Optimal Urban Water Allocation Strategies Under Inter-Basin Water Transfer: Case of Nairobi City, Kenya
Keywords:
Climatic Conditions, Inter-basin Urban Transfer, Sentinel, Water Allocation, Urban Water Security, WEAP.
Abstract
Most urban cities in the world are facing water insecurity as a result of rising water demand while the supply remains uncertain due to climate variability. To curb the growing water demand, most cities in the world have invested in inter-basin water transfers (IBWTs). IBWTs have the ability to balance both the temporal and spatial distribution of water resources. To enhance their reliability, IBWTs are integrated with water storage facilities like reservoirs. The study evaluated optimal water allocation strategies with IBWT for Nairobi City. First, Sentinel imagery using normalized difference water index (NDWI), as a proof of concept, was used to investigate changes in reservoir levels of Thika dam due to IBWT.Water Evaluation and Planning System (WEAP) model was used to evaluate water allocation strategies with the new IBWT project (Northern Collector Tunnel Phase 1 (NCT 1)) and planned water sources up to year 2035. NDWI was able to detect changes in reservoir area due to the increased water flows from NCT I to Thika Reservoir. However, the increased flows from NCT I would not meet the city’s water demands in the very dry, dry and normal years which had a supply coverage of 31%, 35% and 47% respectively. While the government’s objective is to increase the supply coverage in Nairobi City to over 70%, this will only be achievable in the wet and very wet years as the coverage increased to 71% and 92% respectively. From the results, even with demand management measures, NCT 1 will still not meet the desired supply coverage in the very dry, dry and normal years. However, additional water sources together with demand management measures provides opportunities of alleviating water shortages by achieving the desired supply coverage under all climatic conditions. Further, the current and future water sources plans are surface water storage which are heavily affect by rainfall variability. Thus, the national and the Nairobi County governments, need to come up with an integrated water resources management systems where water resources development is integrated with water demand management. Such may include supplementing centralized storage systems with decentralized ones such as rainwater harvesting, sustainable groundwater use and waste water reuses in order to enhance urban water security for Nairobi residents.
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Leichenko, R. (2011). Climate change and urban resilience. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 3(3), 164–168.
Lévite, H., Sally, H., & Cour, J. (2003). Testing water demand management scenarios in a water-stressed basin in South Africa: Application of the WEAP model. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 28(20–27), 779–786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2003.08.025
Maggioni, E. (2015). Water demand management in times of drought: What matters for water conservation. Water Resources Research, 51(1), 125–139.
Nagendra, H., Bai, X., Brondizio, E. S., & Lwasa, S. (2018). The urban south and the predicament of global sustainability. Nature Sustainability, 1(7), 341–349.
Nobre, C. A., Marengo, J. A., Seluchi, M. E., Cuartas, L. A., & Alves, L. M. (2016). Some characteristics and impacts of the drought and water crisis in Southeastern Brazil during 2014 and 2015. Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 8(2), 252–262.
Nyakundi, R., Nyadawa, M., & Mwangi, J. (2022). Effect of Recharge and Abstraction on Groundwater Levels. Civil Engineering Journal, 8(5), 910–925.
Oiro, S., Comte, J.-C., Soulsby, C., MacDonald, A., & Mwakamba, C. (2020). Depletion of groundwater resources under rapid urbanisation in Africa: recent and future trends in the Nairobi Aquifer System, Kenya. Hydrogeology Journal, 28, 2635–2656.
Peña-Luque, S., Ferrant, S., Cordeiro, M. C. R., Ledauphin, T., Maxant, J., & Martinez, J. M. (2021). Sentinel-1&2 multitemporal water surface detection accuracies, evaluated at regional and reservoirs level. Remote Sensing, 13(16). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13163279
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Sadegh, M., Mahjouri, N., & Kerachian, R. (2010). Optimal inter-basin water allocation using crisp and fuzzy Shapley games. Water Resources Management, 24(10), 2291–2310.
Sahin, O., Siems, R., Richards, R. G., Helfer, F., & Stewart, R. A. (2017). Examining the potential for energy-positive bulk-water infrastructure to provide long-term urban water security: A systems approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 557–566.
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Steffen, J., Jensen, M., Pomeroy, C. A., & Burian, S. J. (2013). Water supply and stormwater management benefits of residential rainwater harvesting in U.S. cities. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 49(4), 810–824. https://doi.org/10.1111/jawr.12038
Tian, J., Liu, D., Guo, S., Zhengke, P., & Hong, X. (2019). Impacts of Inter-Basin Water Transfer Projects on Optimal Water Resources Allocation in the Hanjiang River Basin, China. Sustainability, 11, 2044. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11072044
Wang, Y., Zhang, W., Zhao, Y., Peng, H., & Shi, Y. (2016). Modelling water quality and quantity with the influence of inter-basin water diversion projects and cascade reservoirs in the Middle-lower Hanjiang River. Journal of Hydrology, 541, 1348–1362. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.08.039
WWAP. (2022). Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risks :The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022. UNESCO, Paris.
Yates, D., Sieber, J., Purkey, D., & Huber-Lee, A. (2005). WEAP21—A demand-, priority-, and preference-driven water planning model: part 1: model characteristics.
Water International, 30(4), 487–500.
Zhou, Y., Guo, S., Hong, X., & Chang, F.-J. (2017). Systematic impact assessment on inter-basin water transfer projects of the Hanjiang River Basin in China. Journal of Hydrology, 553, 584–595.
Zhuang, J., & Sela, L. (2020). Impact of Emerging Water Savings Scenarios on Performance of Urban Water Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 146(1). https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0001139
Apse, C., Bryant, B., Droogers, P., Hunink, J., Kihara, F., Leisher, C., … Wolny, S. (2014). Upper Tana-Nairobi Water Fund: a business case. The Nature Conservancy, Natural Capital Project and Future Water.
AWWDA. (2012). Feasibility study and master plan for developing new water sources for Nairobi and satellite towns, Athi Water Services Board.
AWWDA. (2016). Feasibility Study and Master Plan for Developing New Water Sources for Nairobi and Satellite Towns: Northern Collector Tunnel Project Phase I.
Benzougagh, B., Meshram, S. G., El Fellah, B., Mastere, M., Dridri, A., Sadkaoui, D., … Khedher, K. M. (2022). Combined use of Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 to monitor water surface area and evaluated drought risk severity using Google Earth Engine. Earth Science Informatics, 1–12.
Bhaga, T. D., Dube, T., & Shoko, C. (2021). Satellite monitoring of surface water variability in the drought prone Western Cape, South Africa. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 124(August), 102914. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2020.102914
Bischoff-Mattson, Z., Maree, G., Vogel, C., Lynch, A., Olivier, D., & Terblanche, D. (2020). Shape of a water crisis: Practitioner perspectives on urban water scarcity and “Day Zero” in South Africa. Water Policy, 22(2), 193–210. https://doi.org/10.2166/wp.2020.233
Carragher, B. J., Stewart, R. A., & Beal, C. D. (2012). Quantifying the influence of residential water appliance efficiency on average day diurnal demand patterns at an end use level: A precursor to optimised water service infrastructure planning. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, 62, 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1016
/j.resconrec.2012.02.008
Daloğlu Çetinkaya, I., Yazar, M., Kılınç, S., & Güven, B. (2022). Urban climate resilience and water insecurity: future scenarios of water supply and demand in Istanbul. Urban Water Journal, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/1573062X.2022.2066548
Deverill, P., Herbertson, P., & Cotton, A. (2001). Urban Water Demand Management - sustainable approaches for developing countries. WELL Water and Environmental Health, WELL Task(349), 1–46.
Empinotti, V. L., Budds, J., & Aversa, M. (2019). Governance and water security: the role of the water institutional framework in the 2013–15 water crisis in São Paulo, Brazil. Geoforum, 98, 46–54.
Fraj, W., Elloumi, M., & Molle, F. (2019). The politics of interbasin transfers: Socio-environmental impacts and actor strategies in Tunisia: Wafa Ben Fraj, Mohamed Elloumi and François Molle / Natural Resources Forum. Natural Resources Forum, 43. https://doi.org/10.1111/1477-8947.12165
Ghansah, B., Foster, T., Higginbottom, T. P., Adhikari, R., & Zwart, S. J. (2022). Monitoring spatial-temporal variations of surface areas of small reservoirs in Ghana’s Upper East Region using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and machine learning. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C, 125, 103082.
Ghosh, P. (2021). Water stress and water crisis in large cities of India. In Sustainable Climate Action and Water Management (pp. 131–138). Springer.
Grasham, C. F., Korzenevica, M., & Charles, K. J. (2019). On considering climate resilience in urban water security: A review of the vulnerability of the urban poor in sub‐Saharan Africa. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 6(3), e1344.
Head, B. W. (2014). Managing urban water crises: Adaptive policy responses to drought and flood in Southeast Queensland, Australia. Ecology and Society, 19(2). https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-06414-190233
Hemati, A., Rippy, M. A., Grant, S. B., Davis, K., & Feldman, D. (2016). Deconstructing demand: the anthropogenic and climatic drivers of urban water consumption. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(23), 12557–12566.
Kandekar, V., Pande, C., Rajesh, J., Atre, A. A., Gorantiwar, S. D., Kadam, S. A., & Gavit, B. (2021). Surface water dynamics analysis based on sentinel imagery and Google Earth Engine Platform: a case study of Jayakwadi dam. Sustainable Water Resources Management, 7(3), 1–11.
Kansara, P., & Lakshmi, V. (2022). Water Levels in the Major Reservoirs of the Nile River Basin—A Comparison of SENTINEL with Satellite Altimetry Data. Remote Sensing, 14(18). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs14184667
KNBS. (2019). Distribution of Population by Administrative Units. In 2019 Kenya Population and Housing Census. Retrieved from http://www.knbs.or.ke
Kumar, N., Poonia, V., Gupta, B. B., & Goyal, M. K. (2021). A novel framework for risk assessment and resilience of critical infrastructure towards climate change. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 165, 120532.
Lee, M., Tansel, B., & Balbin, M. (2013). Urban Sustainability Incentives for Residential Water Conservation: Adoption of Multiple High Efficiency Appliances. Water Resources Management, 27(7), 2531–2540. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11269-013-0301-8
Leichenko, R. (2011). Climate change and urban resilience. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 3(3), 164–168.
Lévite, H., Sally, H., & Cour, J. (2003). Testing water demand management scenarios in a water-stressed basin in South Africa: Application of the WEAP model. Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, 28(20–27), 779–786. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pce.2003.08.025
Maggioni, E. (2015). Water demand management in times of drought: What matters for water conservation. Water Resources Research, 51(1), 125–139.
Nagendra, H., Bai, X., Brondizio, E. S., & Lwasa, S. (2018). The urban south and the predicament of global sustainability. Nature Sustainability, 1(7), 341–349.
Nobre, C. A., Marengo, J. A., Seluchi, M. E., Cuartas, L. A., & Alves, L. M. (2016). Some characteristics and impacts of the drought and water crisis in Southeastern Brazil during 2014 and 2015. Journal of Water Resource and Protection, 8(2), 252–262.
Nyakundi, R., Nyadawa, M., & Mwangi, J. (2022). Effect of Recharge and Abstraction on Groundwater Levels. Civil Engineering Journal, 8(5), 910–925.
Oiro, S., Comte, J.-C., Soulsby, C., MacDonald, A., & Mwakamba, C. (2020). Depletion of groundwater resources under rapid urbanisation in Africa: recent and future trends in the Nairobi Aquifer System, Kenya. Hydrogeology Journal, 28, 2635–2656.
Peña-Luque, S., Ferrant, S., Cordeiro, M. C. R., Ledauphin, T., Maxant, J., & Martinez, J. M. (2021). Sentinel-1&2 multitemporal water surface detection accuracies, evaluated at regional and reservoirs level. Remote Sensing, 13(16). https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13163279
Quan, Y., Wang, C., Yan, Y., Wu, G., & Zhang, H. (2016). Impact of Inter‐Basin Water Transfer Projects on Regional Ecological Security from a Telecoupling Perspective. Sustainability, 8(2), 162.
Rodina, L. (2019). Water resilience lessons from Cape Town’s water crisis. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, 6(6), e1376.
Sadegh, M., Mahjouri, N., & Kerachian, R. (2010). Optimal inter-basin water allocation using crisp and fuzzy Shapley games. Water Resources Management, 24(10), 2291–2310.
Sahin, O., Siems, R., Richards, R. G., Helfer, F., & Stewart, R. A. (2017). Examining the potential for energy-positive bulk-water infrastructure to provide long-term urban water security: A systems approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, 143, 557–566.
Sekertekin, A., Cicekli, S. Y., & Arslan, N. (2018). Index-based identification of surface water resources using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery. 2018 2nd International Symposium on Multidisciplinary Studies and Innovative Technologies (ISMSIT), 1–5. IEEE.
Sinha, P., Rollason, E., Bracken, L. J., Wainwright, J., & Reaney, S. M. (2020). A new framework for integrated, holistic, and transparent evaluation of inter-basin water transfer schemes. Science of The Total Environment, 721, 137646. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137646
Steffen, J., Jensen, M., Pomeroy, C. A., & Burian, S. J. (2013). Water supply and stormwater management benefits of residential rainwater harvesting in U.S. cities. Journal of the American Water Resources Association, 49(4), 810–824. https://doi.org/10.1111/jawr.12038
Tian, J., Liu, D., Guo, S., Zhengke, P., & Hong, X. (2019). Impacts of Inter-Basin Water Transfer Projects on Optimal Water Resources Allocation in the Hanjiang River Basin, China. Sustainability, 11, 2044. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11072044
Wang, Y., Zhang, W., Zhao, Y., Peng, H., & Shi, Y. (2016). Modelling water quality and quantity with the influence of inter-basin water diversion projects and cascade reservoirs in the Middle-lower Hanjiang River. Journal of Hydrology, 541, 1348–1362. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.08.039
WWAP. (2022). Managing Water under Uncertainty and Risks :The United Nations World Water Development Report 2022. UNESCO, Paris.
Yates, D., Sieber, J., Purkey, D., & Huber-Lee, A. (2005). WEAP21—A demand-, priority-, and preference-driven water planning model: part 1: model characteristics.
Water International, 30(4), 487–500.
Zhou, Y., Guo, S., Hong, X., & Chang, F.-J. (2017). Systematic impact assessment on inter-basin water transfer projects of the Hanjiang River Basin in China. Journal of Hydrology, 553, 584–595.
Zhuang, J., & Sela, L. (2020). Impact of Emerging Water Savings Scenarios on Performance of Urban Water Networks. Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management, 146(1). https://doi.org/10.1061/(asce)wr.1943-5452.0001139
Published
2023-04-07
How to Cite
Nyingi, R. W., Mwangi, J. K., Karimi, P., & Kiptala, J. K. (2023, April 7). Optimal Urban Water Allocation Strategies Under Inter-Basin Water Transfer: Case of Nairobi City, Kenya. African Journal of Education,Science and Technology, 7(3), Pg 100-112. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.2022/ajest.v7i3.860
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