From Traditional to Modern African Water Management: Lessons for the Future

This book preserves and scientifically interprets the African foreknowledge on water resources management. It offers insight into the relevance of the traditional knowledge and practices to modern approaches on sustainable water management. The African continent has partially preserved its natural habitat for centuries. In this book, this knowledge is combined with the current scientific understanding. The traditional practices are categorized as: i) water harvesting, ii) water transportation, iii) water storage and conservation, iv) water treatments, v) myths and folk stories about water management or conservation, vi) water resource management systems, and vii) soil–water–forest conservation/management systems sub-topics. The findings presented here are in line with SDG 6, which aims at ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all by the year 2030.

Chrispin Kowenje studied Chemistry at BSc and MSc levels from Egerton University - Kenya (1990-98) and received his doctorate in 2006 in the field of Chemistry of Materials at State University of New York at Binghamton University -USA. Since 2017, he is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Maseno University. His teaching and research cover manipulating and applying the chemistry of zeolites, clays, and other natural materials for waste, domestic and drinking water treatments. He contributes to pollution remedial measures. In addition, Chrispin involves himself in optimizing bioenergy especially biodiesel, bioethanol, and biogas production processes. Prof. Kowenje has been a chairperson to Africa Future Earth committee (2019-2022), a member of the review board to global Future Earth organization (2020-2022) and member to Future Talent Council (2020). He has keen interest in how research scientists promote the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals.

Andreas Haarstrick studied Chemistry at the Technische Universität Braunschweig (1983-1989) and received his doctorate in 1992 in bioengineering. Since 2006, he is Professor for Bioprocess Engineering at the TU Braunschweig. His teaching and research cover modelling biological and chemical processes in heterogeneous systems, development of models predicting pollutant reduction in and emission behaviour of landfills, growth kinetics at low substrate concentrations under changing environmental conditions, Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP), and groundwater management. Since 2012, he is the managing director of the DAAD exceed-Swindon Project dealing with sustainable water management in developing countries.

Timothy Biswick studied Chemistry and Mathematics at the University of Malawi (1993-1997) and received his doctorate in Materials Chemistry at the University of Cambridge (2006) specializing in organic-inorganic hybrid materials for various applications. Thereafter, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Intelligent Nano-Bio Materials in Seoul, Korea (2007-2008). Since 2008 he has been working in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Malawi. His teaching covers the general area of inorganic chemistry, and his research is centred on the design and synthesis of inorganic for environmental for environmental remediation. He is currently the Coordinator of the DAAD exceed-Swindon project for the Sub Saharan Africa region

Ajeagah Gideon Aghaindum is a full Professor of Hydrobiology, Environmental engineering and Public Health in the University of Yaounde 1(Cameroon). He is formerly adjunct Dean and now a Head of Division of Academic affairs, Admission and Research  in the Faculty of Science, University of Yaounde 1,Cameroon.An international consultant in sustainable and ecosystemic exploitation of aquatic resources, environment and a public health expert.

Stephen Ojwach obtained his PhD degree in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of Johannesburg in 2008. He is currently a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa and immediate former Assistant Dean & Head of School (Administration) in the School of Chemistry and Physics. Prof Ojwach has also been a visiting research professor at various universities; University of Lethbridge (Canada), RTWH Aachen University (Germany), Moi University (Kenya) and Technical University of Kaiserslautern (Germany).  His main research focus is onApplied Organometallic Chemistry and catalysis, but also has collaborative projects on Bioinorganic Chemistry and Environmental chemistry. Prof Ojwach is a recipient of several research grants such as DST-NRF Center of Excellence in catalysis (c*change) and NRF-competitive program for researchers (SA), International Foundation for Science (IFS), Third World Academy of Science (TWAS).  He has also received several accolades including Top Young Researcher (Universityof KwaZulu-Natal), C2 (NRF-SA) rated researcher among others.  Prof Ojwach has published about 100 scientific articles in international journals and graduated 10 PhD doctorate and 15 MSc students.

Oluwatoyin Adepeju Odeku is a Professor of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology and the former Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She holds a PharmD degree from the University of Benin and a PhD degree in Pharmaceutics from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She holds a certificate in Modern Higher Education Management and Leadership from the University of Applied Sciences, Osnabruck, Germany.

Professor Odeku had her postdoctoral training at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Pharmacy, Jerusalem, Israel. She has been a Visiting Scientist at several Universities among them the University of Manchester School of Pharmacy, Manchester, UK; Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Shanghai China; Martin-Luther University, Halle, Germany and the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. She has also been a visiting Professor at the University of Bonn, Germany, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana and the University of Potsdam, Germany, among others.

She has been a recipient of many research fellowships and awards including UNESCO/Israel Co-Sponsored Post-Doctoral Fellowship, MacArthur Foundation Grant, CAS-TWAS Visiting Scholar Fellowship, DAAD visiting Fellowship, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Fellowships among others. Her research interests include drug delivery, excipients development, formulation of herbal medicinal products and industrial solid waste and water management. She has over 120 articles in Books, Chapters in books and journal articles to her credit. She is a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Science (FAS), Nigerian Academy of Pharmacists (FNAPharm), West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (FPCPharm) and West African Research Association (WARA).

Gnon Baba is Full Professor in organic chemistry and environmental sciences. He obtained his doctorate in University of Rennes 1 in organic chemistry in 1994 and he obtained his state doctorate in 2002 in University of Cocody at Abidjan (Ivory Coast). He was recruited as a teacher-researcher in the University of Lomé in 1996. From November 2007 to September 2018, he was Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology of University of Kara. Since 2019 he is Director of the University Agency of Francophonie (AUF) in Togo. He is author of over 80 scientific publications and collective works. He is the coordinator of Sub-Saharan Africa EXCEED-SWINDON network in 2019 and 2020 and is President of the West African Water, Environment, Energy and Mines Network (WAWEEMN) of the West African Chemical Society (WACS). Gnon Baba is head of Laboratory.