Water Scarcity and its impact on communities

During my undergraduate days, I stayed off campus in a popular neighborhood right in front of the school. One prominent thing in my compound and some other houses on my street was that from the months of November till March of the following year, there was a unified problem of water Scarcity in the Wells. That period was a dreaded one for me and my roommate because we had to wake up very early – as early as 4am in the morning, to fetch water. If it had been waking up way earlier than others alone, it wouldn’t have been so much of a problem but we had to also fetch in a strategic way such that the small water in the Well would not become dirty after a couple of draws with the fetcher. You may wonder why we had to use a fetcher, here is an explanation- During dry seasons, the water level in the Well drops so much that it goes below the level of the pumping machine installed in the well to help with automatic water circulation in the building, meaning that it becomes impossible for the pumping machine to pump water, hence we result to fetching manually. At that early hour also, many people from other compounds could be seen with their big buckets and bowls, looking for where to find water. As students, it was hard because with classes fixed at 8am, we had to make sure we took care of our hygiene before stepping out – it was dry season, it was automatically hotter and it was not a matter of beads of sweat at that time. You would not want to dare go for classes without having your bath, your perfumes have limits. You get the gist??

Mrs Flora stayed in my street just a couple of houses away from mine. Apparently her husband lives in another state, leaving her to be a single mother to their three children of ages 7, 4 and 2. As a banker, she had to resume work by 8am. During dry season, Mrs Flora ran the routine of- waking up by 4am, fetching water amongst other house chores that were too much for her 7 year old to do, cooking, taking care of the three children’s hygiene, getting them ready for school and making sure they got to school early enough for her to start her journey to the bank. Because of her kids, she could not meet up with the staff bus at the fixed time of 7:30am and so she resulted to spending her money on transportation a lot of time. Waking up later was not an option for her because once other tenants in the building got to the well before her, she wouldn’t be able to fetch as much as she needed and it would cripple her routine. Sometimes I looked at her from my building and felt sorry for her. My situation was manageable compared to hers. I didn’t have anyone to look after but she had not one, not two, but three humans to look after. Her situation was a stark reminder of the struggles many face during water scarcity.

Naturally, water Is essential to life, it aids our day-to-day activities. Its Scarcity poses an existential threat to people and nature. Daily activities that require water supply included, drinking, bathing, washing, cooking as well as the proper functioning of the ecosystem. Water scarcity refers to insufficient access to the water resources necessary to sustain a region. It is an excess of water demand over available supply. The reasons for this vary from Physical water shortage, Infrastructure failures such as inadequate water Storage or conveyance; to Governance failures to provide water access in communities. Water scarcity affects everything—from agriculture and industry to human well-being and the environment.

The impacts of water scarcity are felt most acutely by poor indigents and local communities who do not have the resources or influence that large industrial, economic and government entities do to secure sufficient clean water supplies for their basic human and economic needs. Apart from my experience with water scarcity majoring on my struggle to be hygienic before the day starts, and Mrs Flora's race against time to take care of her kids and as well be early to work, there are many other unfortunate events that follow water scarcity in the local communities. They include the following:

· Less Food: as earlier stated, water Is essential in every area of life. In Agriculture, adequate water is necessary for crop growth, when water declines, food automatically declines, and when food declines, there is the inescapable presence of hunger especially for poor members of the community who rely majorly on their farm produce.

· Diseases: Many students like me did not rely on water from the well for drinking, we were too afraid of catching a bacteria from the well or at worst, a disease. So we bought ‘clean’ and drinkable water from trusted sources. We could afford that lifestyle, however, what about members of the community who lived from hand to mouth and could not afford to buy water like we did? During dry seasons like that, water was not only scarce, it was also dirty. While many of us could only afford to use it for our baths(of course with a drop or two of disinfectant) many drank it and got exposed to water borne diseases and lice infestation.

· Poor Hygiene: In local communities, many households resulted in fetching water from rivers around them or ever farther from where they lived. Arriving late was a disadvantage for them because the cleanest part of the water would have been scooped off by those that were early, hence they resulted in washing their clothes with dirty water or could not wash at all. Not being able to wash for many people meant repeating their dirty clothes which had mostly been overcome by stenching odors.

· Sexual Abuse: Many parents in local communities sent their children to fetch water from very far destinations, whilst they face other chores at home. This exposed many teens to sexual predators who knew what time they passed, what route, and what time they returned.

These and more are disadvantages that may accompany the scarcity of water in communities. What are possible ways out of this?

Water Storage: Since it is our nature to expreience dry and wet seasons, it is safer and wiser to adopt the Joseph method(Joseph in the bible). In other words, since there comes once or twice on a year when we experience drought and it is a generally known fact, for local communities who carnot afford the high expenses of drawing water automatically, it is advisable to store water. Just like we save money for raining days, it would instead be to save water for dry days. For big communities, saving water in large storage reservoirs is advisable. 

Proper Filtration system: Having enough water is not the only goal but to also have clean water. It is therefore important to adopt proper water filtration system in the community. This can be made possible by a unified agreement by members of the community to work together to achieve a filtration system that would Produce purified water, free from bacteria, microbes and other possible contaminants. 

In conclusion, achieving a battle against water scarcity in a community is communal, hence it takes a sense of responsibility from every member of the community to avoid water wastage, activities that may pollute water, and activities that may pose as disadvantages of water scarcity.