Today will be just a short post exploring what's happening in Africa as we speak.
So due to the El Nino effect this year, Africa, particularly the southern part of the continent, is currently experiencing a severe drought. This has had a tremendous impact on its agriculture sector, (17% fall in output).
https://www.enca.com/south-africa/drought-stricken-south-africa-brink-importing-food-agriculture-minister
The government proposes to increase grey water recycling, as a means to augment water availability.
Whilst this might be a good way to address the immediate drought problems, I really think they should do something substantial to address the water scarcity issue sustainably and for the long term. Africa is in need of a comprehensive water management strategy.
What are your thoughts?
Really interesting post Adelia but I just have two questions. Firstly, what extent do you reckon grey water recycling is a viable option when surely water treatment plants require a large investment of capital and infrastructure? Secondly, what ways other than grey water recycling could help South Africa mitigate the effects of drought and reduce water scarcity?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for your comment Vasu. Recycling of grey water is something the government are only suggesting to do in the future,and by all means you are right in the sense that it will require some capital investment into the water treatments faciltiies. This could be a potential solution, but I think that it will only make a small contribution to resolving the effects of the droughts. In due course they would be better off investing time and money to deliver something that will have a substantial effect. From my opinion this is the extraction of groundwater. Of course, this has its own drawbacks i.e. it depends on rainfall /runoff etc but at the moment, I believe this is the best alternative especially for agricultural water use. This is an area I will be focusing on throughout my blog, so do keep reading some of the later posts :)
DeleteHope this helps.