Water Scarcity

Does Africa have enough water?

In today's post I will review Falkenmark's indicator  used to measure water availability, to figure out if Africa actually has enough water resources to meet its demand, by predominantly focusing on a paper by Chenoweth 2008. 

  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02508060801927994 

Water is essential to provide for the basic needs and development of any nation. The extent to which its people can thrive, almost always depends on fresh water availability, which is necessary for sanitation and the production of food. However in recent years, rising populations, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, mean that nations aren't able to satisfy their water needs.

Indicators of  water scarcity are increasingly used to measure the extent to which societies are able to meet their basic water requirements and whether policy needs to address this issue. In his assessment of national water scarcity indicators, Chenoweth  2008 reviews the effectiveness of popular water scarcity indicators at measuring ability to satisfy water demands. 

The most standard indicator of water scarcity is one proposed by Falkenmark (1986), based upon water resources per capita. Thus a country faces:

• Relatively Sufficiency : >1700 cubic metres of water per capita/ year

• Water Stress : < 1700 cubic metres of water per capita/year

• Water Scarcity (threatening economic development and health): <1000 cubic metres of water per capita/year.

• Absolute Water Scarcity: <500 cubic metres per capita/year.

However, as pointed out by Chenoweth, this indicator has major limitations, as it doesn't account for differences in water use trends between countries ( Ruskin et al 1997). Moreover it is hard to tell how much of this water goes for domestic / agricultural/ industrial uses and the equality of water distribution between people, since it is measured as per capita water availability. 

As mentioned further in the article, the indicator does not consider the fact that countries are able to adapt to water scarcity and reduced availability. Allan (2001) suggests, that countries have learnt to adapt to reduced water resources by compensating it for grain imports, thus diminishing (to an extent) the link between water availability and food security. 

Data suggests that Africa overall has about 9% of world's water resources and 11% of the global population (FAO 2003), and hence despite common misconceptions it cannot be considered as water scarce. Average water availability is 5720 cubic metres per person/year (Shiklomanov 1999) so Africa can in no way be considered water scarce. What matters however... is accessibility to these water reserves. It's no use having the water there if you cannot access it. There is also a large discrepancy between regions within Africa in terms of water resource accessibility driven by a range of physical and human factors, something we will focus on in the next blogpost...

But for now... we have concluded that Africa actually has enough water resources to sustain itself. What's important is whether there are opportunities for accessing those water reserves? Furthermore, I would agree with Chenoweth, that whilst the Falkenmark Water Stress Index provides a useful insight into water resource availability per person, its implications mean that it is not particularly useful in addressing the problem and demystifying the actual situation with current water issues.

Food for thought...

New post coming shortly!