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At the 2018 Inception Workshop in Geneva, the WWQA decided to pilot and demonstrate current capabilities and future water quality information services through three use case studies in Africa.The Use Cases provide an initial testbed that puts the quality of surface water and groundwater into the context of the local 2030 Agenda and its multiple linkages across the Sustainable Development Goals.

The UN Environment Programme is cooperating with relevant organisations including the UN-Water Expert Group on Water Quality and Wastewater in the World Water Quality Alliance to develop a World Water Quality Assessment for consideration by UNEA-5.

Africa Use Cases Aim:

Build the “use case” for a World Water Quality Assessment by means of the piloting and demonstration of current capabilities, future information and services of the World Water Quality Alliance (the “Alliance”) through these three case studies. Central in these initial test cases will be the integration of in-situ, remote sensing-based earth observation and modelling data

The African use case studies are the initial test-bed putting water quality in surface and groundwater into focus of the local Agenda 2030 and its multiple linkages across goals. Central in this first test will be to combine an in-situ data, modelling and Earth Observation (EO) driven approach to derive the best possible current baseline state of water quality in those cases with a multi-stakeholder driven process defining demand for water quality

(baseline). The objective is to provide an evidence base that links

services. Ultimately, the objective would be to arrive at evidence-based information linking water quality hotspots to solutions and investment priorities.

Crucial is a multi-stakeholder in-country driven process defining demand for water quality services (using experience in global problems to support local solutions). Stakeholders include government, academia, civil society and (inter)national organisations (quadruple helix).

The results produced by the use cases in this two-pronged approach are meant to be shared widely with the WWQA for further consideration

The selected African Use Cases comprise:
Volta Basin: Transboundary river basin, shared between Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali, Cote D’Ivoire and Ghana. Main water quality issue are pathogens
Lake Victoria: Transboundary lake, shared between Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Main water quality issue is impact on ecosystem health
Cape Town Main Aquifer Systems: Variety of aquifer systems in and around Cape Town; earmarked for water supply to Cape Town. Main water quality issues are pollution due to land use activities, geogenic elevated concentrations and impact on surface ecosystems

Project Phases

Initiation Phase:
The network of contributing Alliance partners and local Use Case stakeholders is identified, and a rapid assessment of existing monitoring and assessment capacities and availability of data from multiple sources is conducted to determine the current state of knowledge and to set the objectives for the information services to be developed.

Identification Phase:
Existing data and information used to identify, categorise and undertake a preliminary (baseline) assessment of the quality status of the freshwater ecosystems by testing an innovative data/model fusion approach and further data analysis to develop pilot products and services for local/national application

.

Volta River Basin 

Includes six countries: Burkina Faso (43%), Ghana (42%), Togo (6%), Benin (3%), Mali (3%), Côte d’Ivoire (2%).


Surface water quality challenges:
• Nutrient load: highly localised from agricultural sources (plantations), markets, industries (beverage and textile), illegal mining activities
• Pathogens: from discharge of domestic waste, untreated sewage, open defecation (humans/animals)
• Sediments from declining natural vegetation

Groundwater quality challenges:
• Localized concerns, incl. fertilizer, sanitation, natural occurrences of heavy metals.

Lake Victoria Basin

The Lake Victoria Basin riparian countries are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda.


Challenges:
Domestic and industrial wastewater, solid wastes, sediments from soil erosion in the catchment area, agricultural wastes and atmospheric deposition are the major nutrient sources that promote algal blooms in the lake. Parts of Lake Victoria, especially the deeper areas, are now considered dead zones, unable to sustain life due to oxygen deficiency in the water. The threats facing the lake have caused considerable hardship for the populations dependent on it for their livelihoods and have also reduced the biodiversity of the lake’s fauna, most notably fish and phyto-plankton.