Causes of water pollution in Africa

March 2, 2022

Water pollution has been one of the major reasons behind the status of the continent economically but, there are some causes of water pollution in Africa.

Water covers over 70% of the Earth’s surface. So, how come access to safe drinking water is so difficult for so many people? How can there be an issue with water pollution when there is so much of it?

Water pollution, on the other hand, refers to the contamination of freshwater sources, which is the only type of water humans can drink. It doesn’t help that only 2.5 per cent of Earth’s water is fresh, potable water and that the vast majority of that is frozen at the poles or deep underground.

That leaves about 0.007% of the Earth’s water available for nearly seven billion people to drink, cultivate food, generate electricity, and manufacture commodities. Even goods you would not consider necessitate the use of water in their manufacture.

Because blue jeans are comprised of cotton, which is a water-intensive crop, a single pair of blue jeans uses around 3,000 gallons of water to make. Water scarcity, like so many other difficulties we face today, is the cost of a growing population as well as industrial and scientific progress.

Africa is one of the hardest-hit parts of the water crisis, and it serves as a warning sign for the rest of the world, due to its environmental, demographic, and economic challenges.

Africa is a large continent with 54 countries, covering more than twice the area of the United States. In Africa, about 358 million people do not have access to safe drinking water. That’s almost as much as the rest of the globe put together.

The main and most pressing issue causing Africa’s water crisis is population growth. Africa has a population of over one billion people, which has doubled in the last 27 years. The obvious result of population growth is pressure on natural resources, but other repercussions include sanitation issues as people dwell in greater and denser groups.

We nearly take our sophisticated water management systems for granted in industrialized countries, which pump out and filter sewage water while also pumping in safe drinking water that we can turn on and off at will.

Most Americans would be mortified by the prospect of not having a toilet, yet almost a third of the world’s population, many of whom live in Africa, does not have access to one. This causes diarrhoea, fatal parasites, and diseases like typhoid and dysentery when human waste mixes with local water systems.