Water in Nairobi: Unveiling inequalities and its causes

Ledant, Martin

doi:10.4000/com.6951

Cited by 20 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…This finding mirrored an earlier similar finding on the same issue for Nairobi city where some residents were found to spend up to about 11% of their monthly income [73]. A subsequent study by [74] and later by [75] found that Nairobi city has a huge unequal and inequitable consumption of the available conventional water hence forcing residents to rely on water vending. Further, a most recent revelation by [76] showed that only 50% of Nairobi residents receive clean piped water.…”

Section: Water Supply Reliabilitysupporting

confidence: 78%

The Implication of Unreliable Urban Water Supply Service: The Case of Vendor Water Cost in Langata Sub County, Nairobi City, Kenya

Ochungo¹,

Ouma²,

Obiero³

et al. 2019

JWARP

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Studies on urban water supply service improvements continue to draw interest across the world. The pressure on freshwater resources is increasing in every region in the face of an increasing demand and climate change dynamics. Langata sub County in Nairobi city, Kenya faces drought induced water shortage and households rely on water vending and bottled water purchases to augment the inadequate municipal water supplies. Little to our knowledge has been done to assess the cost implication of such a practice here. So the study used household survey method to collect monthly households' water bills comprising; utility company, water tanker delivery and bottled water purchase from a randomly sampled 382 households spread within the five wards; Karen, South C, Mugumoini, Nairobi West and Nyayo Highrise. The gated communities identified are 57. Simple stochastic analysis of the data was done after data cleaning using MS Excel. It was found that the municipal water serves up to 91.15% of the total average household monthly water demand with a cost share of 27.91%. Water tanker delivery meets 8.61% of the household water demand with a cost share of 50.74%. The bottled water purchases serve 0.24% of a typical household water demand with a total cost share of 21.35%. The water supply deficit which is a mere 8.85% met by tanker deliveries and bottled water purchases has a total average cost share of 72.09%. The computed cost burden is 258%. This means that the households pay more than two and a half times extra above the utility bill per month. The study recommends a new water policy that will incorporate the role of water vendors operated on a cooperative model by the gated communities using standard guidelines. How to cite this paper: Ochungo, E.A., Journal of Water Resource and Protection vulnerability of public water supply systems to impacts of climate variability [26] [27] [28].Accordingly, households nowadays do supplement with vended water transported by one or a number of these methods: head-ported or hand-held water containers [29], walking tractors, bicycles, hand-carts/donkey carts [30] [31], motorbikes and owner-managed water access systems for a home or a community [32]. One other popular coping strategy is buying from neighbors; a practice found in Accra city, Ghana according to [33]. Such daily distressful struggles for water access service makes urban dualism concept real as the beneficiaries are known to be living in urban settings with on-site water utility infrastructure [34] [35]. Further, the selection of a choice of water source with a suitable quality is not easy [36]. Despite the prevailing choice quandary, water vendors serve about 10% -69% of households in developing nations' cities [37]. On the other hand, selling of water to customers is a very important economic activity to the vendors [38]. That is why they always choose to ignore repugnant waterscape labels like 'mafias' as in Bangalore city, India [39].

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Section: Water Supply Reliabilitysupporting

confidence: 78%

The Implication of Unreliable Urban Water Supply Service: The Case of Vendor Water Cost in Langata Sub County, Nairobi City, Kenya

Ochungo¹,

Ouma²,

Obiero³

et al. 2019

JWARP

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“…unaccounted water associated mostly with pipe leakages and illegal connections. As a result, the city is under severe water rationing [120].…”

Section: Water Supplymentioning

confidence: 99%

Water Quality Index for Assessment of Potability of Groundwater Resource in Langata Sub County, Nairobi-Kenya

Ochungo¹,

Ouma²,

Obiero³

et al. 2019

AJWR

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Water Quality Index (WQI) computation method based on quality parameters' selection, assigning of weights, creation of sub-indices and calculation of the aggregated quality value has been used for many decades from the early 1960s to check on the pollution stati of watersheds. Today, due to rising water demand in the face of increased drought induced water shortage challenges and rampant pollution of the water sources, consumers augment their needs by using groundwater resources like in the case of Langata sub County in Nairobi city-Kenya. Little however, has been done to assess the overall potability of groundwater quality here. Accordingly, in the present study, a Water Quality Index (WQI) was developed by Weight Arithmetic Water Quality Index (WAWQI) method to fill that identified gap using a five categories' grading scale, viz. excellent (A), very good (B), good (C), fairly good (D), suitable (E) and unsuitable (F). To realize this, chemical parameters' concentration ranges were defined on the basis of the Kenyan Standards (KS) and International Standards of World Health Organization (WHO).Subsequently, a total of eight chemical parameters were selected based on their level of occurrence in borehole commissioning data obtained from Water Resource Management Authority's database of the area viz; K+, Na+, Ca2+, Fe2+, F-, Cl-, SO4-2 and Ec (µS/cm). Out of a total of 137 boreholes, only 39 had complete eight chemical parameters. These 39 boreholes' water quality assessment is taken in this study as a true representation of the entire area's groundwater quality. The individual concentrations were spatially plotted using Surfer Software's digital terrain model (DTM) which produced contoured maps in different chroma saturations including the overall aggregated concentration to facilitate scale ranking. The WQI for the study area is 53.18 in a scale of 1 to 100, with one being excellent. In this case, the groundwater quality was ranked as grade 'C'. WQI calculation method is known to improve the understanding of water quality issues by integrating a suite of data into a single value which describes the status of water quality. WQI is very useful for the water management authorities because it facilitates their informing of the public on water quality in a simplified form.

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“…But today Nairobi is a water-scarce city where the richest ten per cent of Nairobi’s population consume almost half of the water available in the city (Ledant et al. 2013 ). The rise of the total water demand is therefore to a large degree driven by this small and privileged consumer group.…”

Section: Nairobi: a European City Close To The Equatormentioning

confidence: 99%

The Unseeing State: How Ideals of Modernity Have Undermined Innovation in Africa’s Urban Water Systems

Nilsson

2016

N.T.M.

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In contrast to the European historical experience, Africa’s urban infrastructural systems are characterised by stagnation long before demand has been saturated. Water infrastructures have been stabilised as systems predominantly providing services for elites, with millions of poor people lacking basic services in the cities. What is puzzling is that so little emphasis has been placed on innovation and the adaptation of the colonial technological paradigm to better suit the local and current socio-economic contexts. Based on historical case studies of Kampala and Nairobi, this paper argues that the lack of innovation in African urban water infrastructure can be understood using Pinch and Bijker’s concept of technological closure, and by looking at water technology from its embedded values and ideology. Large-scale water technology became part of African leaders’ strategies to build prosperous nations and cities after decolonisation and the ideological purpose of infrastructure may have been much more important than previously understood. Water technology had reached a state of closure in Europe and then came to represent modernisation and progress in the colonial context. It has continued to serve such a similar symbolic purpose after independence, with old norms essentially being preserved. Recent sector reforms have defined problems predominantly as of economic and institutional nature while state actors have become ‘unseeing’ vis-á-vis controversies within the technological systems themselves. In order to induce socio-technical innovation towards equality in urban infrastructure services, it will be necessary to understand the broader incentive structure that governs the relevant social groups, such as governments, donors, water suppliers and the consumers, as well as power-structures and political accountability.

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Water in Nairobi: Unveiling inequalities and its causes

Cited by 20 publications

References 6 publications

The Implication of Unreliable Urban Water Supply Service: The Case of Vendor Water Cost in Langata Sub County, Nairobi City, Kenya

The Implication of Unreliable Urban Water Supply Service: The Case of Vendor Water Cost in Langata Sub County, Nairobi City, Kenya

Water Quality Index for Assessment of Potability of Groundwater Resource in Langata Sub County, Nairobi-Kenya

The Unseeing State: How Ideals of Modernity Have Undermined Innovation in Africa’s Urban Water Systems

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