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Document from the 7th Africa Water Week, held in Libreville, Gabon, 29 October – 2 November 2018

A knowledge asset of the African Ministers’ Council on Water

Citizen science: Ambient

water quality monitoring in

Kenya

The problem: Water quality monitoring Nairobi river

● Rivers in Nairobi are heavily polluted due to an increase in population and

industrialization in and around Kenya’s capital city

● This is caused by untreated sewage, solid waste and heavy metals being

discharged in the river and agricultural run-off

● There is currently no coherent monitoring system in place to measure the

level of pollution of these rivers and the data that is collected is often closed

off to the public

● Why citizen science? It is not clear to citizens what the level of pollution in

these rivers is, how they contribute to it, and what they can do to improve

water quality.

The solution: Water quality monitoring Nairobi river

● The International Water Stewardship Programme (IWaSP) is an international

water security programme, which combines global best practices in water

stewardship with local knowledge

● Within the IWaSP programme in Kenya, the use of citizen science is piloted

as a way of participative monitoring of environmental health of Nairobi, Ngong

Kiu rivers (Kiambu) and the rivers in the Lake Naivasha Basin. The trend can

be used to develop advocacy messages to influence enforcement

● University students and Water Resource Users Association (WRUA)

members use the smartphone data collection software Akvo Flow, and water

quality measurement solution Akvo Caddisfly to assess the water quality and

main pollutants in these rivers

● Baseline conducted in twelve up- and downstream locations

● Water quality parameters: E.coli, phosphate, nitrate, pH, Electrical

Conductivity

Enumerators practicing water quality measurements with

Akvo Caddisfly

Impressions from the project

Impressions from the project

Upstream: low risk E.coli

Sewage discharge point lake Naivasha: intermediate risk

Nairobi city centre arboretum

Downstream Kiu river: very high risk

What next?

Opportunities

• An enthusiastic WRUA in Naivasha tomonitor the quality of the rivers in effort toprotect the water resources

• There is an opportunity to contribute to thewater quality database for the developmentof the health report card for Lake Naivashaby the UN Environment

• With a strong organization in Nairobi tocoordinate the data collection, the trend canbe used to inform enforcement

Challenges

• Recruiting more people to participate in datacollection

• With the phasing out of IWaSP, it isuncertain that the data in Nairobi will beused but we are seeking anchorage inanother institution

Thank you!