Groundwater fluoride and salinity vs. equity in arid regions: Obtaining inclusive and sustainable resource management (GEM)

project summary

Africa’s entire population lives in water-insecure countries with Kenya hosting 13 million people facing significant challenges in accessing clean water. Major water hazards in Kenya, especially in its arid regions, are recurring droughts and high fluoride and salinity in groundwater. The water crisis negatively affects health, food security, and education, and can even lead to conflicts across borders. The problem is worsened by climate change. Thus, climate change adaptation requires transitioning towards more drought- and pollution-resilient water source, being groundwater.

Elevated fluoride and salinity make water unsuitable for drinking, and high fluoride ingestion causes skeletal fluorosis. The solutions to these water quality issues involve either locating groundwater resources with low fluoride and salinity or groundwater treatment. The first solution requires an in-depth understanding of drivers of groundwater resource availability, fluoride concentrations and salinity in arid regions (objective 1). The second solution requires assessment of equity in potable water resource availability and people’s perception of outcomes of poor-quality water consumption and willingness to pay for clean water (objective 2).

The project objectives will be reached by integrating well-developed methods, new technologies and advances in geo- and socio-economic sciences. Environmental factors governing high groundwater fluoride and salinity in arid regions will be identified by application of machine learning models. Impact of groundwater-surface water exchange and specific hydrogeochemical processes on fluoride concentrations and salinity in alluvial aquifers in Kenya under climate change and increasing groundwater demand will be examined by combining indigenous knowledge with laboratory, field and modelling methods well developed in Denmark. Finally, socio-economic consequences and welfare gains of groundwater resource availability and quality, and distributional consequences of groundwater treatment will be assessed to identify social barriers for providing clean drinking water.

The project findings will enhance inclusive and sustainable groundwater governance models for equitable climate change action in arid regions, and support several UN Sustainable Development Goals, including Good Health (3), Quality Education (4), Clean Water (6), Reduced Inequalities (10), and Climate Action (13).