It is high time that Nairobi residents come to the realisation that the city under the sun may be without water at all. It is no doubt that water supply to Nairobi city has never been satisfactory mostly due to mismanagement of the precious commodity by unscrupulous city authorities who take advantage of the city`s water problems to make a kill. Lack of proper rainfall could also be a reason as the country has not had proper rainfall for over a year.
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| A Broken Pipe Being Repaired |
As reported by an international news agency ,dams responsible for the city`s water supply are running dry. This is as a result of lack of proper rainfall for over a year with rains doing very little to try and fill up the dams.
The reports indicate that the October - December 2016 rains only delivered about 268mm of water against 700mm expected going by rainfall patterns. This was to be compensated by the March - May rains of which were late and when they finally came on 1st May 2017, only 440mm was realised out of 1000mm expected. Ndakaini dam was at 20% full in April this year confirming the problem the city is in.
“The water available to the city has plummeted. Nairobi’s water company is distributing 400,000 cubic metres a day, 150,000 less than it used to and 350,000 less than the city needs; 60% of the population lacks reliable water. Of 78 public boreholes, only 48 work,” a section of the report reads.
Experts are trying to figure out what could be the solution to such a pertinent problem including:
- Water harvesting from the city`s buildings
- Taking care of the water catchment areas and the environment generally.
Read more of this and solutions being proposed from The Guardian newspaper website.
