{"id":31410,"date":"2018-02-21T21:20:58","date_gmt":"2018-02-22T02:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31410"},"modified":"2018-02-21T21:20:58","modified_gmt":"2018-02-22T02:20:58","slug":"exposing-africas-manmade-water-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31410","title":{"rendered":"Exposing Africa’s Manmade Water Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Exposing Africa’s Manmade Water Crisis<\/span><\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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The imminent shutdown of Cape Town\u2019s piped water network should serve as a wake-up call for all of Africa to overhaul urban water-management systems. Unfortunately, like Africa\u2019s water resources themselves, Cape Town’s crisis seems likely to be wasted.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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About a decade ago<\/strong>, at a meeting of South African mayors convened by Lindiwe Hendricks, South Africa\u2019s then-minister of water and environmental affairs, we predicted that an unprecedented water crisis would hit one of the country\u2019s main cities within 15 years, unless water-management practices were improved significantly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That prediction has now come true<\/strong><\/u>, with Cape Town facing a shutdown of its piped water network. The question now is whether African leaders will allow our other projection \u2013 that, within the next 25-30 years, many more of the continent\u2019s cities will be facing similar crises \u2013 to materialize.<\/p>\n

Africa has long struggled with urban water and wastewater management. <\/strong>As the continent\u2019s population has swelled<\/a>, from about 285 million in 1960 to nearly 1.3 billion today, and urbanization has progressed, the challenge has become increasingly acute. And these trends are set to intensify: by 2050, the continent\u2019s total population is expected to exceed 2.5 billion, with 55% living in urban environments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The challenge African countries face may not be unique, but it is, in some ways, unprecedented.<\/strong> After all, in Western countries, urbanization took place over a much longer period, and against a background of steadily improving economic conditions. In building effective systems for water and wastewater management, cities had adequate investment funds and the relevant expertise.<\/p>\n

In Africa, cities\u2019 financial and management capacities are already overwhelmed. As a result, water and wastewater management has often fallen by the wayside, with policymakers focusing on water-related issues only when droughts and floods occur. The Third World Centre for Water Management estimates that only about 10-12% of Africa\u2019s population has access to adequate domestic and industrial wastewater collection, treatment, and disposal.<\/strong><\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exposing Africa’s Manmade Water Crisis The imminent shutdown of Cape Town\u2019s piped water network should serve as a wake-up call for all of Africa to overhaul urban water-management systems. Unfortunately, like Africa\u2019s water resources themselves, Cape Town’s crisis seems likely to be wasted. About a decade ago, at a meeting of South African mayors convened […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18,18830,18009,18831,1371,8402,866,867,4703],"class_list":["post-31410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-africa","tag-asit-biswas","tag-cape-town","tag-cecilia-tortajada","tag-population","tag-project-syndicate","tag-water","tag-water-crisis","tag-water-management"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31411,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31410\/revisions\/31411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}