World Water Day, celebrated globally on March 22, is a good time for Ghanaians to reflect on the risks of degradation to which the nation’s water bodies are exposed, as agriculture, industry, towns and cities all compete for their share and pollute water in the process.

The theme for this year – “Nature for Water” – calls attention to an underappreciated solution for this growing threat. While the conventional response is to sink more money into “built” infrastructure (like dams, reservoirs and formal irrigation schemes), research in Ghana and other countries suggests that “natural” infrastructure (such as wetlands, floodplains and watersheds), when properly managed, can also help improve the availability of water, while sustaining the livelihoods of the many people who depend on these natural resources.

Our research in northern Ghana’s Talensi and West Mamprusi Districts clearly demonstrates the multiple benefits of diverse natural infrastructure. Through a “participatory rural appraisal,” we captured the views of local communities on these issues, taking note of the differing perspectives of both women and men. Our aim, through the WISE-UP to Climate project, led by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was to develop evidence-based knowledge that can support better management of natural resources, which are vital for communities in the face of climate change and population pressure.

Where nature has both material and spiritual value

Centering on three communities located along the White Volta River, our study found that they depend on five distinct types of natural infrastructure: protected forest, shrubs and woodlands (degraded forest), ponds, the White Volta River and seasonal floodplains. These interconnected features of the landscape provide various “ecosystem services” (benefits from nature), some of which depend on seasonal water flows. Annual floods occurring between July and September, for example, increase soil moisture content and deposit fertile soil along the riverbanks, thereby enhancing crop production after the floodwaters have receded. The floods also fill ponds on the floodplains, restocking them with fish. In the dry season, residual moisture around these ponds provides water for grass that supports livestock grazing.

The communities are therefore highly dependent on the river, and its seasonal changes shape their livelihoods. Their keen appreciation of the surrounding ecosystems is evident in local beliefs and customs. Under traditional land tenure, for example, the “Land Priest” or “Earth Priest” (Tindana) has symbolic responsibility for major decisions about all natural resources. Ponds and the surrounding trees – key features of the region’s natural infrastructure – are considered to be the abode of ancestors. One example is the “grandmother crocodile pond” at Arigu, a village in Pwalugu of the Upper East Region. The pond has strong spiritual significance, based on a local legend that a female ancestor of the chief was transformed into a crocodile after her death. Her reincarnated spirit and that of her progeny continue to reside in the pond in the form of crocodiles.

Both men and women living in communities along the river benefit from ecosystem services. While men focus on activities requiring high capital inputs, such as river fishing with nets and boats and irrigated farming, women are more involved in collecting wild fruits, vegetables and nuts, predominantly for home consumption. Men are also moving into cash-making activities, like the collection of wild honey and sheanuts.

Natural infrastructure thus provides the foundation for local livelihoods, supporting the primary means – farming, fishing and livestock – by which communities obtain cash income and food. This infrastructure also serves as a social “safety net” near the end of the long dry season, when food supplies and income from agricultural products have dwindled. To cope with this critical “lean” period, communities collect a wide variety of wild fruits and sheanuts, which they are allowed to collect in small quantities from the protected forests and woodlands. They fish in ponds only at the end of the lean season, when the fish have grown to a considerable size and when villagers are most vulnerable to hunger. This traditional collective approach ensures maximum benefits for women and men.

Natural resources under pressure

Better knowledge about the benefits of natural infrastructure can help communities and local authorities do a better job of managing these resources. This has become particularly urgent in the face of mounting pressures from two sources: climate change and direct human intervention.

Climate change has led to a later start of the rainy season, forcing farmers to delay planting on the floodplains. By thus shortening the growing season – which falls between the start of the rains and the first major floods – this delay increases the risk that floods will occur before harvest, damaging or destroying crops.

The human pressures include over-exploitation of forest resources and the effects of built infrastructure on ecosystems that depend on natural river flows. As more water is allocated through built infrastructure to hydropower and irrigation, the natural flow regime will be affected. Though aimed at fostering much-needed economic growth, built infrastructure, depending on how it is managed, could have both positive and negative impacts. By storing flood flows, dams can reduce damage from extreme floods. However, by reducing the magnitude of smaller, beneficial floods they can also reduce the benefits that these floods bring to local livelihoods.

The Bagré Dam, built in the early 1990s upstream from the study site in Burkina-Faso, has had both positive and negative effects on ecosystem services. By ensuring a steady flow of water throughout the dry season, it has enabled farmers to irrigate crops and obtain water for domestic use, when other sources (like wells) have dried up. Natural floods as well as emergency releases of water for dam safety near the end of the rainy season have led to loss of life and major crop damage due to the uncontrolled nature of the floods. Increased cooperation between the authorities in Burkina Faso and Ghana in recent years has considerably reduced the damage from extreme flooding.

It is envisioned that construction of the planned Pwalugu Dam in northern Ghana for hydropower, irrigation and flood control, with a storage capacity larger than that of the Bagré Dam, will have a significant impact on water flows. While the new dam should further help manage extreme floods, its impact in also reducing the magnitude of medium to large floods could harm rural livelihoods. The challenge for dam operators is to release water from the new dam in a timely manner, providing flows of sufficient magnitude and frequency to maintain ecosystem services but without resulting in large, damaging floods. This is a key part of the wider issue of carefully managing the tradeoffs between the benefits from hydropower and irrigation, on the one hand, and those provided by natural infrastructure, on the other.

By Marloes Mul and Laetitia Pettinotti (Mul and Pettinotti are researchers of the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in Ghana and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) in Spain respectively)

As the world marks 2018 World Water Day, the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has urged the Nigerian government to prioritise the protection of nature over profits in the pursuit of providing the citizenry portable water for drinking and other uses.

The World Water Day, says the organisation, reminds government and peoples about the importance of sustainable management of water. The 2018 theme is “Nature for Water” and focuses on how to reduce water pollution by exploring nature based solutions to the water challenge and restoring wetlands to improve human lives and livelihood.

In a statement issued by Head, Media and Campaigns, Philip Jakpor, ERA/FoEN said that, for Nigeria, the theme is a reminder to government at all levels that water is a human right and in its provision, the livelihoods of people should not be mortgaged to privatisers who, in their bid to shore up profits, cut corners and contaminate water.

ERA/FoEN Deptuy Executive Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “As we mark this global event, the Nigerian government must now stop sloganeering and join the rest of the world in taking the responsibility of protecting the environment and nature from the abuse of corporations as priority.”

Oluwafemi explained that transnationals are implicated in the pollution of water sources which ultimately deny the poor access to clean and odorless water. This development, he added, has compelled most nations to start adopting democratically-controlled water systems in a growing wave of remunicipalisations.

“The sad reality in Nigeria is that government at all levels have not learnt lessons from the Flint water crisis in Pittsburgh, United States, and other documented examples of corporate destructive interventions in public water. Rather than ensure sustained funding for the water sector in the annual budgets, they go cap in hand to donors whose sole interest is to profit from water at the detriment of the rights of the people,” Olufemi stressed, adding:

“Report after report show that transnational corporations that grab water even in the guise of the scam called Public Private Partnership (PPP) only unleash rate hikes, pollutions, sicknesses and sorrow to the people.”

The ERA/FoEN boss cited Lagos as an example of a state that is on the path to infringing on the right of its citizens if it goes ahead with plans to concession its water to transnationals that, according to the organisation, have a track record of human rights violations.

“We have told the Lagos government that it has the resources to manage water and keep it within democratic public purview. Any deal with Veolia, Abengoa and Metito will only force upon Lagos citizens, including generations yet born huge loan burdens, cut off the poor, and contaminate water, among a host of woes. But, unfortunately, due to obviously vested interests, the Lagos government is yet to listen.”

He stressed that government at the centre has also not shown good example, pointing out that with Nigeria subscribing to Sustainable Development Goal 6 that commits governments to ensuring that everyone has access to safe water by 2030, no concrete actions can be cited as pointing towards meeting the goal.

“Protecting our ecosystems and halting corporate take-over of our public water systems are cardinal to achieving SDG 6. The growing wave of remunicipalisation the world over shows that democratic control of water is the direction the world is going. Nigeria cannot lag behind,” Oluwafemi insisted.

As the world marks World Water Day 2018, WaterAid Nigeria is joining in the call for urgent action from the international community and from government to reach the 33% of people in Nigeria without access to clean water close to home – and to do so with solutions inspired and supported by nature.

Commemorated on March 22 every year, World Water Day is about focusing attention on the importance of water. This year’s theme, “Nature for Water”, explores nature-based solutions to the water challenges we face in the 21st century.

According to WaterAid, 844 million people globally are without clean water close to home, a number which has risen from last year; and there are a myriad of reasons why so many people remain without access: long distances from a water source, competition from agriculture and industry, compounding pressures from urbanisation, population growth, extreme weather and shock weather events, political instability, conflict and displacement, but most significant is lack of political will and financing. Governments, says the group, need to make access to clean water a top priority and plan, finance and maintain systems accordingly.

WaterAid advocates for responsible environmental management, including regulating the use of water in agriculture and industry, to ensure there is sufficient clean water for basic needs. In many places, there is sufficient water – but people go without because basic needs are not prioritised, or because water is polluted or contaminated.

“Nature-based solutions which use or mimic natural processes have the potential to address contemporary water management challenges, improve water security and deliver co-benefits vital to all aspects of sustainable development. We need to do so much more with ‘green’ infrastructure (an approach to water management that protects, restores, or mimics the natural water cycle) and harmonise it with ‘grey’ infrastructure (human-engineered infrastructure for water resources) wherever possible as a way to address the pollution and misuse of natural water resources. Planting new forests, reconnecting rivers to floodplains, and restoring wetlands will rebalance the water cycle and improve human health and livelihoods,” WaterAid said in a statement.

According to WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) figures, Nigeria has 67% water coverage. However, poor water management leaves millions of Nigerians experiencing severe water scarcity during at least part of the year. With an estimated 1,530 cubic meters of renewable freshwater available per person per year as at 2015 (a reduction from 2007 levels of 2,085 cubic meters), Nigeria is marked as a water-stressed country. Increasing population size and other factors including ethnic conflicts over water means that Nigeria can quickly go from being marked as a water-stressed country to a water-scarce one.

“While Government has undertaken a range of actions that have supported growth in access, there has been a concurrent loss in access due to desertification, pollution, hydrological extremes and urbanisation and also the lack of traditional and indigenous knowledge that embraces greener approaches. An example is the shrinking Lake Chad, the speedy decrease of which is threatening the resources and livelihoods of the 50 million people that live there. Issues like this raise the need for improved strategies to manage Nigeria’s water resource and remediate the losses,” stresses WaterAid, adding:

“This year is an important moment in the fight to reach everyone everywhere with water: in July 2018, the United Nations will review progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6, to deliver water and sanitation to everyone, everywhere by 2030. We already know progress isn’t fast enough: about 60,000 children under five in Nigeria still die each year because of diarrhoea linked to dirty water, poor toilets and poor hygiene. Everyone has a right to water and our leaders must act to leave no one behind.”

Dr ChiChi Aniagolu-Okoye, Country Director of WaterAid Nigeria, said: “Cape Town isn’t the only city facing Day Zero: for 844 million people around the world, long walks and waiting for water, and reliance on dirty ponds, streams and open wells are already a daily reality, causing illness and death. This shouldn’t be normal, for anyone. Cape Town is a wake-up call for all of us, reminding us that access to water, our most precious resource, is increasingly under threat.

“We urge our leaders to take real action as without water and sanitation, none of the other Global Goals – for alleviating poverty, improving health and creating a fairer and more sustainable world – will be achievable. All solutions to the water crisis will demand multi-sectorial coordination and the inclusive participation of community-level actors.

“We know progress is possible: India has reached more than 300 million people in 15 years alone. But progress requires financing, political priority and the will to ensure the basic needs of every person are met, to ensure a better future for millions around the world.”

WaterAid Nigeria says its is calling for:

• A state of emergency to be declared in the water and sanitation sector and a presidential taskforce set up and empowered to deliver on providing water and sanitation for all Nigerians
• Recognition that the UN Global Goals are everyone’s responsibility to deliver, to ensure no one is left behind. Everyone is accountable if they fail.
• A shift in mind-sets and implementation approaches to integrate the principles of nature based solutions in all water-related projects; the development of enabling frameworks for such solutions and the integration of local solutions in all sector interventions.
• Nigeria to learn from pilot projects being implemented in similar contexts (like in Kenya) and conduct critical programmatic, social economic assessments of such through pilot replications with government support and leveraged finance.
• Actors to leverage on sector capacity improvement mechanisms (such as the National Water Resources Institute) to improve capacity across the sector and in allied sectors and cascade down knowledge to communities.
• Mobilising resources from taxes, tariffs and transfers, and increasing the amount and proportion of aid for water, sanitation and hygiene, to close the gaps in financing. This also means supporting institutions to ensure they are accountable and well-governed, so that money is well-spent, and promoting pro-poor policies that ensure access to water for everyone.

Millions of people in Europe drink contaminated water, often without knowing it. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that, every day, 14 people die of diarrhoeal disease due to inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).

Clean and safe drinking-water at home is frequently unavailable, particularly for those living in rural areas. In the European Region, 57 million people do not have piped water at home, and 21 million people still lack access to basic drinking-water services. These people use water from unprotected dug wells and springs, directly consume surface water, or need more than 30 minutes to collect water. About three quarters of people without access to basic drinking-water services live in rural areas.

The WHO sets global health-based guidelines for drinking-water quality. The water safety plan (WSP) approach is a core pillar of these guidelines. WHO considers WSPs to be the most effective means of consistently ensuring the safety of a drinking-water supply.

WHO/Europe, through the European Centre for Environment and Health (ECEH) in Bonn, Germany, works with countries to implement the guidelines. ECEH supports countries to survey and assess their drinking-water supplies, and to prioritise what needs to be done to improve water quality and access to safe services. The outcomes of these activities become part of national policies and measures, leading to the adoption of the WSP approach.

Safe water projects in Serbia and Tajikistan

Recent WHO projects in Serbia and Tajikistan have highlighted the challenges people living in rural areas face in accessing safe drinking-water. In Tajikistan, for example, 32% of the rural population does not have access to basic drinking-water services.

On the issue of water safety, one third of rural water systems inspected in Serbia did not meet standards for microbiological drinking-water quality, and more than 60% were exposed to possible contamination from latrines, sewers, animal breeding, cultivation, roads, industry, rubbish and other sources of pollution placed nearby.

“The national-level assessment of small-scale water supplies in rural areas has created a strong foundation for identifying key threats to public health from drinking-water,” said Dr Ferenc Vicko, State Secretary at the Ministry of Health of Serbia. “The outcomes of the assessment also provided strong health arguments for making WHO-recommended water safety plans mandatory, developing action plans and raising public awareness.”

The findings of the WHO-supported survey in Serbia informed specific recommendations for national authorities, and these have led to revised regulations. The country has already made two key interventions to improve small-scale water supplies. First, it added a new provision in the draft law on drinking-water that stipulates the introduction and implementation of mandatory WSPs to ensure safe drinking-water supply management. Second, it is increasingly enforcing regulation on the foundation and ownership of water supply systems (regardless of size) to ensure their management by authorised legal entities.

In Tajikistan, WHO provides opportunities for broad capacity-building by supporting the establishment of a national team of WSP facilitators, and by strengthening local experience in developing WSPs through closely guided pilot projects in rural areas.

Outcomes of the safe water project in Tajikistan include the integration of the WHO-recommended WSP approach into a draft law, and the country’s stronger personnel and laboratory capacity for the surveillance of drinking-water supply and quality. Funded by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the project is co-led by the Tajik Ministry of Health and Social Protection and WHO/Europe.

“I was impressed that water users in Sino village (Tajikistan) used their free time to dig out filthy drinking-water pipes from rock-hard soil to move the supply’s inlet from an open river to a protected spring. It was a great motivation to continue our work on drinking-water safety in the Region,” noted Mr Oliver Schmoll, Programme Manager of Water and Climate at ECEH.

These projects have also empowered those living in rural areas. In Serbia, for the first time, people have information about the quality of the drinking-water they consume. They also know they have the right to petition local communities to take over the management of piped water supplies, in accordance with national legislation. In Tajikistan, where WHO trained project communities on water safety planning principles, people can take ownership of identifying water supply risks and finding suitable measures to mitigate them, supported by advice from local WSP facilitators and water supply engineers.

The WSP approach

The WSP approach focuses on comprehensive risk assessment and risk management to ensure that water from a particular supply system is safe to drink. WSPs identify chemical and microbiological hazards of local concern, including the ways in which those hazards can enter the water supply. They cover all steps in the water supply, from collection through to storage, treatment and delivery. On this basis, WSPs lead to better management, operation, monitoring and public health surveillance of water supplies.

Guidance to the European Commission

WHO/Europe recently provided comprehensive recommendations to the European Commission on the planned revision of the European Union Drinking Water Directive. These recommendations detail how protecting people’s health from the negative effects of consuming contaminated drinking-water should go beyond measuring compliance with standard water quality parameters; it should involve adopting a more tailored, risk-based approach for each water supply system. The foundation of the WHO recommendations is the WSP approach, which provides the most effective means of consistently ensuring the safety of a drinking-water supply.

World Water Day

World Water Day, marked each year on March 22, provides an opportunity to advocate for further action to ensure that we reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to WASH. WHO says it is working at global, regional and national levels towards reducing deaths and illnesses from waterborne diseases and water contamination, and towards achieving universal and equitable access to safe, sustainable and affordable drinking water for all.

Global and regional goals

Several of the SDGs refer specifically to water safety and access. For example, SDG 3.3 seeks to combat waterborne diseases; SDG 3.9 to reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from water contamination; and SDG 6.1 to achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking-water for all.

In 2017, Member States in the Region agreed to the Ostrava Declaration, committing them to take action to ensure universal, equitable and sustainable access to safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene for all and in all settings, while promoting integrated management of water resources and the reuse of safely treated wastewater.

In 1999, European Member States adopted the Protocol on Water and Health, which is jointly supported by WHO/Europe and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The Protocol contributes to implementing the water-related SDGs and the Ostrava commitments in the Region. It provides an effective policy tool, calling on countries to establish national targets and implementation plans related to WASH. To date, 26 countries in the Region have ratified the Protocol. Currently, Serbia is Chair of the Bureau to the Protocol.

Water contamination and water-related diseases

Further work is needed to fully address persisting gaps in WASH in the Region, where water-related disease outbreaks remain a common occurrence. Contamination from naturally occurring substances such as arsenic and fluoride, and from human-sourced substances such as lead, nitrate and industrially derived chemicals, is a concern in many places.

The most commonly reported infectious diseases linked to WASH in the Region are campylobacteriosis (a bacterial gastrointestinal infection), hepatitis A (a viral liver disease) and giardiasis (a parasitic infection of the small intestine, also known as beaver fever).

Available published data indicate that approximately 18% of reported and investigated outbreaks are linked to water. However, the true extent of water-related diseases in the Region is unknown, and likely to be much higher than data suggest.