Water and Food: a focus on Africa

This blog has sought to illustrate the ways in which infrastructures of water supply, both concrete and abstract, are essential for the health, sanitation and development of the communities. Hydrological issues must be considered in their full dimension since water is not only experienced in its liquid form. Water is involved in every step of the food chain from production, to storage and transport. Current challenges for food production are the need to increase to meet the population growth rates. Storing food may become increasingly challenging, as preservation conditions are bound to change for the benefit pest and pathogen introduction  ( Niang et al., 2014 )  This will primarily affect rural communities dependent on locally sourced crops, which make up over 50% of the African population  ( Desanker and Magadza, 2021 ). Consequently, calls for external support will increase dependency on international trade. However, imports will be troubled as increased extreme events damage food

Transboundary water courses link nations over shared resources. Conflicts are commonly occur, motivated by the impacts of upstream users on downstream recipients which cause disproportionate relationships between the people, communities and nations ( Van der Zaag, 2015 ). Distribution of these resources usually becomes classified as either territorial sovereignty, whereby the state has absolute right to the water crossing its territory; or riverine integrity, which recognises the natural flow of a river as the water entitled to each of the riparian nations ( Wolff, 1999 ). This hydropolitical thematic was recognised by Egyptians 5000 years ago. They furthermore acknowledged the links to the economy, conceiving Nilometers as a flow measure in order to tax farmers based on their consumption (Sadoff and Grey, 2002) . However, resources would perhaps be more appropriately shared based on benefits provided, rather than exploitation of measured water units. For this matter, Sadoff and Grey (