Water: Africa’s recurring challenge of drought

Two important lectures at Scifest Africa focus on different aspects of the unending water-related challenges that confront subSaharan Africa. The first is about improving the capacity to predict droughts, while the second concerns the management of water quality.

Dr Muthoni Masinde of the Central University of Technology delivered a lecture entitled “Downscaling Africa’s Drought Forecasts through integration of indigenous and scientific drought forecasts” on 9 March.

Indigenous Knowledge (IK) and modern science weather forecasts can complement each other to produce more useful predictions for small scale farmers in Africa than either could do separately. Masinde talks about her work using information technology to harness indigenous knowledge to make weather predictions more accurate and more relevant in marginalised areas of sub-Saharan Africa.

Weather forecasting, and especially drought prediction, are of course important to all farmers. Those working marginalised lands in arid and semi-arid areas are having increasing difficulty in predicting the weather. Historically they relied on their indigenous knowledge of the environment, passed down from generation to generation, to know when to plant seeds, but the vagaries of climate change and ineffective large-scale weather forecasts have led to dangerous levels of unpredictability.

All too often, in areas where farmers are most vulnerable to drought, there aren’t any weather stations. This means that weather services publish information that is too coarse, covering areas with an extent of 100 to 200 kms. They also tend to predict that seasonal rainfall will be ‘above normal’, ‘below normal’ or ‘normal’ – information that lacks enough resolution to be useful.

Through case studies in some of the most arid regions of Kenya, Masinde and her colleagues have developed a system dubbed ITIKI – an Mbeere name for an indigenous bridge – but also an acronym for Information Technology and Indigenous Knowledge with Intelligence.

The purpose of ITIKI is to integrate the most useful aspects of Indigenous Knowledge with modern meteorological forecasting. Masinde says that the main challenge facing this integration, is however, the formal representation of highly structured and holistic indigenous knowledge. In her presentation, she will demonstrate how the use of ICTs can address this challenge. Indigenous knowledge on droughts from four communities has been modelled and will be presented.

Retaining the focus on water, Dr Jane Catherine Ngila, of the University of Johannesburg, will present a lecture with the title of “Why and how do we manage water quality and South Africa?” on March 12.

South Africa has a long history of droughts, with the country categorised among the water-stressed nations of the world. The lack of a reliable source of water is serious, and even when there is enough water, it is often unsafe for human consumption.

In recent years, government has made a concerted effort to ensure that everyone has access to safe drinking water. This is a legal requirement because South Africa is one of the few countries in the world that enshrines in its constitution the basic right of all citizens to sufficient water.

In spite of this significant progress, ten percent of the population still does not have access to safe drinking water.

Factors affecting water scarcity include population growth, global climate change; industrial discharge into water systems; water supply misuse through illegal connections; collapsing dam structures in different parts of the country; and lack of smart water resource management.

Ngila and her team at the University of Johannesburg are working to address water treatment challenges including the development and application of advanced technologies.

These new developments include nanotechnology with great potential for efficient water treatment.