Water is one of the most widespread resources on the earth’s surface. The data on its proportions show that 97.5% of this water is salt water while only 2.5% is fresh water useful for our needs. In this panel, Africa has 9% of the world’s renewable freshwater reserves, i.e. nearly 4000 km 3 of surface water (rivers and lakes) and groundwater. It should be noted, however, that its unequal distribution due to geographical diversity makes it an important issue to control for our daily needs.  The right to water has such a fundamental aspect that it was consecrated by the UN in 2010 through a resolution as “a human right essential to the full enjoyment of life and the exercise of all human rights”. In a context marked by climate change, which accounts for an increase in pressure on existing reserves, we were curious to highlight on the one hand the concept of access to water and the difficulties that Africa faces, and on the other hand to water and the particularity of the types of new relationships within the living that the unequal access to water induces.

What does access to water mean?

According to global reports on the issue, including the 2030 Agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), water accessibility is part of a broader framework. It takes into account the means of sanitation. It implies the requirements on which the right of access to water is based: it implies for every individual the capacity to have a sufficient, physically accessible and available supply of safe water of acceptable quality for personal and domestic uses at an affordable cost. In addition to the place that geographical contingencies may occupy in the availability of freshwater, access to water in Africa comes up against the availability of technical and infrastructural means for its proper management. We see here, depending on the sector (agriculture, running water, etc.), the development necessary for a safe use.  In a context marked by global warming of which Africa is presented in front as the most sensitive continent, the challenges to be taken up for an optimization of our resources are enormous in terms of supply, in terms of agriculture and irrigation, in terms of modeling and studies of impact of climate change, in terms of water quality, and even diplomatic cooperation to improve the joint management of river basins. This is to adapt water resources to climate change.

Climate change and access to water: how will it impact relationships within the living?

According to all experts on the subject, global warming will put Africa to a severe test. Water, which plays a role in all living processes from the most elementary chemical reactions that give life to our daily needs, will find its properties modified. Here you are! The melting of glaciers deprives their ecosystems of the species that depend on them and makes liquid water more abundant in environments that sometimes do not require it. While its evaporation and drying precedes desertification and creates in part The water stress. In one case the coastal countries will be confronted with the rise in sea level, while on the other hand the countries of the Sahel will be more exposed. It is estimated that the rise in temperature in a country like Niger will be between +2°C and +4.6°C by 2080 compared to the temperature of the pre-industrial era, when the world on average will be fighting according to the stated objectives to limit its average increase below +2°C.  More than before, the struggle for the satisfaction of our basic needs in water will push us to constrain ourselves, which we are never well prepared for. In this lies the seed of competition without rules and of the conflictuality of the relationships within the living world that we must control. An illustrative example is the wars, and also the interaction with other animal ecosystems that are accompanied by the emergence of new diseases.

Conclusion.

Global warming marks the living by unbalancing the availability of freshwater. On the occasion of the recent World Water Day, the IPCC climate report predicted a temperature increase from the current +1.2°C (compared to the pre-industrial era) to +1.5°C by 2035. At the current rate of change, it is incumbent on all stakeholders to comply with their commitments to the relevant mechanisms to limit global warming to below 2°C as set out in the Paris agreements by 2100 for true climate justice. So that water, a renewable but not unlimited resource, has a bright future and with it life.