairobi is right at the edge of this zone, and urban expansion is colliding head-on with an ecological and climatic reality that means less easily available water.

Third, our municipal water sup-ply systems are antiquated, with most having last seen a substantial upgrade in the 1950s.

How we choose to develop our urban water systems is going to be an interesting process to watch.

I was guided through some of the intricacies of municipal water management in East Africa by Rogers Obare, GE’s territory manager for the region for water technologies, and the conversation was eye-opening.

The first is that the manner in which we manage water in East Africa is still stuck in a 50-year time-warp: a linear flow of water from riverine reservoirs, through storage dams, on to treatment plants, municipal water pipes, your and my taps, and on to waste water, which is treated and pumped back, often into the same river systems.

While this may have served us well in the past, it does have several weak points.

First, and most obvious, the rains are not co-operating.

With even mountain sources drying up, whole river systems will not be reliable enough to support a water supply.

The second issue is a technical one.

For a long time, our water treatment has relied on a chemical called aluminium sulphate (“alum” in the lingo), which is fairly efficient at removing visible contaminants from water, as well as binding on bacterial and other organic contaminants.

Long-term health effects

Used together with effective filtration, alum can ensure a good supply of potable water.

The problem with it is two-fold: It takes a long time to be effective — in practical terms, water needs to sit for a while to precipitate all the harmful bits out — and there have been concerns about the long-term health effects of using aluminium sulphate.

Many water treatment plants in the developed world have moved on to using other technology, such as reverse osmosis.

Another issue is antiquated pipes.

Many of the decades-old pipes are corroded, or so calcified that their efficiency is severely reduced.

Pipe-bursts are common and, even when pipes are not breached, their enfeebled capacity is such that a lot more effort is required to pump water through them.

Lastly, a large percentage of urban dwellers in East Africa do not have access to piped, potable water.

Part of it is a result of poor urban planning, as there is simply no way of getting water through the warrens of unplanned housing structures.

Cities are expanding much faster than services can be provided.

What then, is to be done?

One is a fundamental rethink of what actually constitutes our water use.

It is no mistake that Nairobi’s water supply company is called the Nairobi City Water and Sewerage Company.

While we are rightly concerned about the supply of clean water into our taps, the other side of it should also exercise our minds.

A glance at my water bill shows it to average 40 per cent of the total every month.

There is no reason why grey water (from showers, dishwashing and laundry) cannot be lightly treated and recycled into the urban supply separately and billed at a lower cost.

The other is technologies such as desalination.
Relevant Links

* Water
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Whereas these used to be prohibitively expensive, they have now become inexpensive enough and small enough that they are being deployed by hotels along the coast.

The privatisation of water supply companies — if well carried out — may also mean that efficiencies can start creeping into a hitherto stodgy industry.

Of course, it would necessitate having a strong regulator to ensure rapaciousness and illegal water harvesting does not imperil everyone’s supply.

So, while the great drought of 2009 brought home to most East African urbanites the fact that water is a scarce commodity (and may actually be worth more than diamonds to some — think pastoralists), it also means we’re now thinking about managing our water supply enough to actually start correcting 50-year-old mistakes.