Assessment 2: Project Plan for Professional Skills in Engineering

This report outlines a project plan addressing the critical water supply problems in Africa, particularly focusing on Nairobi, Kenya. The project identifies the causes of water scarcity, including population growth, climate change, and inadequate infrastructure. It explores potential solutions such as rain catchment systems to preserve natural water resources. The project plan emphasizes the application of engineering knowledge and scientific methods to propose viable alternatives for mitigating water scarcity in Africa. The analysis includes historical and projected population data to highlight the increasing demand for water resources. This student contributed assignment is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wide range of study tools and solved assignments for students.

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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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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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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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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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

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the problems identified by performing extensive research. Appropriate research and data
collection will create the basis platform of the problem definition, based on which the solution to
the problem will be proposed. Mainly secondary research has been performed in order to
investigate the current condition of Africa, which is population explosion and increasing scarcity
of water.
Research on the Problem Identified
Africa is located South of Sahara and as a limited resource, the fresh water in Africa
make up only about 4% of the total water resources in the Earth. The sub-Saharan Africa is a
home to the hundreds of millions of people who suffer the water scarcity issues. According to the
reports of the World Health Organization, more than 40% of the water stressed problems
population mainly lives in the sub-Saharan Africa (Srinivasan et al., 2012). It is however,
important to analyse the main causes of the water scarcity problems persisting in Africa.
Causes of Water problems in Africa
The major causes of the water problems in Africa are as follows –
1. About 75% of the water resources of Africa come from primarily eight major river
basins. In addition to that extreme climatic and environmental changes have considerably
decreased the amount of these water resources. Increasing water pollution adds to the already
existing water problems in Africa.
2. Africa is almost same as a size of a continent and is located at the south of Sahara.
Climatic changes and increasing deforestation in the sub Saharan Africa is another major cause
of the water problems persisting in Africa. Furthermore, Africa receives very less rainfall, which

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makes it difficult for the local population of certain areas in Africa to continue with their daily
activities. These people face a lot of problems in collecting fresh water for drinking purpose. The
climatic and the environmental changes in Africa have decreases the present water resources to a
great extent.
3. Africa is developing, and the economic growth in Africa is mainly fueled by the
exploitation of the natural resources that is present. This is another major cause of water
pollution, which in turn increases the demand of water even more.
4. Africa is engaged in the current trend of land sales as a part of their business where the
foreign countries purchase rights to the present inland water resources of the continent. These
purchased lands are generally used for water heavy agriculture along with deforestation, leading
to the disruption of the local water cycles. This decreases the supply of water even more.
5. The water problems are particularly major in the higher population areas and the areas
that undergo rapid urbanization. The population growth in the urban areas increases the demand
of water as well which is difficult to meet due to the scarcity of water (Besada & Werner, 2015).
Although sub Saharan Africa is a home to 17 major river basins in the world, it is shared by 35
countries.
6. Apart from this, the increasing water pollution due to industrial and household wastes
is another major reason for the lack of the fresh water in Africa.
The water problem in the West/ central Africa is mainly huge and therefore, suitable
engineering methods can be applied in this area for addressing the water scarcity problems of the
continent. The major regions in Africa that suffers severe water problems include Cape Town as
well, which is the capital of South Africa (Hedden & Cilliers, 2014).

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Therefore, this geographic location has been chosen for this project where the
engineering knowledge will be applied for proposing a particular solution for the existing water
supply problems in Africa. The solution will be proposed for Kenya particularly its city Nairobi
that faces water supply problems in Africa; however the majority of the water problems in Africa
are faced by Cape Town. A drought that occurred in Cape Town in the year 2015 is the major
reason to the water problems in Africa. It is a water scarce region as the majority of the supply of
the water comes from the six dams that are located around the city in the Western Cape Town.
After investigating the different causes of water problems in Africa, it is analysed that the
problem of water scarcity is mainly complex because of the huge climate and runoff variability.
For example in Nairobi, Kenya, this is our focus for the project, lack of rainfall results in drought
that in turn increases the already existing water problems (Bigas, 2012). The solution to be
proposed can be applied to this region of Africa as well.
Therefore, it can be concluded that in week 5, the basic of the project plan has been gone
through and the project is currently in its initiation stage. Extensive secondary research has been
performed for collecting the data related to the main causes of water supply problems in Africa
that will further help in choosing a viable alternative solution to the problem. Further research
will be needed for choosing a viable option for addressing the main water supply problems in
Africa (Chellaney, 2013). The next week’s learning is mainly focused on a further research of
the client brief that will help in selecting an appropriate solution to the identified problems.

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Week 6
Research into client brief
Water crisis in Kenya, Africa is mainly for the availability of fresh water. Explosion of
the population is one major cause of the water supply problems as the human population of the
country is largely dependent on its water resources not only for drinking purpose but also for
farming crops, agriculture, livestock and fishing. This project will particularly focus on the
providing a solution for reducing the water wastages in order to increase the water reserve of the
country. Nairobi city is chosen as a focus area as there have been records of continuous shortage
of fresh water supply in Nairobi city.
The population of Kenya is nearly 46 million, out of which, 41 percent of the Kenyans
has to rely on different unimproved water resources such as ponds, shallow wells and rivers. The
current condition is that the Nairobi residents have to queue for water in order to collect fresh
water for drinking purpose.
Majority of the water supply for Africa comes from rain water. Therefore, the solution to
the persisting water problems in Africa should be based on development something useful that
will help in preserving the natural water resource and will be able to preserve the rain waters as
well (Hanson, Kararach & Shaw, 2012). Therefore, the rain catchment system can be proposed
for Nairobi for collecting and storing the rain water.
The different alternative solutions to the water supply problem persisting in Nairobi that
can be implemented are as follows-

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1. An economical alternative of the problem is the rain catchment system. This system
will be similar to the general rain harvesting system that can be installed in the roof top of the
houses in Kenya, Nairobi for harvesting the rain water. However, instead of rooftop catchment
system, surface catchment and the runoff farming system can also be used for the rain catchment
system.
2. Water Seer is another engineering alternative that can be used for addressing the water
supply problems in Africa. The structure will be similar to a well but will not be used in
extracting the ground water. Water Seer further makes use of the surrounding environment in
extracting the water from the atmosphere (Spinks, 2018). This structure will be planted six feet
below the surface whether the chamber will be surrounded by cool earth.
3. Installing fog catchers is another proposed alternative to the persisting water supply
problems in Africa.
4. Sewage treatment is another viable option for addressing the water supply problems in
Africa. Similar projects have been undertaken in Nairobi as well. In order to cater the increasing
demand for water and to improve the basic needs of the people, this viable option can be
considered as well.
The above four alternatives are proposed in order to address the existing water supply
problems of Africa. Out of these viable alternatives, it is necessary to evaluate which option can
be chosen for addressing the water supply problems in Kenya, Africa. However, for doing so, it
is needed to analyse the basic requirements, advantages and disadvantages of the identified
alternatives.
Rain Catchment System

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The primary concept of rain catchment system is to catch the rain water that can be put to
use for the different purposes. Since this solution is proposed for Nairobi area, it is essential to
select catchment areas which are also called watersheds in which the rain water will fall. Mainly
rooftops are chosen for this purpose (Fernandes, Terêncio & Pacheco, 2015). The rain water will
be channelized to the storage area with the help of conveying channels. A storage tank will be
required for storage of the water that can be later used during the times of water shortage.
One of the major benefits of the rain water harvesting systems is that it can be set up very
easily. Nairobi is a developing city and therefore, it is expected that this solution will be adopted
by majority of the people of Nairobi. Rain water harvesting is particularly necessary as it
provides a better quality of water in comparison to other unimproved alternatives. In rooftop
catchment system, iron sheets are spread in the roof of the house, which are connected by the
downpipes to the storage areas.
As an integral stage of this project, the houses of Nairobi should be inspected in order to
identify which houses will be suitable for the installation of rain catchment system. The water
collected from the rains can be treated to be used for drinking purpose or can be used for other
household works as well.
The schematic diagram for the proposed rain water harvesting system is represented
below-