Case Study of a Kenyan Slum – Quality of water they use

As mentioned when introducing the thematic area, rapid urbanisation has resulted in the majority of urban the residents in Sub-Saharan Africa having to reside in slums which are characterised by a lack of basic services such as water and sewage. Drawing on a paper by Wambui Kimani- Murage and Ngindu (2007) I will be exploring the quality of the water that the population residing in the Kenyan slum of Langas in the Eldoret municipality use and the effect that over crowding has on the quality of water.

The proportion of the urban population of Kenya nearly doubled from 16% in 1980 to 31% in 1998 and this rapid urbanisation has resulted in an increased proportion of the population living in slum or shanty towns, in absolute poverty in much of the urban areas (World Bank, 1999/2000). As slums have an illegal status as they are mostly informal settlements they therefore do not receive government services such as water or drainage and sewage systems which has a detrimental affect on the health of the population residing there. For example, in Kenya the diarrheal diseases are among the major illnesses affecting the slum residents. The study highlights the fact that some affordable on site sanitation and underground water is used, but due to the high concentration of people, it does not allow for adequate distance between wells using the underground water and the pit latrines which are the used onsite sanitation. This is a major issue facing a high proportion of the population as the insufficient distance allows for microorganisms to migrate from the faecal matter in the pits to the water source, causing pollution of the drinking water.

The overriding conclusion from this study is that most of the sources of domestic water within the slum are contaminated with faecal matter and the main issue was the closeness of the pit latrine and the wells. Therefore, this indicates the importance of distance between the sanitation facility and the water source, as in order to prevent or lower contamination, they should be a sufficient distance apart. Consequently, this is another issue to take into consideration when trying to determine the cause of illnesses and diseases in urban areas. Also similar to that of the study by Tumwine et al (2002), this paper acknowledged the importance of education and behaviour change in terms of sanitation in reducing water-borne diseases.