A continent of extremes, Africa has some of the driest landscapes on earth and some of the wettest.
It experiences floods and droughts on a regular basis. So how much of the continent’s reserves of fresh water is exploited, and by whom?
The earth has the same amount of fresh water now that it had 2 000 years ago, when its population totalled less than 200 million. And while the past century has seen the number of people on the planet double, the demand for fresh water has jumped sixfold. UNFPA figures suggest that if current trends continue, by 2050 as many as 4.2 billion people will be living in countries that cannot meet the daily minimum requirement of 50 litres of water per person.
The earth has the same amount of fresh water now that it had 2 000 years ago, when its population totalled less than 200 million.
Today, 766 million people live in Africa alone, a figure expected to rise to 1.3 billion by 2025. More than 40% of the continent’s land surface is considered to be dry, and another 27% is classified as desert. UNEP suggests that 14 African countries, mostly in the north, face water scarcity right now. UNFPA reckons that at least another five – Kenya, Morocco, Rwanda, Somalia and South Africa – will join them within the next decade, with half a dozen more following in the next 25 years. UNDP says that by the year 2025 almost one in two Africans will be living in an area of water scarcity or water stress.
The wettest country in mainland Africa is Sierra Leone, with an average annual rainfall of more than 2 500 millimetres; Egypt is the driest, receiving about 50 millimetres every year. The latter is also Africa’s thirstiest nation, consuming more water for agricultural, domestic and industrial purposes than any other. On a per capita basis, however, Sudan is thought to be at the top of the list, soaking up more than 1000 cubic metres a year. The citizens of the Central African Republic are the most frugal, using about six cubic metres of water each.
Water and Sanitation
Effective sanitation is one of the most crucial humanitarian issues in Africa today. WHO specifies that 50 litres of water per person are required every day for basic sanitation, and 75 litres are needed if household members are to be fully protected against disease. But in rural areas most Africans use, on average, only 30-40 litres of water, and in the remotest areas as little as four litres per day. In comparison, the average consumer in the US gets through approximately 380 litres of water per day for domestic purposes alone.
… only 51% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa has access to safe water
UNEP figures indicate that only 51% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa has access to safe water and 45% to sanitation – that means that safe water and adequate sanitation are still out of reach for more than 300 million Africans.
In Ethiopia, where only 11% of the rural population has access to safe drinking water, sanitation coverage is a meagre 4% in rural areas and only 19% in towns.
Poor hygiene and health are the consequence: 80% of communicable diseases in Ethiopia are related to water and sanitation. Across East Africa as a whole, water contamination leads to 70% of hospital visits. Almost half the continent’s population suffers from a major water-related disease such as bilharzia, typhoid or cholera, and an estimated one million Africans die every year of illnesses ensuing from substandard sanitation, hygiene and drinking water.
Water Management
Getting water to people is a major challenge in Africa; there’s a huge disparity between where people live and where water is plentiful. The Congo Basin, inhabited by only 10% of the continent’s population, is drained by rivers that contain 30% of its water.
Some countries’ water needs are met almost entirely by rivers flowing in from outside their borders.
Some countries’ water needs are met almost entirely by rivers flowing in from outside their borders. Egypt, Niger and Mauritania, for example, are arid and their very limited freshwater resources are boosted by large rivers flowing from much wetter areas upstream: the Nile, the Niger and the Senegal rivers respectively. The Nile Basin supports some 200 million people, with 95% of the Egyptian population living less than 20 kilometres from the river. In 1985, the Niger River, a major source of water for 100 million people living in 10 countries, completely dried out at Niamey, Niger.
The effective governance of catchments such as these is critical and can be achieved through regional river basin institutions like those initiated by the SADC Protocol on Shared Watercourse Systems. However, while every effort may be made to manage water resources, implementation can be poor. Ethiopia is a case in point, with a water storage capacity of only 45 cubic metres per person, making its citizens vulnerable to droughts and floods. By comparison, drought-prone Australia has 5 000 cubic metres of storage per person.
Food & Agriculture
Crop production consumes far more water than any other activity. UN-Water suggests that growing enough food to satisfy a person’s daily diet requires 2 000-3 000 litres, compared to two to three litres for drinking and between 20 and 300 litres for domestic use.
Across Africa, agriculture accounts for 86% of water use. All the farmland in Egypt is irrigated, consuming some 59 cubic kilometres of water annually and much more than in any other country. According to the FAO‘s Aquastat database, the only other countries topping 10 cubic kilometres in the agricultural sector are Sudan, Madagascar and Morocco, suggesting that little of the irrigation potential of the continent is actually exploited. According to the World Bank, only 3.5% of sub-Saharan Africa’s total cropland is irrigated.
Fish is the source of 21% of the protein intake in Africa (only in the Far East is fish consumption higher), and inland lakes and rivers make up 40% of the continent’s fisheries. In 1998, the SADC countries’ inland fishery totalled 619 000 tonnes and represented 7.7% of the world total.
Text by Tim Jackson, taken from the November ’09 edition of Africa Geographic.
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