A conservation ethics for sustainable urban communities in Kenya: Southern Nairobi Integrated River Basin planning and management

Abstract

The interaction between natural resources, human development and environmental quality have increasingly exhibited a befitting difficulty the world over. As we begin the 215t century, fresh water resources still remain among the most impacted ecosystems. Both rural agro-pastoral economies and urbanization continue to strain freshwater resources to unprecedented levels. Water is life; thus it is' not misguiding to say that the above phenomenon eludes the long-awaited ethic for sustainable living. The only hope seems to lie in spending every opportunity, through research and practical application of a pro- environment morality, seeking to rediscover the missing link between man and his environment. This study is founded on a human settlement perspective to integrated nver basin management for the city of Nairobi. It is an investigation of the dual effects between the Nairobi river basin ecosystem and the prevailing urban development through space and time, and the role of these in the overall urban environment. The challenge was to carry out a systematic examination of the nature of riparian environmental impacts, their causes and consequences, with an objective of synthesizing urgent strategic guidelines towards integrated planning and management of the Nairobi River Basin. A significant part of the responses fall within the urban design domain. The study isolated the Ngong river basin across Southern Nairobi for detailed analysis. Southern Nairobi is the area geographically defined by the Nairobi - Mombasa highway, North Airport Road, Outer Ring road, Jogoo road and Lusaka road. The choice of this area was based on the fact that in this zone, the Ngong river flows through two of the most critical urban development land uses: the main industrial district for the city and the slum settlements of Mukuru - Lunga Lunga neighbourhood. The study was executed using both primary and secondary data. The former featured in form of field survey and focused on households, while the latter was based on earlier research and information from key institutions like the Nairobi City Council and it focused on industry and business functions. The study established that the existing situation is linked to a myriad of socio-economic, technical and institutional factors. These were manifested through marginal use of ecosystems, poor production mechanisms in industry, and inadequate regulation regarding development and environment control standards. Thus, the study argues that management strategies will work best only if they were to be linked with community development components that will relate with improvement of human livelihood in more obvious ways. Subsequently, the strategic policy recommendations lay emphasis on adoption of correct land use, community development, cleaner production mechanisms in domestic and industrial functions, institutional capacity building, applied research, and population management. A synthesis of the above, albeit limitations of time and logistics during the study, is what is herein referred to as the Southern Nairobi Integrated River Basin Management Strategy