Climate change impacts on urban wash services in Ghana.

Abstract

The global water and sanitation sector is faced with numerous problems. Evident from Sub-Sahara Africa is the lack of access to potable water and improved sanitation which has made water coverage and sanitation a worry for most governments in low and middle-income countries. Climate change will exacerbate these problems especially in the urban poor communities. There is therefore the need to investigate how to make urban WASH services climate proof. In line with achieving this aim, part of this work assessed the existing WASH vulnerabilities, assessed the potential impacts of developed hydrological scenarios on the existing vulnerabilities and developed recommendations for various stakeholders using the Rapid Climate Adaptation Assessment (RCAA) methodology. The other part of this work assessed the adaptive capacity of the urban WASH sector by applying the Adaptive capacity wheel (ACW) methodology. In the application of these two methodologies, qualitative empirical data were collected from semi-structured interviews, direct observations and focus group discussions. The empirical data collected helped to understand the stakeholders‟ climate change awareness, the linkages in the local vulnerabilities, and ways to enhance the adaptive capacity of the WASH sector. This research argues that the vulnerabilities of the WASH services are similar within and across the ecological zones in Ghana. These vulnerabilities resulted from intermittent water supply, poorly managed solid waste and lack of spatial planning which are problems in urban poor WASH management. Though these vulnerabilities were arrived by simple hydrological scenario, they show the need for adaptation measures to be incorporated into urban poor WASH planning. To integrate adaptation measures to achieve resilience, this work further argues that the adaptive capacity of the sector can be enhanced by improving the learning capacity and motivation of stakeholders as well as empowering larger-scale institutions to provide structures and guidance at the lower- and individual level.