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-- a note from _kt75 Cameroon, Namibia, Mozambique - _Grade S+ | outlook: positive Nigeria, Mali, Kongo - _Grade D- | outlook: negative A previous screening of water supply management schemes in Africa revealed preferable conditions for Cameroon, Namibia and Mozambique [ 1 ]. All three countries are characterised by well-organised operative structures both in terms of staff/know-how as well as in terms of infrastructure (_Grade S+ | outlook: positive). Especially Namibia, one of the driest countries in the region, has implemented an excellent and robust water management scheme. Of additional benefit for Namibia might the discovery of another voluminous ground water resource close to the border with Angola [ 2 ]-[ 4 ]. It will pose a challenge to as sustainable as possible use this water deposit. Cameroon, assessed to be one of the most stable countries in the region, participates in the 'Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation' which can assist to maintai

-- a note from _kt75 Since the economic (i.e. profitable) breakthrough of 'sustainability' in the beginning of this century the number of standards, protocols, labels and certificates, that in principle shall provide some form of sustainability guarantee of a certain product and/or service (but typically fail to provide such), has literally exploded. Today, labels and certificates (based upon standards and protocols of any possible nature) are as common as commercial product brands and created in a number of cases some sort of symbiosis with real products and/or services. This rather critical and actually adverse development basically has its origin in the formation of brand-awareness since the late 1960ies and can result in an undesirable because manipulated form of product and/or service dependency (by e.g. consumers) and prevent from unbiased sustainable development (i.e. it can help to preserve conditions that are not progressive, e.g. rescues of ailing banks). The key pro

-- a note from _kt75 In continuation of the recent article on prospective water prices [ 1 ] this article provides a brief and overall impression of how sustainable water management might be affected by environmental, technical, economic and geo-political conditions in the future. In principle, water shouldn't be considered as an commercial entity (subject to speculation) rather as a global and (preferably) commonly available good. The reality however, looks different: increasingly, but not yet recognized by the broad public, water has become a strong, almost unique issue. It is already today the 'blue gold' with a rather limited access [ 2 ]-[ 5 ]. The latter aspect will accentuate in the future and the situations to come can be formulated as follows: Schematic sketch of the global water conditions and their likely development in the future. Regions with stable water conditions (blue line regions, low risk regions), regions with rather stable water conditions (green line

-- a note from _kt75 Worldwide, the most recent history was characterised by a drastic increase in the price of water [ 1 ], [ 2 ]. There exist a number of diverse (partially contradictory) price drivers: investment into (defective) supply and treatment infrastructure, installation of new infrastructure (incl. expansion of existing infrastructure), real and/or artificially induced water scarcity/depletion of natural water resources, failed financial speculations [ 3 ], targeted non-investment into water supply infrastructure to, for example, increase the sales volume of bottled water, etc. In addition to this there exists still a comprehensive lack of awareness on the limited resource water [ 4 ]. The rise of the price of water (along with an increase of the price of water rights) is a common phenomenon [ 5 ]-[ 8 ], but there exist particularly sensitive regions that may face particular increases in water prices: # Near Eeast (incl. Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran

-- a note from _kt75 These days Sudan completed the expansion of the Roseiris hydro power plant which aims primarily at an improved power supply and irrigation [ 0 ]- [ 6 ] . The expansion of the hydro power plant included in detail [ 7 ], [ 8 ] : - increasing the dam height by about 10 meters - doubling the power generation capacity to 1'800 MW - increasing the reservoir capacity to ca. 4.4 Bio m3 Further hydro power information are available by consulting _sust invent 0.1 RC 2 ( here ). Primary contractors were Chinese China International Water & Electric Corp. and China Three Gorges Corp. [ 7 ], [ 9 ]. The upgrade of the Roseiris power plant necessitated the relocation of more than 20'000 people. In addition, the plant necessitates particular safety measures due to its location close to South Sudan [ 10 ]. Another issue pose the increased variations in available water volume, sedimentation and discharge [ 11 ].  References: [ 0 ], [ 1 ], [ 2 ], [ 3 ], [ 4 ], [ 5 ], [ 6