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Access to water is not just a fundamental human right but also a trigger for chronic poverty. Water is vital for creating a sustainable economy. Both natural and anthropogenic changes can affect the local hydrological regime and affect the economy dependent on that regime adversely. Deforestation in ecologically fragile environments, for example, can lead to substantial changes in the hydrological regime.
Rural people need water for a variety of uses ranging from domestic use, livestock use, small-scale irrigation, home-based processing activities and other artisanal and industrial applications. Though substantial investments are being made in exploiting river and groundwater resources to support large-scale irrigation systems and supply of water to urban centres, these systems have rarely reached out to poor rural people living in degraded or low quality rural lands who need water-based interventions to restore their rural ecology and get out of their “poverty trap”.
Large-scale water development systems have also often led to inefficient and inequitable distribution of water resources and forced displacement of the poor.
One of the biggest environmental challenges that developing countries face in the coming decades is to balance their increasing demand with the diminishing availability of water. Increases in population coupled with the ongoing processes of industrialisation, urbanisation and agricultural modernisation are, on one hand, leading to an ever increasing demand for water and, on the other, a decreased supply of freshwater, especially in the absence of effective mechanisms to regulate pollution.
The future scenario is one characterised by overexploitation of water resources, decreased accessibility to clean water, and increased competition for and potential of conflict over water resources. Africa is the world’s second driest continent, after Australia and also the most water-stressed one.
Sub-Saharan Africa was the world’s most water-stressed region between 2020 and 2021, found a survey published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal in November 2022. Nearly 36 per cent of the people surveyed in the region were water insecure, according to the report. Across Africa, the incidences of violence over water resources increased by around 34 per cent during 2022-23.
There were at least 71 such incidents recorded in 2023 compared to 53 in 2022, according to the Pacific Institute.
Major institutional, policy and technological initiatives are, therefore, required to ensure an efficient, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable management of water resources. There is only one source of fresh water and that is precipitation, whether it is in the form of snow that makes glaciers or rain which ultimately flows down as streams and rivers and recharges the groundwater.
A major reason for the growing overexploitation of water resources is the current stress on river water and groundwater to the neglect of rainwater and floodwater, the availability of which is far greater.
If all water use was to be met from rivers and groundwater systems, riverine ecosystems and groundwater resources will come under extreme stress, as is already being noticed across the continent. Countries, particularly in Africa, use only a small part of its water endowment.
Two major discontinuities have emerged worldwide in water management since the 19th century. One, the State has emerged as the major provider of water replacing communities and households as the primary units for provision and management of water.
Two, there has been growing reliance on the use of surface and groundwater, while the earlier reliance on rainwater and floodwater has declined, even though rainwater and floodwater are available in much greater abundance than river water or groundwater.
Theoretically, the potential of water harvesting in meeting household needs is enormous. Even in an arid area with an annual rainfall level of only 100 mm, one hectare of land can theoretically capture as much as one million litres of water.
As there is a synergy between population density and rainfall levels, less land is required in more densely populated areas to capture the same amount of rainwater. And in such areas, there is usually more built-up area like roof-tops which have improved runoff efficiency.
Rainwater harvesting 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 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. And in rural areas water harvesting will also be an integral part of an integrated programme for sustainable development of land and water resources on a watershed basis whose objective is to improve total biomass output.
Water harvesting and integrated land-water management is not new to the Africa continent, or to many other parts of the developing world. The art and science of “collecting water where it falls” is ancient but this “dying wisdom” needs to be revived to meet modern freshwater needs adequately, equitably and sustainably and modernised with inputs from science and technology.
In human terms, rainwater harvesting means making water everybody’s business. Every household becomes involved both in the provision of water and in the protection of water sources. It means making water the subject of a people’s movement, re-establishing the relationship between people and their environment and turning water into a sacred element of nature. It means the empowerment of urban and rural communities to manage their own affairs with the state playing a critical supportive role and the civil society playing a critical role in encouraging equity and sustainability in the use of water. It means a role for everybody with respect to water.
Local water management and rainwater harvesting constitute the key organising activity to initiate the restoration of the ecological and economic base of villages dependent on a biomass economy. However, this demands a fundamental change in water management strategies. Community control and participation is essential for any strategy that seeks to use and manage local water resources. But this participation is not possible unless a community-based institutional framework for natural resource governance is developed.
There are experiences that demonstrate how communities across the continent have used water harvesting to engineer ecological regeneration, which in turn has led to building sustainable local economies. These successful community-based resource management experiences establish the critical role of water conservation in poverty eradication.
The experiences are testimony to the potential of generating economic wealth and well-being from rainwater harvesting. What is also remarkable is the short time it takes to transform a poverty stricken, destitute and ecologically-devastated village to a relatively rich and green village.
This wealth can be used to create more wealth by regularly investing in resource management, thus, leading to a cyclical system of sustainable growth. The community also begins to see a stake in the good management of its natural resource base as it benefits from its development.
The Africa Water Vision 2025, that guides the continent in its water sector collective policy, notes, “This interdependence between water availability and development is exemplified by the link between water and poverty. Due to poverty, access to adequate water and sanitation is low in Africa. Yet due to the inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, there is a high incidence of communicable diseases that reduce vitality and economic productivity on the continent. In effect, ‘half the work of a sick peasantry goes to feed the worms that make them sick’.”
This article is excerpted from the State of Africa’s Environment 2024 report.