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Nzula Kitaka is an Associate Professor and a Researcher of “Aquatic/Water Sciences at Egerton University, Kenya. Currently she is the Vice President of Africa-UniNet, a Research consortium of 47 African and Austrian Universities and a member of the Advisory Board for Water-WISER CDT (consortium of UK Universities to train PhD students in WASH). She is the kenyan Coordinator of the Joint Masters degree in Limnology and Wetland Management offered by Egerton University, BOKU, Austria and IHE-Delf, The Netherlands. Prof Kitaka has been involved in several collaborative research projects either as a PI or researcher.
This study examined the current state of water demand and associated energy input for water supply against a projected increase in water demand in sub-Saharan Africa. Three plausible scenarios, namely, Current State Extends (CSE), Current State Improves (CSI) and Current State Deteriorates (CSD) were developed and applied using nine quantifiable indicators for water demand projections and the associated impact on energy input for water supply for five Water Service Providers (WSPs) in Kenya to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach based on real data in sub-Saharan Africa. Currently, the daily per capita water-use in the service area of four of the five WSPs was below minimum daily requirement of 50 L/p/d. Further, non-revenue water losses were up to three times higher than the regulated benchmark (range 26–63%). Calculations showed a leakage reduction potential of up to 70% and energy savings of up to 12 MWh/a. The projected water demand is expected to increase by at least twelve times the current demand to achieve universal coverage and an average daily per capita consumption of 120 L/p/d for the urban population by 2030. Consequently, the energy input could increase almost twelve-folds with the CSI scenario or up to fifty-folds with the CSE scenario for WSPs where desalination or additional groundwater abstraction is proposed. The approach used can be applied for other WSPs which are experiencing a similar evolution of their water supply and demand drivers in sub-Saharan Africa. WSPs in the sub-region should explore aggressive strategies to jointly address persistent water losses and associated energy input. This would reduce the current water supply-demand gap and minimize the energy input that will be associated with exploring additional water sources that are typically energy intensive.
Pauline Macharia; Nzula Kitaka; Paul Yillia; Norbert Kreuzinger. Assessing Future Water Demand and Associated Energy Input with Plausible Scenarios for Water Service Providers (WSPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Energies 2021, 14, 2169 .
AMA StylePauline Macharia, Nzula Kitaka, Paul Yillia, Norbert Kreuzinger. Assessing Future Water Demand and Associated Energy Input with Plausible Scenarios for Water Service Providers (WSPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa. Energies. 2021; 14 (8):2169.
Chicago/Turabian StylePauline Macharia; Nzula Kitaka; Paul Yillia; Norbert Kreuzinger. 2021. "Assessing Future Water Demand and Associated Energy Input with Plausible Scenarios for Water Service Providers (WSPs) in Sub-Saharan Africa." Energies 14, no. 8: 2169.