Zambia braces for water shortage

ZAMBIA, already reeling from a power crisis and a plunge in the price of copper, its largest export, is bracing for a new test: a shortage of water in the capital as the southern African country heads into the hottest months of the year.

Lusaka’s demand is already twice as high as supplies that are constrained by a falling water table and power rationing, according to Topsy Sikalinda, the spokesman at Lusaka Water and Sewerage, which provides water to the city of about 2.2 million people. Conditions will get worse as temperatures head toward 35ºC in October.

For now, the shortage is mainly affecting customers in Lusaka’s most elevated areas. The discomfort will spread as the 200-plus boreholes the city depends on for more than half of supplies dry up faster than last year because of the depleted water table.

“Water levels have started dropping at a much more rapid pace” than in 2014, Sikalinda said by yesterday. “Last year by now we were still comfortable.”

Erratic rains in the wet season that ended in April have led to power shortages in Zambia as water levels drop in the hydropower dams that Africa’s second-biggest copper producer depends on for more than 90 percent of electricity supplies. Lusaka doesn’t receive water from the Kariba dam, drawing water instead from the river feeding the Kafue Gorge hydropower station.

The company, known as LWSC, would send trucks into the suburbs to ensure supplies and customers shouldn’t have to walk more than 50 metres for water, Sikalinda said. LWSC was due this year to start work on two water supply projects requiring combined investment of $300 million (R4 billion) that would help improve supplies, he said. – Bloomberg