Hydrological conditions have also had a bearing on the supply of adequate water and sanitation in African cities. While some cities are favoured with plentiful rainfall and surface water, others are located in drought-prone areas. One example is Port Harcourt, which receives so much rainfall for nine months in a year that the water table, a major source of drinking water, is high but vulnerable to contamination. This city has potential for augmenting water supply through rainwater harvesting.


Other cities are located on peninsulas where the water is saline. These include Conakry and Dakar whose sources of safe drinking water are now located further inland due to saltwater intrusion. Cities such as Abidjan, Cotonou, Lomé, Freetown, and Accra have neighbourhoods that are located in flood-prone areas, exposed to periodic high tides and storm surges. Proper disposal of sewage and supply of clean drinking water in such areas are a challenge. Still other cities such as Ouagadougou, Bamako, and Niamey are located in geological zones where yield from underground water sources is low (Collignon and Vèzina 2000). In these areas investments in dam construction and large water treatment plants are necessary.


Cities have failed to protect local ecosystems as they have become masses of concrete, resulting in little groundwater recharge. At the same time demand has outstripped available water resources in some cities such as Johannesburg and Nouakchott (Collignon and Vèzina 2000). As such it is becoming more expensive to draw water for cities from both surface and underground sources, with some cities now accessing their water through intra-basin water transfers. For example, one of Johannesburg’s key water sources is the Lesotho Highlands Water project, which transfers water from the catchment area of the Senqu/Orange River in Lesotho through an 82 km stretch of artificial water tunnels (International Rivers 2005). In Mauritania’s city of Nouakchott water is drilled from boreholes 50 km away, and the nearest freshwater stream is 300 km away (Collignon and Vèzina 2000).


URBANISATION AND ECOSYSTEM DEGRADATION


Residents of urban areas depend on various ecosystem services for their livelihoods. For example, forested watersheds and wetlands are important for urban water supplies, among other services. Sedimentation caused by poor land uses and the general


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failure to protect and manage watersheds can result in reduced capacity to generate hydropower. For example, the generation of electricity from two of Rwanda’s hydropower stations, Ntaruka and Mukungwa, fell by 68 per cent in the last two decades due to sedimentation (Safari 2010). The degradation of the ecosystem also saw the cost of energy per kWh increased from USD 0.075 in 1997 to USD 0.20 cents in 2005 (Andrew and Masozera 2010).


While ecosystem services such as provisioning of clean water are a necessary basis for city growth, urbanisation can also strain the same water ecosystems. In addition to siltation, water bodies around some cities are polluted with high nutrient levels mainly from peri-urban farming activities as well as from domestic and industrial effluent discharges.


Untreated sewage effluent is one of the most common types of pollution found around urban rivers and in groundwater sources. Dar es Salaam, Accra, Khartoum, Harare, Maputo and Kampala discharge treated and untreated sewage into their water bodies (Mangizvo 2009), causing eutrophication and the proliferation of water weeds such as the water hyacinth and water lettuce. The discharge of sewage into city water bodies is often compounded by spillages of raw sewage due to power failures, pump or pipe failures.


Industrial and mining wastes are also dumped into water bodies around urban areas. Industrial waste is found in ocean waters near major centres dotted along Africa’s coastline, including Dar es Salaam, Maputo, Durban, Cape Town, Walvis Bay, Baia do Cacuaco and Luanda (Moyo and Mtetwa 2002). Mining activities lead to the discharge of heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury into river systems and oceans. For example, the Kafue River in Zambia deteriorates in quality as it passes through the Copperbelt town of Kabwe due to mine waste discharges (Moyo and Mtetwa 2002)


The high demand for space for infrastructural development in urban areas has witnessed the disregard for the functions and services offered by the environment. Wetlands in and around cities, which function as a buffer against floods and heavy rainfall, as well as play a role in purifying water, have often been taken up for either construction of settlements or waste disposal. An example of this is the Bwaise wetlands of Kampala, which have been encroached by expanding slums, but experience severe flooding as a result (NEMA 2009).


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