As water scarcity looms following the beginning of the dry season, Professor Emmanuel Akpabio, has called for concerted efforts to conserve, preserve and regulate available water sources in the country to avert the crisis.
In an interview with NewsNGR, Akpabio who is of the Department of Geography and Natural Resource Management, and the current director of International Programmes, University of Uyo, said the scarcity being currently experienced in parts of the country including Akwa Ibom State, and which is making people walk long distances searching for water, has to do partly with a change in the season.
This he said would have been more pronounced had the country’s economy depended on intensive irrigation agriculture as well as used water in heavy industries.
“If we were to practice intensive irrigation agriculture, there will be competition between people who need water for livelihood and those in agriculture as well as heavy industries and this is where the challenge has always been.
“In the dry season, the problem becomes more pronounced since supplies from rain sources may not be frequent. People have to walk long distances because the groundwater sources are experiencing serious use pressure due to high water demand for drinking and other uses.
“Again, the high energy cost of making groundwater available through pumping implies the frequency of pumping water will be reduced.
“These, in addition to the gradual drying off, or pollution of available complementary sources mean people would be forced to move in search of water mostly in urban centres,” he said.
He said there should be new ways of thinking on the use of water in the direction of conservation which he said is important to sustain freshwater sources and to avert crises.
“In Akwa Ibom, we have three hydrogeological formations manifesting in differing water levels in the southern, middle and northern parts.
“The northern axis of Ikono, Ini, Ibiono Ibom experiences severe scarcity of supplies and sometimes you have to drill boreholes for several metres, and people may not have money and necessary technologies to deal with that.
‘In areas like the southern part, you may have water everywhere but is it usable?
“Apart from the high possibility of saline intrusion on available freshwater sources, petroleum oil exploration and associated spills might render available water sources non usable”.
“The problem is that we take water for granted in this part of the country, but the reality is dawning. In the villages, many natural sources of water are experiencing serious pressure, and some are drying-off. In urban areas, we often don’t think in the direction of efficient use and management.
‘ There are leakages everywhere, people forget to turn off taps, pipes leak and no mechanism and information system to coordinate immediate fixing. Those who have money maintain pools and waste so much water everyday without any means to discourage such wastage.
“I think we need real public education to create awareness and discourage wastage and leakages. We can also use economic and technological options to manage our water system efficiently. People who have the means to run pools should be made to pay.
” Technological appliances that support efficient use of water should be incentivised by law, subsidies or through simple education.
” We should go for toilet flush systems that are designed to use very little amount of water.
“People should be encouraged to use showers instead of baths, rainwater harvesting should be encouraged to complement other sources of supplies, and indiscriminate drilling of boreholes should be discouraged.
‘In the rural areas there should be protection of available watersheds against encroachment. Water is very important to be left in the hands of individuals to manage, the government should take full control and coordinate every aspect of water resources management in the state”.
“Water is very important, and has been one of the primary sources of interpersonal, inter-communal and inter-country conflicts arising from the necessities of meeting different competing needs and interests.
“You see people struggling to feed the cattle, people struggling to use water for farming, people struggling to secure water for drinking, relationship between countries have been strained/shaped due to conflicting interests on who should have the greater control over shared water bodies.
“Water has often been at the centre of international geopolitics. At these points conflicts may be inevitable.
“Scholars have even predicted that the next world war will be fought because of water, although a counter narrative sees water as likely to be a catalyst for cooperation rather than conflict.’’