Water and Environmental Change in Africa

The last entry introduced the drought in 2018 in Cape Town and its effect on the city. At the beginning of the last post, together with the video, I’ve put I have given out some questions to think about while looking at the case study: How has the urban setting altered the situation? How effective were the regulations?  What can be done better? In this post, I wish to continue the topic on Cape Town and discuss, around these questions, the problem of changing environment and water in the African urban setting. ———————————————— Droughts often have various effects on different people based on structural factors including class, gender, and historical legacies of discrimination and segregation . A "water crisis" is thus more than just a matter of having too much or too little water; it is frequently a "governance catastrophe," in which the institutions in place have failed to generate resilience, adjust to changing conditions and consider all the groups in the society....

Following my previous blog posts, discussing a general picture of climate change, groundwater, water management in Africa and a case study on the 2015/16 El Niño, I have decided to first take a closer look at an example of URBAN ENVIRONMENT in Africa to explore their problem in accessing groundwater resources due to consequences from global climate change. Upon reviewing , I would like to note that the definition of environmental change does not remain restricted to the natural physical environment, but extended to the process of urbanisation as well. By looking at the urban setting of specific case studies and its adaptation to the consequences of climate change, hopefully, we can review the different strategies taken and propose improvements to develop more considerable solutions for the future. ——————————————— Case Study: The Drought and Cape Town Attention to water resource access, management and distribution becomes increasingly noted as Africa sees a trend of rapid urbanisation a...

East Africa has some of the most highly variable topography in Africa. Ranging from vast plains to highly mountainous areas, the topography of the area is ideal, with its excellent ecological and climatic archives, for climate and environmental studies. More importantly, some of the lakes located in the area are known as amplifier lakes as even little climatic changes have a big impact on them. The Central Kenya Rift and the Tanzania Rift located in East Africa contains some of these amplifier lakes, sometimes called small soda lakes, such as Elmenteita and freshwater lake Naivasha . Climate, tectonically driven morphological and volcanic barriers, and local water-table variation all influence the hydrology of this region. Moreover, the groundwater held at the two rifts counts for much of the area’s human and industrial usage, making the hydrology of the area particularly important. However, over the last 150 years, the rapid change in climate and natural environment, such as the 201...