into the river systems polluting urban water supplies, rivers and productive coastal waters.
The lack of green urban, peri-urban and rural watershed management and consequent loss of critical ecosystem services threatens people’s food security, health, livelihoods and subsequently development opportunities. Attempts to manufacture substitute ecosystem services through engineering solutions are extremely expensive and often
unrealistic.
Existing financing and planning for water and sanitation is not even able to cope with current population levels.
Until recently, cities have sought to meet increasing demand in water and sanitation services through engineering solutions. Some cities have built large water storage and treatment facilities, while others have embarked on river basin transfer schemes as a way of augmenting supplies. Besides being expensive and supply-focused, these engineering solutions do not address the depletion and degradation of available resources and ecosystem services, forcing cities in Africa to embark on water management reforms. The reforms seek to manage water demand, and to focus more on water resources management rather than supply. The reforms are a result of the need to balance water supply and sanitation services for urban areas with the ecosystem health of urban environments.
Water resources management reforms are based on consultation. Urban areas provide an ideal institutional structure for community engagement, representing an organised infrastructure to supply water and sanitation services, provide incentives for water use efficiency, as well as consider the environment in urban water solutions.
Ecosystems degradation can potentially derail the pace of urbanisation. This can happen if urban water solutions fail to take into account environmental impacts. The case studies
provided in this report emphasize the pivotal role of ecosystems in sustainable urban water supply and sanitation, noting: • There is a widening disparity between demand and availability of safe drinking water and sanitation services.
• There is a growing demand for alternative sources of water such as rainwater, groundwater and desalinised water as a way of addressing the shortfall between demand and supply.
• Urban water quality and supply will continue to deteriorate if urban planning does not fully integrate watershed management.
• City water supply is dependent upon watersheds outside city borders.
• Cities are vulnerable to waterborne diseases both from surrounding settlements and from the city itself.
• Consider environmental impacts, destroying ecosystems and spreading waterborne diseases to communities downstream as well as to the cities themselves.
• There are unique water supply and sanitation challenges to the various cities in Africa, and these include: • dependence on ecosystem services that are outside city boundaries;
• growing reliance on groundwater supplies, the quality of which is at times compromised by the poor management of wastewater;
• growing participation of the private sector in complementing government and local authority efforts in water supply and sanitation services; and
• little use of alternative water sources, particularly rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling.
• In light of the projected rise in urban populations, including those living in slums, access to water and sanitation is crucial for health, development and poverty reduction.
• Public and private management of water resources ensures access to clean water, but this requires concerted efforts including protection and restoration of ecosystem services, as well as engineering solutions.
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