The improvement of everyone’s access to safe water for drinking and other domestic purposes constitutes a significant step in the fight against poverty. Yet millions of people in towns and cities have only inadequate access to water; some 141 million people are still estimated to rely on ‘unimproved sources’ of drinking water (WHO/UNICEF 2010). The vast majority of these live in unplanned areas and slums of low- and middle-income countries. This means crowded, high-density settlements that often lack permanent housing and secure tenure, mostly with no or inadequate access to basic sanitation and hygiene. Although in 2005 the lives of...

There are enormous uncertainties in the estimates of the Earth’s total volume of groundwater reservoirs, ranging from 7 to 23 million km³ (Kundzewicz and Döll 2009), which may explain why very little data on groundwater as a source for urban or domestic usage is available today. In the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, there are no reliable, comprehensive statistics on groundwater use or related issues such as dependence, aquifer characteristics, recharge rate and infiltration capacity, general quality issues or even abstraction rates (Foster, Tuinhof et al. 2006).

Although lack of data and inherent complexities have so far ruled out...

Arranging sustainable water supply for cities in low- and middle-income countries is a challenge that can be met in various ways. During the 20th century, some advantages of groundwater over surface water for urban domestic use became clear. Lakes, ponds, streams and rivers were increasingly polluted with pathogens, parasites, chemicals and solid matter, rendering them less potable; ever rising withdrawals of river water upstream decreased the volumes reaching people living downstream; state regulations limiting the amounts to be drawn from rivers increased the competition over water distributed from them; the socio-economical and ecological costs of pumping water from growing distances...

This paper examines the groundwater situation of two cities: Bangalore in India and Lusaka in Zambia. The countries share a history as colonies and parts of the British Empire; India until 1949 and Zambia until 1964. In both cities, the current infrastructure for water supply and sanitation was built after independence and both depend on a combination of water from major rivers and groundwater, and face an overall shortage in supply. They are still undergoing rapid population growth and face significant budget shortfalls. They are both home to large numbers of low-income households living in sub-standard conditions ― in what...

Most urban areas which are experiencing fast population growth find that the available water from more or less local sources falls short of overall demand. This often triggers plans to increase the volume of distributed water by locating new, untapped sources, often from rivers at an ever-increasing distance from the point of demand. However, the various costs ― economical, political and ecological ― for investing in new sources can be prohibitive, and financial institutions may not be interested in making funds and loans available for such expansions. The remaining alternatives for many expanding cities are water conservation; re-use, other efficiency-increasing...