Unequal access to drinking water in the city of Doba (Chad): An urban political ecology perspective

Within the context of climate change and other environmental stressors, water scarcity has become a major concern in urban areas of the Sahel region of Africa. Water is an important resource and its scarcity which is exacerbated by socio-economic inequalities has created unequal power relations and conflicts. From this guiding premise, this work seeks to examine challenges in ensuring effective drinking water supply and how they have reshaped relations in urban areas using the case of Doba. A mixed methods approach was employed and includes documentary research, a questionnaire survey with 120 purposively selected households, 11 in-depth interviews and a collection of water samples for quality analysis. Data collected was analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively while water quality analyses were conducted at the Sarh laboratory. Under the lens of the Urban Political Ecology (UPE) approach, results revealed that households drink water from boreholes (31%), open wells (48%), springs (8%) and pipe born water (20%). The physicochemical analysis showed an iron level of 0.24 mg/L in tap water and the turbidity rate of 48.20 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU) in well water while bacteriological analysis gives a total aerobic chlorine level of 100 CFU/100 ml in all the waters sources analyzed. These inequalities results from poor state of infrastructure, climate change and socio-economic differences at the level of households. This has resulted to conflicts between the state water supplying institutions and dwellers and between dwellers themselves over water sources. This work has a policy implication as the provision of drinking water requires concerted efforts between all stakeholders.