November 21, 2011
Climate Change Threatens Africa�s Biggest Water Sources
by Darren Taylor | Johannesburg, South Africa
Part 3 of a 5-part series on Climate Change
�Water is the primary medium through which people in Africa will
experience climate change impacts. By 2020, it is estimated that (up
to) 250 million Africans will be exposed to increased water stress,�
writes South Africa-based scientist Dr. Mary Galvin in a recent
analysis of the effects of hotter weather on Africa�s water supplies.
According to leading climatologists, large parts of Africa could warm
by as much as four degrees C by 2100. But an increase of just one
degree C will have �terrible� consequences for the continent�s water
sources and the people who rely on them to survive, said Kenyan
ecological economist, Dr. Kevin Chika Urama.
Scientists say the world is warming because mainly industrial nations
have for a long time pumped harmful emissions, such as carbon from
coal burning for energy, into the earth�s atmosphere.
Urama is co-author of an internationally acclaimed paper that has
examined the effects of climate change on water in Africa. He
concluded that the region�s water sources will face, and in fact are
already facing, a �multitude� of challenges because of the phenomenon.
These include intense droughts and floods, the drying up of rivers and
lakes that have sustained life for centuries, associated �wars� for
scarce water and huge increases in the numbers of �water refugees.�
64 African river basins in jeopardy
Urama said increasingly strange weather patterns are already causing
havoc across Africa. He recalled a visit to Nigeria in mid-October,
which is usually a dry period for that country. But heavy rain, said
the economist, had washed away crops and flooded cities and towns.
Taryn Pereira, an environmentalist with South Africa�s Environmental
Monitoring Group, is researching changing weather systems in Africa.
She said areas accustomed to regular rainfall are now suffering
prolonged droughts.
Pereira highlighted the example of South Africa�s Southern Cape
region, which up until recent years experienced regular rainfall year
round. �That area has just had the lowest rainfall in 130 years of
recording rainfall,� she said. �Entire districts and towns ran out of
water. People were sharing water with livestock.�
Extreme variability in weather will be more prevalent in Africa in the
near future, Urama said, resulting in widespread water scarcity.
�We�re seeing how much carnage that is causing at the moment in
Somalia and Kenya,� he pointed out.
The water resource expert predicted that future droughts will be worse
than ever before, especially in areas that are traditionally dry, such
as the Horn of Africa.
Zambian environmental engineer Alex Simalabwi agreed. �With the
increase in temperatures, some regions are going to become much drier,
such as in North Africa along the Sahara desert,� he said. �For
southern Africa, the areas around the Kalahari desert and going down
to the west coast in Namibia are going to become much, much drier.�
Simalabwi is director of the Global Water Partnership�s water, climate
and development program. The organization is based in Stockholm and
advocates for a �water secure world.
As an advisor to several African governments, Simalabwi emphasizes
�intergovernmental protection� of Africa�s 64 river and lake basins.
He said if these aren�t properly managed and if states don�t use them
responsibly and put aside �narrow self interests� to cooperate to
share the water, the consequences for the entire continent are
�myriad� and �horrible.�
The scientist explained, �These basins are shared by various
countries. The economic development of Africa is dependent on these
water sources.�
But according to many environmental projections, climate change is
already harming the basins, such as Lake Victoria, which is shared by
Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
Water and fish: �slow disappearance�
Urama said flows from the thousands of streams that feed the world�s
largest tropical lake have dwindled in recent years because of factors
including hotter and drier weather.
The United Nations Environment Program has estimated that 30 million
people rely directly on Lake Victoria for their survival, with
millions more indirectly dependent on it for water and food. It�s one
of the biggest inland fisheries in the world.
But Urama said, �Lake Victoria is very prone to climate change impacts
because it has a large surface area compared with its volume. It�s
shallow, so this means that higher temperatures will mean much more
water evaporating from it.�
He said the higher temperatures, combined with over-fishing, are
causing the �slow disappearance� of the lake�s most important
commercial fish species, the Nile Perch.
Lake Victoria is also the major source of the Nile, the longest river
in the world. Simalabwi said, �A shrinking Lake Victoria means a
shrinking Nile,� which could threaten the livelihoods of 160 million
people in 10 African countries that depend on the Nile.
All over Africa, said Pereira, �Negative human impacts on water
resources are being worsened by the effects of climate change. Fish
species and fish numbers are declining and changing their behavior,
and that makes it very, very difficult for subsistence fishermen to
draw a livelihood from the environment�.�
Water wars
In the near future, said Urama, more people will be struggling for
less water � resulting in conflict across Africa. Simalabwi said the
�first signs� of this are already happening, in the form of violence
between pastoralists and farmers.
�The pastoralists graze their cattle in the wilds of Africa. But as
grazing areas dwindle because of higher temperatures, you find the
pastoralists encroaching on arable land where people grow their crops.�
Urama said the potential is also growing for conflict between local
African communities and foreign companies, which are increasingly
buying land in Africa.
�They�re buying that land because of decreasing resources in their own
countries, to produce food for export to their home countries. They�re
using up water resources that many Africans depend on. So we are
likely going to see conflicts between communities that are going to be
trying to resist these kinds of external investments that, though
economically viable for a country, may not be sustainable for the
communities that have relied on these water resources for ages.�
Simalabwi said people will be forced to flee from country to country
in search of water. �The refugee situation in Africa will become much
worse. This has a lot of implications in terms of regional stability
and peace.�
Urama said battles over meager water supplies will also pit humans
against animals. �Already you see a lot of conflicts between elephants
and humans in Kenya because of these dwindling resources,� he said.
According to Pereira, the tension over water won�t be limited to
Africa�s rural areas. She expects piped water to soon become much more
expensive in the cities. �The urban poor will be faced with much, much
higher water bills. When they don�t pay, the authorities will cut
their water off.�
This, Pereira said, had already resulted in riots in several African
countries, most notably in South Africa.
Floods may destroy communities, economies
While a lot of attention is on the droughts that look set to sweep
Africa, some regions will become much wetter, said Simalabwi. He
expected �transforming precipitation patterns� because of hotter
weather to result in more rain falling in Central Africa in the near
future.
�The region is already very wet, with the Congo Basin being one of the
biggest water towers in Africa. It�s expected to be much, much wetter
as a result of climate change�and this is going to lead to excessive
flooding.�
The floods, Simalabwi said, could be on such a large scale that they�d
�wipe out� entire communities and destroy economic growth in Central
Africa. �Agriculture will not be possible and mining and other
industries will shut down.�
Urama said African coastal areas will also experience more flooding,
as the sea level rises because of melting ice in polar regions.
Poor water management
The harm done by extreme weather caused by climate change is made
worse by the fact that water resources are poorly managed in Africa,
said Urama.
�While some places will see heavier rains, Africa generally does not
have the necessary systems of water harvesting so most of the water is
lost. So when the long droughts hit, Africans really suffer,� he said,
adding, �It�s the normal story in Africa � we have food abundance
during the harvest seasons, and we have starvation, famine in some
cases, during the lean periods. The same logic happens in the water
resources case.�
Simalabwi agreed, commenting, �What�s missing in many parts of Africa
is not the water, but the good management of the water.�
He maintained that one of the biggest constraints on Africa�s water
resources is �poor and inadequate� information. Simalabwi said most of
Africa�s hydrological monitoring stations, which are supposed to
calculate how much water they�re receiving and the sources of such
water, are dysfunctional.
�They are dilapidated; they are disused; they are not in a way that
you can rely on them to get accurate information of how much (water) a
country is using and how much water is moving from one country to the
other,� he said, asking, �If countries don�t know exactly how much
water they have available on average, how can they plan for climate
change events?�
Simalabwi also pointed out that many dams in Africa are in poor
condition. �They aren�t maintained,� he said. �So at the same time as
we are moaning about droughts, we are wasting our water.�
Urama called for big investments in the repair of existing dams and
the large scale construction of new water saving technologies. �We
live in a hot region so much water is lost through evaporation. Let�s
prevent this by building water storage dams that are below ground so
when there�s drought, communities will have access to clean water.�
But South African environmentalist Taryn Pereira said she sees little
evidence of any �real, tangible, practical planning� for climate
change in African water sectors.
Small steps
Simalabwi said it�s �very disappointing� that water won�t be on the
official agenda at the United Nations global climate talks scheduled
to begin in South Africa on November 28.
�Why the UNFCCC (UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) has not
dedicated special attention to discussing water resources is difficult
to understand,� he said. �When considering the already very bad
impacts climate change is having on water resources, it�s very
discouraging.�
Nevertheless, said Simalabwi, the Global Water Partnership still has
hope that at least small steps will be taken towards ensuring the
protection of water resources from present and future effects of
climate change.
�We are hopeful that during the talks some of the parties will call
for some of the references to water resources that are already in the
UNFCCC text to be made operational,� he said. �We are also hopeful
that the parties can agree on specific funding to protect water
resources from climate change, from the Green Fund, which is being
designed to help the world adapt to climate change.�
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Learn more about climate change's impacts on dams and rivers in an
animated Google Earth tour, "The Wrong Climate for Damming Rivers": http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/6928
The video and tour allow viewers to learn about topics such as
reservoir emissions, dam safety, and adaptation while exploring real
case studies in Africa, the Himalayas and the Amazon.
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