Kenya's Water Crisis...

There are about 40 million people living in Kenya today and within that number about 17 million (43 PERCENT!!!) do not have access to clean water. For decades, water scarcity has been a major issue in Kenya, caused mainly by years of persistent droughts, poor management of its water supply, contamination of the available water, and a sharp increase in water demand resulting from the moderately high population growth.

 The lack of rainfall affects also the ability to acquire food and has led to eruptions of violence within the African Nation. In many areas, the shortage of water in Kenya has been amplified by the government’s lack of investment in water, especially in rural areas. Kenya is a relatively dry country with about 80 percent of the country being arid and semi-arid.

The high potential/fertile agricultural land only amounts to a mere 17 percent, which sustains 75 percent of the population. 

The average annual rainfall in Kenya is about 630 millimeters (mm) with a variation from less than 200 mm in Northern Kenya to over 1,800 mm on the mountain slopes of Mt. Kenya. Over the past decade Kenya and most of East Africa has experienced a severe drought leaving many dead. 

Global warming is one of the critical factors that has prolonged the drought killing millions as a result and of the Kenyans that have survived are unable to grow their crops and keep their livestock alive. Because most Kenyans rely directly or indirectly on agriculture, when severe droughts occur, many Kenyans are left to starve unless food aid prevents a famine.

Another main reason why droughts have prolonged as a long as they have is due to deforestation. The largest forest in Kenya is Mau,  which distributes water to six lakes plus eight wildlife reserves, and some 10 million people depend on its rivers for a living. However, loggers and farmers have destroyed a quarter of Mau’s 400,000 hectares. The problem with deforestation is that it almost always leads to increased surface water runoff, which has negative implications in both the rainy season as well as the following dry season.

The inability to maintain clean water in Kenya is another main reason for the constant worsening of the water crisis in Kenya and the rest of East Africa. 

Most Kenyans use wells to obtain domestic groundwater and also use pit latrines that are often close in distance to the wells. This causes contamination of the wells because the microorganisms travel from the pit latrines to the wells. The wells should be placed in elevated areas (at least 2 meters above the water table) and at least 15 meters from pit latrines, which however is not the case in most overcrowded urban slums.

At the global level about 1 billion people are sealed out of having access to safe water due to poverty, inequality and government failure. It is also clear that not having access to clean water is a main driver and cause of poverty and inequality. In Kenya, largely due to recurrent droughts, millions of families that rely on crops and livestock are threatened and thousands of people die each year as a result of thirst and hunger. According to the World Bank (2010), the mortality rates of adult males, adult females, children under five, and infants has increased from 1990 to 2008.