Situation Unchanged

That this situation has not changed until today becomes clear in the report “Data shortage in Africa”, by Volker Mrasek in “Deutschlandfunk” of 24th August, 2005.  Swedish hydrologist and engineer Rikard Lidén states at a seminar at the World Water Week at Stockholm in 2005 that Africa is suffering not only from water shortage but also from data shortage. Sten Bergström, leader of the research group of the Swedish Weather and Water Service at Norrköping / Sweden is quoted with the following words: “Sometimes, data are lacking because they were never measured. Sometimes, gauging stations are destroyed during civil wars. But mostly, water departments are lacking money to employ people for measuring and maintaining the equipment. This is a real problem.” says Rikard Lidén, this is a growing problem, “since data quality is deteriorating and many measurement series are not continued nowadays. So the engineer warns that water shortage in Africa could aggravate, describing an example from the south eastern corner of the continent ...”

Jerry cans in front of an empty elevated tank are waiting to be filled again
Jerry cans in front of an empty elevated tank are waiting to be filled again;
Photo: Jürgen Baisch

Before the beginning of a project

… there are the following questions and problems:

  • Are there any data for the project area?
  • Where can I get data for the project area?
  • How reliable, representative or comparable (same measurement method) are these data?
  • Can the gaps in the series of measurements be closed, e.g., by setting up separate gauging stations or by transferring data from comparable areas?
  • The search for data in the country itself is highly time- and money-consuming without guarantee for success.
Dirty water which is used as drinking water
Dirty water which is used as drinking water;
Photo: Jürgen Baisch

Even if there was enough time before the start of the project to set up gauging stations and to carry them on during the project, raised data will not have the same statistical meaningfulness as measurement series over many years. For water resources management, planning requires measured values over 10 to 30 years. The longer the period of observation time the more convincing are the results.