Climate Change Strategies for East Africa's Lake Victoria Region

How is climate change impacting water utilities in developing countries? What can be done to help communities adapt to these changes?

The Alliance has been working with a consortium of consultant teams to answer these questions for water utilities and their service communities in the Lake Victoria region of East Africa.

In January 2010 a team of graduate students from the Johns Hopkins University – School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) traveled with Re-SOLVE (an Alliance partner based in South Africa) to the Lake Victoria region, where they analyzed the impact of climate change on water utilities and strategies for adaptation. Here is graduate student Michelle Neukirchen’s account of the experience.

Development Needs and Adapting to Climate Change

The effects of climate change in the Lake Victoria region are pervasive and challenging to overcome. For water utilities in particular, the myriad effects of climate change make it difficult to approach it as a stand-alone issue.

For one, the more intense and less predictable weather patterns are causing land erosion and damaging water supply infrastructure. In recent years, the levels of water in Lake Victoria have been dropping off, and this has limited the amount of energy generated by hydropower facilities. Utilities depend on hydropower energy to deliver reliable water supply service.

While battling the effects of extreme weather events, water utilities must also find ways to continue servicing communities around the lake, which provides economic opportunities to surrounding populations with its fertile land and waters. Moreover, the typically drought-stricken areas further away from the lake are not only expanding; they are also experiencing more extreme drought over longer periods of time.

It comes as no surprise that the population around Lake Victoria is rising steadily. All in all, the growing demand for water has put additional stress on water utilities. The utility operators are responsible for providing high-quality, reasonably-priced service to users in the area. For them, expanding the network of users and ensuring full coverage is a top priority.

Energy Reliance, Energy Efficiency

During our time in the Lake Victoria region, the SAIS team met with a variety of stakeholders, all of whom play a critical role in financing water infrastructure, establishing policies and managing the water utilities. Our role during this trip was to learn more about the policies that govern utility operations and determine how utilities can adapt to climate change. While working with the utility operators and service boards, we explored energy efficiency actions they can take immediately and in the distant future.

Right now, a substantially large portion of utility operating costs go to energy bills. For most sites, water is mechanically pumped into water treatment facilities, and again pumped to higher elevation storage tanks; eventually it makes its way to the end-user. As one water utility operator told us, the energy supply is inconsistent, which results in an inconsistent water supply. Without investments that either increase energy supply or improve energy efficiency, this will continue to be a problem.

If the water system has leakages – and this can be a problem even in the United States – then those leakages represent critical energy losses. Yet leakages are inevitable until these utilities upgrade their infrastructure and equipment, some of which was built before World War II.

Finally, climate change brings added costs: energy bills are high; extreme weather events damage infrastructure; and degraded water quality challenges the capabilities of water treatment facilities. Faced with these overwhelming challenges, utility operators need to make strategic choices about improving infrastructure and expanding their system to meet water demands.

Long-term energy-saving considerations will need to account for the impact that climate change will have on the facility and its ability to deliver a consistent, high-quality supply of water.

To help prepare water utilities for the impending impacts of climate change, the Alliance and its partners will provide water utilities with toolkits to help them assess risks associated with climate change and explore adaptation measures. The toolkits are guidebooks that will contain information on adaptation measures and how to achieve them. This information will be tailored to the results of stakeholder meetings with the local utilities. The toolkits, along with implementation plans, will be developed at a later date.

The Alliance is a 2009-2010 partner of the International Environmental Policy Practicum of the University of Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Michelle Neukirchen is a graduate student in SAIS’s Energy, Resources and Environment Program.

Photos courtesy of Eric Seilo and Michael Tran.