Professional Skills in Engineering: Assessment 2

Running head: PROFESSIONAL SKILLS IN ENGINEERING
Professional Skills in Engineering: Assessment 2
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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PROFESSIONAL SKILLS IN ENGINEERING
Table of Contents
Week 5.................................................................................................................................2
The Problem Statement/ Client Brief..............................................................................2
Research on the Problem Identified.................................................................................6
Week 6.................................................................................................................................9
Research into client brief.................................................................................................9
Week 7...............................................................................................................................13
Week 8...............................................................................................................................17
References..........................................................................................................................24

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PROFESSIONAL SKILLS IN ENGINEERING
Assessment 2: portfolio 2: Project Plan
Week 5
The Problem Statement/ Client Brief
Africa faces huge challenges and multiple issues which in turn affects the public health
adversely. Among the different issues, one of the major issues that Africans face is the huge
crisis of water. Both rural and urban areas in Africa face this issue. Crisis of water is an issue that
impacts the global population and the population growth of Africa. In this report, the water
supply problem of Africa is considered as the engineering discipline in which the project will be
based. The main aim of this report is to propose a project that will provide a solution to the
existing water supply problems of Africa.
Africa is located in the south of Sahara, where the agriculture is predominantly rain fed
and therefore, it is a huge problem for the population of Africa. Africa has only 9% of the fresh
water resources while the total population of Africa constitutes about 11% of the world’s
population (Linard et al., 2012). Therefore, there is definitely a crisis of water which affects a
large number of areas in Africa. However, the main problem is that the solutions to the identified
challenges are mainly hindered by the shortcomings of the water infrastructure. For 1 billion
people in Africa, having safe and fresh water is a scare (Buhaug & Urdal, 2013). People in rural
area face a lot of challenges in collection of fresh water for drinking and other essential
activities.
According to the project management process, it is essential to identify the main reason
of the problem. After proper identification of the cause of the problem the approach of project
management that will be undertaken for providing a solution to the water supply problems

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PROFESSIONAL SKILLS IN ENGINEERING
persisting in Africa will be identified. The project management process or project management
can be defined as an endeavour that can be undertaken to create a unique solution to an identified
problem. The water supply problems persisting in Africa is taken into consideration as an
engineering discipline since it deals with the real life problems that the 1 billion African people
are facing. It is therefore essential to evaluate how science can help or come to the rescue to this
huge problem persisting in Africa (Islam & Susskind, 2015). The water problems in Africa are
many and varied in nature coupled with some social economic factors such as population
explosion and poverty. The huge population of Africa adds to the already persisting water
scarcity.
The socio economic and the different environmental factors add to the vulnerability of
Africa. The climate and the hydrology problem exist in the majority of the areas of Africa. This
is because 45% of the Africa is extremely arid while 225 is semi arid that leaves only 33% of the
total area of the Africa as sub humid or humid (Timberlake, 2013).
The current population of Africa is 1,281,277,129 as on Thursday, April 19, 2018. The
population of Africa is almost equivalent to 16.64% of the total population of the world. Africa
has the second highest population in the world. The table below represents the current and the
historical population of Africa.

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PROFESSIONAL SKILLS IN ENGINEERING
Figure 1: Representing the current and historical population of Africa
(Source: Worldometers, 2018)
The above table represents that there have been a constant and a huge growth of population in
Africa over the years. Analysing the current rate of population growth in Africa, it is expected
that there will be a considerable growth in population future as well. The picture below
represents the forecast in the population growth in coming years.

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Figure 2: Representing the Population Forecast of Africa in future years
(Source: Worldometers, 2018)
The data from the above picture suggest that there will be considerable growth in
population in the upcoming years as well. On an average, the population density of Africa is
about 43 per km2. The population forecast is however expected to change based on the
population growth rate. The population in the year 2100 is expected to increase by 2.6 billion
(Worldometers, 2018).
With this rate of population explosion and lack of fresh water resources, the persisting
water problem in Africa is expected. This project is undertaken in order to provide a solution to
this identified problem. The population explosion cannot to addressed, however, by applying
proper engineering knowledge and with the help of scientific methods, it is expected that a
solution to the water problems in Africa can be proposed (Gerland et al., 2014).
A proper project management methodology will be chosen in order to implement the
project that is based on proposing certain alternative solutions to water scarcity problems
persisting in Africa (Clarke, 2013). The solutions that will be proposed will be mainly based on