WHERE IS MY WATER?

There is a question that millions of Kenyans have asked, especially when they turn on a tap and nothing comes out: Where is my water?

The answer may be closer than we think.

It may be underground, flowing silently through cracks in ageing water pipes. It may be escaping through broken mains, leaking connections, faulty meters or illegal connections. It may have been produced, treated and pumped into the distribution network, but never reached the person it was intended to serve.

Kenya is not only facing a water scarcity problem. We are facing a water loss problem.

According to the latest performance report from the Water Services Regulatory Board, WASREB, non revenue water in Kenya's regulated water sector has risen to an alarming 48 percent. In simple terms, almost half of the water entering the water supply systems is not translating into revenue for the water service providers.

That figure should stop the country in its tracks.

Imagine producing 100 litres of water, paying to treat and pump all 100 litres, and then losing 48 litres somewhere between the treatment plant and the consumer.

Now imagine doing that every day, across towns and cities throughout Kenya.

That is not merely a plumbing problem.

It is an economic problem, an environmental problem, a development problem and, ultimately, a governance problem.

We have spent years discussing how to find more water. We talk about new dams, boreholes, water treatment plants, inter basin transfers and expanding water infrastructure. All of these investments may be necessary.

But perhaps we need to ask another question before spending billions looking for new water.

Why are we losing so much of the water we already have?

The most frightening leaks are not necessarily the ones we can see.

When a major water main bursts beneath a busy road, the public notices. Water floods the street. Traffic is disrupted. Photographs appear on social media. The water company receives complaints and engineers are dispatched.

But what about the tiny leak beneath the road that nobody can see?

What about the pipe slowly releasing water into the soil day and night?

What about a leaking joint hidden beneath a compound, a road, a pavement or a building?

These invisible leaks can continue for weeks, months or even years.

A tiny opening in a pressurised pipe may look insignificant, but time changes everything. A small leak operating continuously, 24 hours a day and 365 days a year, can result in an extraordinary volume of water being lost.

For perspective, 17 Olympic sized swimming pools contain roughly 42,500 cubic metres of water.

Under the right pressure and depending on the size of the opening, a small continuous leak can lose water equivalent to many thousands of cubic metres in a year.

So when we say, "It is only a small hole," we need to remember one thing.

A small hole does not mean a small loss.

Water does not understand the word "small".

It simply keeps flowing.

And that is precisely why Kenya needs to stop treating water leakage as an ordinary maintenance issue and start treating it as a national water security issue.

WASREB has already recognised the seriousness of the problem.

Its Non Revenue Water Management Standards identify physical losses from leaks and bursts as well as commercial losses associated with issues such as inaccurate metering, illegal connections and billing problems. The standards provide water service providers with a framework for identifying, measuring and reducing these losses.

The law also provides a foundation for action.

Under the Water Act, 2016, WASREB is mandated to regulate water services, establish standards, monitor water service providers and enforce compliance with licence conditions and regulatory requirements.

More importantly, Kenya's current Water (Services) Regulations require water service providers to have a non revenue water management system that complies with standards established by the Regulatory Board.

This means that water loss is not simply a matter of asking companies to do better when they have the time or money.

There is a regulatory framework.

There are standards.

There are performance indicators.

There is a regulator.

The real question is whether we are doing enough to enforce, finance and implement these requirements.

WASREB's Impact reports are designed precisely for this purpose. They provide public information on the performance of Kenya's water service sector and serve as an accountability mechanism for water service providers and decision makers.

But publishing a number is not enough.

A 48 percent loss should not simply appear in an annual report and then disappear into the next news cycle.

It should trigger action.

It should trigger investigations.

It should trigger investment.

It should trigger accountability.

Most importantly, it should trigger a national conversation about the value of every drop of water.

Kenya needs to change the way it manages water networks.

For decades, much of the approach has been reactive. A pipe bursts, someone reports it, a repair team is dispatched and the hole is fixed.

That is necessary, but it is not enough.

We need to move towards predictive maintenance.

Modern water utilities can monitor pressure, measure flows, analyse night time consumption and use acoustic technologies to detect underground leaks. District Metered Areas can be created so that water entering a particular neighbourhood can be compared with the amount of water actually being consumed and billed.

If ten million litres enter a particular zone but only five million litres can be accounted for, the utility should immediately know that something is wrong.

The question then becomes not "Where is our water going?" but "Which part of this network is losing it?"

Technology can help us answer that question.

Smart meters can identify unusual consumption. Pressure sensors can identify abnormal changes in the network. Geographic information systems can map ageing pipelines and previous bursts. Data analysis can identify sections of the network that repeatedly fail.

Even artificial intelligence could increasingly be used to identify patterns that human beings may overlook.

But technology alone will not solve the problem.

We also need to repair and replace ageing infrastructure.

Water companies need proper asset management systems that identify which pipelines are most likely to fail and prioritise them for rehabilitation or replacement.

A pipe that has burst repeatedly should not simply be repaired for the tenth time if replacing it would be cheaper and more sustainable in the long run.

We also need to manage pressure.

Water must have sufficient pressure to reach consumers, but excessive pressure can contribute to bursts and leakage. Proper pressure management can reduce physical losses, extend the life of infrastructure and improve reliability.

And then there is another uncomfortable part of the story.

Not all missing water is leaking underground.

Some water is being consumed without being properly accounted for.

Illegal connections, meter inaccuracies, billing problems and poor customer databases can all contribute to non revenue water.

This means that fighting water loss requires two simultaneous battles.

We must stop water from escaping physically from the network, while also stopping water from disappearing from the accounts.

Every litre needs to have a story.

We should know where it came from, where it went and whether it was properly accounted for.

This is where transparency becomes critical.

Imagine if every major water service provider in Kenya had a public dashboard showing how much water it produced, how much entered its distribution network, how much was billed, how much was lost and how quickly reported leaks were repaired.

Imagine being able to see that a water company had reduced its losses from 48 percent to 40 percent, then to 30 percent, and eventually towards the national target.

That would give citizens something more valuable than promises.

It would give them evidence.

WASREB already uses performance reporting as an accountability tool.

The next step should be making that information easier for ordinary Kenyans to understand and use.

Water consumers should not be treated merely as people who receive a monthly bill.

They are stakeholders in the water system.

They should know how their utility is performing.

They should be encouraged to report leaking pipes, broken meters, overflowing tanks and suspected illegal connections.

And water companies should respond quickly.

A leak reported today should not become tomorrow's leak, next month's leak and next year's statistic.

There is also a strong economic argument for tackling non revenue water.

Water that has already been abstracted, treated and pumped has already cost money.

When that water disappears, the utility loses both the water and the money invested in producing it.

Reducing water losses can therefore be one of the most cost effective ways of increasing available water without necessarily constructing a new dam or drilling another borehole.

In other words, Kenya can create "new" water by saving the water it is already losing.

This should become one of the country's most important water security strategies.

We cannot continue building bigger pipes while ignoring the holes in the existing ones.

We cannot continue asking communities to conserve water while enormous volumes are disappearing from public water networks.

We cannot tell citizens to use water responsibly while failing to protect the water that has already been collected, treated and paid for.

And we cannot build a resilient water future on infrastructure that is allowed to leak away our present.

The solution is within reach.

We need properly funded leak detection programmes.

We need systematic replacement of high risk pipelines.

We need pressure management.

We need accurate bulk and customer metering.

We need stronger action against illegal connections.

We need modern data systems.

We need properly equipped repair teams.

We need transparent performance targets.

We need stronger enforcement of regulatory standards.

And we need leadership willing to measure success not only by how much new infrastructure is built, but by how much water actually reaches the people.

There is another reason this matters deeply to those of us concerned about Kenya's environment.

Every drop of water has an ecological story.

It begins in our forests, wetlands, springs, rivers, aquifers and catchments.

It passes through landscapes that communities depend upon.

It is abstracted, treated and transported.

When we lose that water through a leaking pipe, we are not only losing a commodity.

We are losing the value of all the ecological and financial resources invested in getting that water to the consumer.

This is why protecting our water sources and fixing our distribution systems must be treated as two sides of the same national mission.

We must protect the water at its source.

And we must protect it on its journey to the tap.

Kenya has already built the legal and regulatory foundations for better water management. WASREB has the mandate, standards and performance monitoring mechanisms. The country has engineers, technicians, researchers and innovators capable of deploying modern water management technologies.

What we need now is urgency.

The latest figure of 48 percent non revenue water should not become just another statistic in another report.

It should become a national call to action.

Because somewhere beneath a Kenyan road, beneath a pavement, beneath a field or inside an ageing pipeline, water may be flowing right now.

Nobody can see it.

Nobody is drinking it.

Nobody is paying for it.

But the meter at the treatment plant is counting it.

And the clock is ticking.

So the next time you turn on your tap and wonder, "Where is my water?", perhaps the answer is not always that Kenya does not have enough water.

Perhaps some of it is simply getting lost on the way.

And if we are serious about securing Kenya's water future, then we must make one principle non negotiable:

Every drop produced must be protected, accounted for and delivered.

That is where our water is.

And that is where we must start looking.