An Introduction: The Water Concern in Africa and its Impact from Environmental Change

Hello and welcome to my blog!

My name is Fansiyuan yang, and I am an international undergraduate student who is studying at the UCL geography department. The major interest of my blog is on the water and environmental change in Africa, which will be presented and explained from different topics in the following weeks.

For my first blog, I will talk about the water problems in Africa, the need for exploring its relationship with environmental change, and the importance of recognizing complexity for this continent.

Water is one of the most valuable resources on earth, especially freshwater. With the rocketing growth of the world’s population over the past 50 years, the 'water crisis' has been raised on every continent, with the fact that "2.3 billion people live in water-stressed countries, of which 733 million live in high and critically water-stressed countries” (UN-Water 2021), and “700 million people worldwide could be displaced by intense water scarcity by 2030” (Global Water Institute, 2013). Water stress is a major concern in Africa (figure 1), where the highest population growth (UN, 2007) and the rapid growth in urbanization and agricultural sector (Carter & Parker, 2009) domain on such large and complex continent.  

Figure 1 The global distribution and stress of freshwater

This continent itself is complex and it should not be seen as ‘one country’ (Wainaina, 2005). When we talk about water and Africa, it is important to recognise the fact that different areas experiencing different weathers and sources of water, as well as the demands of water from their populations. In other words, changes in climate patterns and natural disasters in different regions have led to a disproportionate impact on the continent, especially in poorer countries with poorer population groups. Thus, the absolute poverty of a large proportion of the continent’s people and the complexity of its weather in different regions make them highly vulnerable to climate change (Carter & Parker, 2009).  

The current major, largest environmental impact on Africa’s water is climate change, with its impact on monthly and annual precipitation, and evapotranspiration as a result of the rising global mean temperature by 3-4°C by the end of this century (Carter & Parker, 2009), as the rainfall variability is extremely high, with the fact that “95% of annual rainfall totals deviate between 20 and 40% from the mean” (Carter & Parker, 2009), especially in areas such as the Sahel and Niger with the fact that many years of rainfall above or below the average in a certain period (figure 2). 

Figure 2 Annual rainfall in Niger from 1948-2001 (mm)

The future water balance and groundwater thus might be altered as a result of the changes in rainfall pattern, and the changes vary from place to place (Rushton et al., 2006). A series of hydrological processes would be affected, including rainfall, runoff, infiltration, evapotranspiration and potential recharge, which thus affect the country’s water supply. The explore of the relationship between climate change and water is essential to our understanding of past and future water use in Africa, which contributes to an environmentally and functionally sustainable water solution for such a special region with rapid population growth and heavy reliance on agriculture. Although the uncertainty associated with the impact of climate change on water has been widely investigated, still we have very limited understandings.

As a result, it would be necessary to extend our recognition of the future impact of climate change on water in Africa due to the urgent need for safe and sustainable water use for people.  Thus, efforts to better understand the idea of climate change beyond its roots in the physical sciences -- and in doing so take on new meaning and serve new purposes -- will be an important part of any future action by the international community to address the long-term problems of climate change. However, we shall not treat the term ‘environmental change’ as ‘climate change’ only, an equal priority should also be placed on population growth, land use and cover change, as well as the settlement change.