It was a scorching hot April afternoon in Keur Moussa, a small farming community about 60 kilometers outside Dakar, Senegal. The landscape was mostly barren and very dry, and a fine red dust settled into our clothes as we walked with community leaders to learn about their efforts to cope with a changing environment. In this part of the world, adapting to climate change is figuring out how to manage water: how to survive for long periods without it, and what to do when too much comes at unexpected times.
Several men gather round a well, which, they tell us, they need to dig deeper each year. Children grab hold of a rope threaded through a pulley and start walking. They are 50 feet from the edge when a small bucket finally emerges at the top, filled with opaque, brown liquid. This is the water they filter to drink.
But Keur Moussa has other vital water needs beyond drinking, and there have been other changes besides environmental. Seventy percent of the population in Senegal is employed in agriculture, the vast majority of which is rain-fed. The rains are no longer predictable, the farmers tell us (most of them women). And when the rain does come, it is often in torrents, washing away topsoil and leaving much of the land rocky and infertile. They show us hand-made dikes, berms, and pits they have dug to trap water and soil during these downpour events, and they seem hopeful that the next harvest will be better. At the same time, total food demand is growing due to rapid population growth. From today’s roughly 13 million, Senegal is projected to grow to somewhere between 29 and 37 million people by 2050.
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As we celebrate World Water Day, this is a moment to consider how water is central to development and basic survival – and how growing pressures, like climate change and population growth, create even greater urgency for measuring and managing it. The residents of Keur Moussa struggle to get enough clean water to drink, and their crops suffer too. But their challenges aren’t related simply to the quantity of water available – they are also linked to quality, the kinds of demands on it, the infrastructure in place to access and store it, and the timing of its arrival as rain.
There is not enough water in Keur Moussa, there is no doubt. But a population’s relationship with water can be measured in different ways. A look at some of the most commonly used definitions of “water scarcity” shows the complexity of challenges facing places like this:
As these measures show, a lack of sufficient clean water supplies – for human needs and for environmental processes – can stem from a wide range of circumstances. Different measures have utility at different scales. For example, in understanding the scale of population pressures on water nationally or globally, the Falkenmark Water Stress Index can provide a snapshot of what the future may hold. Alternatively, if we want to more fully understand the challenges facing residents of Keur Moussa, the Water Poverty Index may be the most useful approach.
The supply of freshwater globally is fixed, but demand will grow significantly. According to the most recent United Nations projections, world population is likely to increase from roughly 7.2 billion today to somewhere between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050, while extreme poverty levels (thankfully) are declining. The impacts of climate change – shifting rainfall patterns, reduced snowpack, and extreme weather events – are already exacerbating water scarcity even further in many parts of the world. A recent study published in Environmental Research Letters estimated that climate change will aggravate or cause new water scarcity (using the Falkenmark Water Stress Index) for nearly 500 million people – without accounting for concurrent population growth; when growth is considered, that number could jump to an astounding five billion people.
In the face of these mounting challenges, it is increasingly important to assess baselines, measure progress, and adaptively manage our efforts to ensure water security. Understanding possibilities for the future can help us better strengthen development decisions today. The Sahel may be getting drier, but by how much and where exactly? And how will aquifer and surface water levels be affected? Could strengthened infrastructure increase access and better manage growing variability, without compromising environmental flows? These are questions that have a great deal of bearing for the people of Keur Moussa and millions of communities like it.
Kathleen Mogelgaard is a writer and analyst on population and the environment, and a consultant for the Environmental Change and Security Program.
Sources: Center for Ecology and Hydrology, Environmental Research Letters, Inter Press Service, International Food Policy Research Institute, Pacific Institute, Population Action International, The Huffington Post, U.K. Department for International Development, UN Population Division, World Bank.
Photo Credit: A girl collects water at a camp in Northern Darfur, courtesy of Albert González Farran/UN Photo; Keur Moussa images used with permission courtesy of Kathleen Mogelgaard.
