Africa Water Demand

Researchers map Africa's water demand at high resolution down to 2.5 arc-minutes

A new study assesses sectoral and subsectoral water demand across Africa for 2010 and 2020, covering municipal use, irrigation, livestock, manufacturing, electricity production and mining. The researchers measure water withdrawal rather than water consumption, and compute most sectors at a 5 arc-minute grid resolution, with municipal and industrial demand calculated at a finer 2.5 arc-minute resolution.

nature.com · 2026-10-28

Nature study maps Africa's water demand, finds measurement gaps not just scarcity

A new analysis published in Nature maps water demand across Africa and finds that in many countries, poor measurement and reporting of water use is as significant a problem as physical scarcity. Commentator Xu Wang, writing in Nature's News and Views section, notes that national water accounting is often incomplete, meaning usage in some countries is effectively invisible in global water budgets.

nature.com · 2026-10-28