Cities in war, thirsty cities.
This updated website is an improvement of the former one (www.thirstycitiesinwar.com) and it will leave room for more up to date problems a large part of the world population is facing or will face in the near future. The initial website was describing the situation of several cities affected by conflict and the occasional papers listed in it and also reported here have been the result of three years of research conducted between 1998 and 2001 with the financial assistance of the Geneva Foundation. Several of them have also been published in the website of the organisation, until it was possible to do so.
The decision to carry out this research and to create the website was due to the difficulty for the author and the other actors to access data in the field, either because they were not existing, poorly collected or even lost during the conflict, thus not allowing the engineers to take the appropriate decisions.
Most of this research has been completed before 2002 and many situations have changed since. However, collected and available data may always be used by researchers interested in this field as information may be useful for their current research. As time is passing the collected data may also provide a unique reference, to understand how things have evolved with the explosion of the demography and how this has affected the aquifers and the access to water for the concerned populations.
Why thirsty cities in war?
When we started to document the effects of conflicts on water supplies we were aware that the number of conflicts conducted in urban areas was on the rise but not as dramatically as it happened. An initial work began within the city of Beirut (Lebanon), followed by some documented interventions during the Gulf war and the war on Iraq, the wars for the control of Aden in Yemen and the genocide war in Kigali (1994) among others. With the easier access to satellite imaging and the increased use of geographical information systems software (GIS), it became easier to document the effects of the war for the control of towns like Kabul (Afghanistan), Monrovia (Liberia), Kigali (Rwanda), Mogadishu (Somalia) and, closer to us, the towns of former Yugoslavia and more recently the war on Gaza.
The situation of the access to water in some of these conflicts has been described simply in the first conference organized in 1994, by the Water and Sanitation Department of the International Committee of the Red Cross, where the main problems facing the communities, the utilities and the engineers were outlined and discussed. The need for a better protection of the facilities and of the last category of humanitarian workers was also stressed.
Generally speaking, conflicts are being increasingly conducted in urban areas not only because the political and economical powers are located within capitals, but also because all over the world people are migrating from the countryside to the urban area, mainly for economic reasons but also because they may feel more safe.
The damage inflicted to the infrastructure by the ways that war is conducted is far more important than in rural areas, simply because the installations are technically more complex and vulnerable. One of the main problems is due to the interruption of the supply of electricity, and water shortages resulting form lack of power are common in today’s conflicts. Back-up power generators are not sufficient to cope with the outages and, when fuel is available, they do quick lack of spare parts and maintenance. Whole areas are often reduced to the level of pre-industrial societies and turned to a breeding ground for epidemics, with wastewater flooding entire suburbs, increasing the risk of cross contamination of the water still supplied through the network.
As the density of people is important, the number of people affected by diseases related to a poor water supply or by a total lack of drinking water is likely to increase during the troubled periods and may reach epidemic proportions.
The difficulty of the tasks has triggered an evolution of the competences of the engineers involved in humanitarian relief, shifting from a relatively simple technology developed to care for informal “towns”, as the refugees camps often are, to interventions in complex installations like power plants, water treatment stations, etc. in partnership with local water boards or contractors, without whom nothing would be possible.
If damage to the infrastructure can be addressed, the human resources of the utilities are also badly affected during the conflicts and one of the tasks of the International Humanitarian Organisations (IHO) and of the Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) is also to rebuild or strengthen their operational capacity in order to help them to cope with the more dire needs.
Collection of data takes time and is sometimes seen as a second order priority. After more than 20 years from the beginning of this research collection of data in difficult situations still remains poor as engineers have enough to do to assist the utilities in their strive to restore the access to water of the affected population.
Climate change
If conflicts have immediate effects on the access to water, the dramatic evolution of the climatic patterns is also having an impact on the availability of water worldwide.
The author is ready to assist them as much as possible, particularly with the different GIS (Geographical Information Systems) shape-files, which are often not available otherwise.
About the Author
Independent consultant
Ph.D., MS Chem.Eng., CTCM&H
Education: Chemical engineering degree from the University of Geneva (Switzerland) followed by a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry at the same University. He has carried out a post-doctoral fellowship at the Canada Centre for Inland Water in Burlington (Ontario. Canada). He is also titular of a Certificate in Environmental Analytical degree from the University of Geneva and of a Tropical Community Medicine & Health from the University of Liverpool (UK).
Since 1983 he joined the International Committee of the Red Cross and charged to set up the Water and sanitation unit within the medical division of the ICRC, which he managed until 1995.
From 1998 to 2001 worked as independent consultant. Research project: ”Cities in war, thirsty cities”: water supply problems in war torn cities, sponsored by the Geneva Foundation. Studies carried out in the following towns: Mogadishu (Somalia), Dili (East Timor), Novi Sad (former Yugoslavia), Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Beirut (Lebanon), Kabul Afghanistan), Goma, Kisangani, Bukavu,Uvira (DRC), Bujumbura (Burundi), Huambo (Angola), Monrovia (Liberia), Kigali (Rwanda) in the context of the
ICRC activities. Technical coordination of the brochure “War and Water” and author of the handbook ” Water, Wastes and Habitat in prisons” in French, 2004. (English, August 2005).
Worked as regional coordinator for East Africa and the Great-lakes between1995 and 1997, and from 2002 until 2007. Based in Nairobi: assessment of complex situations, definition of objectives, management of programs, conferences.
Since 2007 he is working as a part time consultant.
