Sustainable Water Management Solutions for Large Cities (Proceedings of symposium S2 held during the Seventh IAHS Scientific Assembly at Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil, April 2005). IAHS Publ. 293, 2005, 41-48.

Abstract This paper describes some novel interventions aimed at achieving a sustainable and reliable water supply for Ibadan City, Nigeria. Ibadan, with a population of approximately 5.0 million, is the second largest city in Africa south of the Sahara. Prior to the recent interventions, all the city residents experienced one of the worst water shortages ever known. For example, while the estimated present water demand is over 602 ´ 10⁶ l day^-1, only 200 ´ 10⁶ l day^-1 is rationed out from the badly maintained municipal waterworks and its associated distribution networks. The latest interventions are adopting mini water projects, which have at their heart participation by the user community. Although only a small fraction of the city has so far been covered by these new schemes, they have been so successful that they are being rolled out to other parts of the city.

Key words community participation; Ibadan City; Nigeria; sustainable water supply; water tariff