{"id":6092,"date":"2019-10-23T09:46:38","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T06:46:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=6092"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:37","slug":"groundwater-supplies-on-kenyas-coast-must-be-managed-for-people-and-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/23\/groundwater-supplies-on-kenyas-coast-must-be-managed-for-people-and-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"Groundwater Supplies On Kenya\u2019s Coast Must Be Managed for People and Industry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Nuria Ferrer Ramos<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industry is growing along Kenya\u2019s coast, and some of these companies \u2013 such as mining and agricultural companies \u2013 are water intensive. To meet their demand, most industries\u00a0are turning to groundwater<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groundwater is a natural resource that exists beneath the\nearth\u2019s surface in soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. It\ncan be stored in, or move through, aquifers: a body of permeable rock \u2013 like\ngravel or sand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groundwater has many intrinsic\nadvantages<\/a>: it can be developed quickly (and at a relatively low cost),\nit\u2019s easy to find, it\u2019s drought resilient and can meet water needs on demand.\nThis has made it a crucial component in rural water supply, and for industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The problem is, even though Kenya has policies, laws, and\ninstitutions that are specifically dedicated to managing groundwater, in\npractice, groundwater is treated as a common pool resource, belonging to\nwhoever owns the land overlying the aquifer. The majority of water users ignore\nthe potential long-term consequences of unregulated use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what\u2019s happening in Kwale county, on the southern\ncoast of Kenya. Over half a billion US\ndollars<\/a> in capital investment has been made in two water-reliant\nindustries in Kwale: heavy sands mining and commercial sugarcane. In addition\nto this Kwale also hosts significant tourism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because aquifers in Kenya are\nnot<\/a> always properly managed, my\ncolleagues and I wanted to know<\/a> how increased abstraction of groundwater\nby industries could affect local communities that use groundwater as their main\nwater supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found that, at the moment, the new industries are not\naffecting the water supply for local communities. What is affecting the\ncommunity wells are long drought periods, such as the last drought<\/a> which\nlasted from 2016 to early 2017. The consequences of dry wells are that people\nhave to walk further to get water, and water becomes more expensive to buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For industry, understanding investor risk and liability for\ngroundwater sustainability would seem prudent, if not a legal obligation,\nbefore major abstraction starts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our research shows that groundwater resources can be\nsignificant and resilient to unpredictable but recurrent drought events, if\nunderstood and managed properly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sustainable use?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We focused our study on the Msambweni aquifer, located on\nthe coast of Kwale county in Kenya. This aquifer system is composed of a\nshallow aquifer (about 25 metres thick) and a deep aquifer below this shallow\naquifer (about 350 metres thick).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shallow aquifer is recharged by rain through the ground\nsurface and the deep aquifer is recharged by water that flows underground from\nthe Shimba Hills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shallow aquifer is mainly exploited by the local rural\ncommunities and the hotels located near the coastline. The deep aquifer is\nexploited by the mining and sugar operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The communities rely heavily on shallow groundwater, which\nthey get from wells or by using a handpump in a borehole, because they don\u2019t\nhave piped water, and water from the two main rivers in the area is not\nconsidered safe to drink. Also, in the 1980s, the Swedish International\nDevelopment Agency installed<\/a> hundreds\nof handpumps at boreholes in Kwale county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industries now also rely on groundwater. But they use new boreholes, equipped with electrical pumps, that reach the deep aquifer. These have higher abstraction rates than traditional dug wells or shallow boreholes equipped with handpumps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read more… <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nuria Ferrer Ramos Industry is growing along Kenya\u2019s coast, and some of these companies \u2013 such as mining and agricultural companies \u2013 are water intensive. To meet their demand,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}