Water Demand Management in Practice

Penerbit:UN-HABITAT
Lokasi:Perpustakaan AMPL ( Digital Library on Human Settlements and Urbanizations )
Kategori:Petunjuk
Africa is the fastest urbanizing continent today. Its urban population will rise fourfold from 138 million in 1990 to 500 million by 2020. Managing the growing urban water demand among competing industrial, commercial and domestic sectors is an outstanding challenge faced by African cities.

The growing urban water demand has several implications, including the concern for environmental sustainability. But in the meantime, the marginal cost of supplying water to these cities is rising steeply, taking this life-sustaining commodity beyond the affordability of the average citizen.

The situation is clearly unsustainable. Yet, in many African cities, the water sector continues to be driven primarily by supply-side forces. Large expansion projects are being drawn up but few could be funded by the cash-strapped city authorities.

The Water for African Cities Programme is helping African cities to take a fresh look at managing their water more efficiently - to get the most mileage out of their existing investments. This should make good sense, particularly when many African cities loose more than half of their water treated at a high cost to leakage, wastage and illegal connections.

This publication, developed by the Water for African Cities Programme, documents good practices of water demand management currently in practice in five African cities: Cape Town, Durban, Hermanus, Johannesburg and Windhoek. City managers will find in this document a variety of experiences with water demand management measures. These range from economic measures like progressive tariff through technical measures like retrofitting to promotional measures involving awareness campaigns and water education. The success of these measures will, however, depend on the willingness of the city agencies to implement and the political will to back them up.



Post Date : 22 Oktober 2007