90 The Future of Water in African Cities
Mbale, Uganda: A Time-Limited Window of Opportunity Table 4.2 Key Characteristics and Location of Mbale, Uganda Population (2011)
91,800
Estimated daytime population (2011)
200,000
Projected annual population growth
4%
Economic activity
Commerce, transportation, small-scale farming, and industry
Water consumption per person served (2011)
70 liters per capita per day
Utility water coverage
71%
Source: Eckart et al., 2012a.
Mid-size cities present an opportunity to apply innovative, well-researched, and well-constructed approaches to water management because they have little legacy infrastructure and are still relatively contained. But these cities are growing very rapidly and there is a limited window of opportunity to implement the necessary management structures. These cities also tend to have limited institutional and financial capacities, and approaches must be carefully planned to accommodate these limitations. Mbale is located in a high precipitation area just west of a Rift Valley mountain range, where surface-water availability has traditionally been plentiful. But increasing human activities in upstream catchments have meant that the city now faces water scarcity issues during the dry season. According to Uganda’s National Water and Sewerage Corporation (NWSC), the dry season abstraction amounts from the Nabijo and Nabiyonga Rivers together would traditionally be 2,000 cubic meters per day and from the Manafwa River up to 5,000 cubic meters per day (Eckart et al., 2012a). However, the intake from the Nabiyonga and Nabijo was discontinued in February 2012 due to lack of water. One of the major threats to the sustainability of the surface-water resources in Mbale is the unauthorized abstraction and pollution of water by the increasing number of settlements upstream along the Nabijo and Nabiyonga Rivers. NWSC officers note that a large number of people have recently moved and now live along the upper watershed of the Nabijo and Nabiyonga. The impact of these settlements is severe competition for river water with the NWSC.