Online Reporter
Fairness Moyana recently in Victoria Falls
VICTORIA FALLS City Council requires about US$16 million to upgrade its ageing water and sewer infrastructure as the resort city struggles to keep pace with rising demand driven by tourism growth and a transient population estimated at 400 000 people.
The city’s Operations Engineer, Shadreck Dube, said the existing water and sewer systems were coming under increasing strain, with some facilities nearing full capacity.
Eng Dube revealed this during a presentation to United Nations Resident Coordinator Dr Rosemary Kalapuraka, who recently toured the city’s water treatment plant and Mkhosana reservoirs to assess progress and challenges affecting Victoria Falls’ water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) infrastructure.
Although Victoria Falls has a resident population of about 35 000 people across its 11 wards, it accommodates hundreds of thousands of tourists and transient residents each year, placing significant pressure on public services and infrastructure.
Eng Dube said the city relies primarily on water drawn from the Zambezi River, which is pumped to a treatment plant before being distributed to consumers through a network of reservoirs.
“The major challenge that we are facing in our water supply is ageing infrastructure, which is the biggest challenge that we are having. We also have a huge challenge of inadequate storage reservoirs.”
The water treatment plant currently has a capacity of about 21 megalitres a day against demand ranging between 16 and 18 megalitres.
However, Eng Dube warned that demand was expected to rise sharply within the next three to four years as investment and tourism-related developments continue to expand in the city.
“There is an urgent need to upgrade our WASH infrastructure, upgrade the treatment plant and be in a position to meet the growing demand in the city,” he said.
A WASH master plan commissioned after a 2016 assessment identified critical infrastructure gaps and outlined the resources required to address them.
Faced with funding constraints, council adopted a phased implementation programme. The first phase involved the construction of water reservoirs in Mkhosana at a cost of approximately US$5 million.
The project included a five-million-litre reservoir, a 500 000-litre elevated tank, upgrades to the water reticulation network and the installation of new pumps.
Completed on November 27 last year, the project is currently under a defects liability period scheduled to end on November 26 this year.
Eng Dube said the investment had significantly improved water supply to residents but emphasised that additional infrastructure would be needed to meet future demand.
“There is still a need for us to increase the reservoirs on that site. There is a site that we have left for us to construct another reservoir that will cater for the future growth of the community,” he said.
The city is also grappling with growing pressure on its sewer infrastructure, with the sewage treatment plant operating close to its design capacity.
Victoria Falls currently uses a stabilisation pond system for sewage treatment. However, council says the facility is increasingly struggling to meet environmental compliance standards, particularly in removing nutrients such as phosphates and nitrates, resulting in penalties for breaching Environmental Management Agency (EMA) regulations.
Adding to the challenge is an ageing sewer network that includes asbestos-cement (AC) pipes. Eng Dube said the infrastructure was susceptible to deterioration and collapse, increasing the risk of disease outbreaks and environmental contamination.
The city operates four sewer pump stations that convey sewage from hotels and other properties to the main treatment facility. However, council says the treatment plant has limited capacity to accommodate future developments as Victoria Falls continues to grow.
Authorities are also facing operational challenges linked to the location of some sewer infrastructure, where workers have encountered wildlife while carrying out maintenance work. Council says electrifying these areas would improve safety for employees.
Responding to the presentation, Dr Kalapuraka urged the city to ensure tourism growth does not come at the expense of the environmental assets that make Victoria Falls one of the world’s premier tourist destinations.
She said Victoria Falls could draw lessons from other cities that had successfully balanced tourism expansion with environmental sustainability.
“When we do unsustainable tourism, we destroy the assets that attract the tourists, the communities don’t benefit and then the health and WASH assets also get stretched,” she said.
Dr Kalapuraka commended the local authority for adopting a data-driven approach to infrastructure planning and for anticipating future demand.
“My encouragement would be to learn from other cities that have also confronted these challenges and to look at how you make the investment case,” she said.
She said Victoria Falls was well positioned to attract investment because of its tourism potential, biodiversity and World Heritage Site status.
“If I were an investor, I would want to invest in Victoria Falls because clearly it is growing and you have a very analytical and policy-based as well as data-based approach,” she said.
Dr Kalapuraka said the United Nations was increasingly focusing on helping Zimbabwe develop bankable investment cases capable of attracting private-sector finance, rather than relying solely on traditional donor funding.
She said the UN’s upcoming programme with the Government would place greater emphasis on sustainable and inclusive economic growth.
“Increasingly, what we will be doing is trying to help the country build investment cases to attract the private sector, because that is going to be the future.”
She also pledged UN support in facilitating access to international expertise, technology and lessons from other developing countries.
The tour concluded with visits to the city’s water treatment plant and Mkhosana reservoirs, where the UN delegation received briefings on completed infrastructure upgrades and the outstanding investment needed to secure Victoria Falls’ future water and sanitation requirements.
