water resources management - Bragma

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... plan of Action. Johannesburg, South Africa. .... relevant NGOs, user government departments and development agencies. National ... continuity and user-friendly EO data provision and access; inadequate software and hardware.
WATER RESOURCES MANAGEMENT EXPERTS Dominic Mazvimavi1, Ben Maathuis2. Based on first version by David Kirugara3 and Diego Fernandez4 INSTITUTIONS

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Department of Earth Sciences and Institute for Water Studies (Faculty of Science), University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa. [email protected] Department of Water Resources, Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands. [email protected] Consultant, P.O. Box 6166—00200, Nairobi, Kenya. Tel: +254 721 360 222 European Space Agency (ESA), ESA-ESRIN, Via Galileo Galilei, 00044 Frascati, (Rome) Italy, Tel: +39 06 94180 676 / Fax: +39 06 94180 552

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1. THEMATIC CONTEXT Africa which has an average annual rainfall of 673 mm/year is the world’s second-driest continent after Australia, and had in 2010 a human population of about 1,022 million (UNFPA estimate) or 15% of the global population. This continent has 9% of global renewable water resources that are either abundant or scarce depending on the season or the place. Furthermore, water is a crucial element in ensuring livelihoods since more than 40% of Africa’s population lives in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas and about 60% live in rural areas and depend 1 mainly on rain-fed agriculture for their livelihoods . Africa faces significant challenges to ensure effective use and efficient management of its water resources: •







The multiplicity of transboundary river basins with different physical characteristics in Africa poses a challenge for ensuring equitable sharing and development of water resources among riparian 2 states . There are about 60 transboundary river basins covering about 65% of the continent, and 40 transboundary aquifers. Groundwater is estimated to be the source of drinking water for 75% of the 3 population in Africa . There is very little information about the spatio-temporal variability of both surface and groundwater resources due to poorly developed hydro-meteorological observation networks; There is low level of development and water utilization. For instance, only about 4% of the available water is used in the whole continent. In the case of irrigated areas, the actual use amounts to less than 10% of the potential, and only 7% of the hydropower potential has been developed, with an 4 electrification gap that keeps growing . High inefficiencies including considerable unaccounted for water in the various uses of water result in a small proportion of the developed water resources being used productively; Africa has a very low level of development of the water (harvesting) infrastructure with less than 50 m3/person storage capacity having been developed compared to over 3000 m3/person in Europe and 3 5000 m /person in the USA; Most African countries will not achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to the 5 provision of safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015 . Based on the 1990 estimates of the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP), in order for Africa to achieve these MDGs, the population with access to improved water supply and sanitation will have to 6 increase to 78% and 68% respectively . However, the JMP estimated that 66% and 40% of the African

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UNEP (2010): Africa Water Atlas. Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Nairobi, Kenya. 2 World Economic Forum (2013): Global Risk Report. The report states that “Impact and likelihood of water supply crisis has been ranked within the ‘top-5’ of global risks”. 3 UN-Water/Africa (2006) African Water Development Report 2006. Economic Commission for Africa, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 4 African Water Facility (2012): Strategic Plan 2012-2016. Towards water for all by 2025. 5 http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/pdf/2012_Progress_E.pdf 6 AMCOW (2012) A Snapshot of Drinking Water and Sanitation in Africa – 2012 Update. A regional perspective based on new data from the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation. http://www.wssinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/resources/Africa-AMCOW-Snapshot-2012-English-Final.pdf

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population had access to improved water supply and sanitation in 2010, suggesting that attaining the relevant targets seems impossible; There is a rapid increase in the demand for water due to growing populations with an average annual 7 population growth during the 1990-2010 period being 2.4% , rapid economic growth in some countries arising from expanding mining, industrial and agricultural activities, and improvement of lifestyles. It is estimated that by 2025 about 600 million people will be exposed to water scarcity situation (