Integrated Management of Water and Energy Resource at Community Level to Enhance Sustainability and Climnate Resilient

Abstract

Water and energy services in sub-Saharan urban communities are operationally interdependent yet typically managed in institutional silos. This study develops a coupled system-dynamics framework to quantify, evaluate, and intervene in the water–energy nexus at Mount Aureol, Freetown, where Fourah Bay College and surrounding peri-urban settlements depend on pumped distribution from GUMA Valley Water Company over an 80 m topographic head, supplemented by an unreliable EDSA grid and diesel backup generation. Six primary data streams were assembled: GUMA water-supply records (2020–2024), GUMA water-quality monitoring (2020–2022), EDSA and FBC energy data (2015–2023), SLMet meteorological records (2017–2025), JMP WASH service-level data (2021–2024), and the WASH NORM 2022 national household survey. Discrete-time mass-balance equations for water and energy subsystems were coupled through a coupling factor φ (kWh/m³) and a composite Resilience Index Rᵢ; four scenarios (baseline, efficiency improvement, climate stress, integrated management) were simulated over a twelve-month horizon. The baseline analysis quantifies a system operating well below international benchmarks: specific energy consumption of 1.20 kWh/m³ (50–300% above the FAO 0.3–0.8 kWh/m³ range), non-revenue water of 32%, EDSA distribution losses averaging 43.2%, a structural daily energy deficit of 0.9 MWh/day covered by diesel backup, and a Resilience Index Rᵢ = 0.76 below the 0.80 desirable threshold. Pearson correlation analysis confirmed strong rainfall–supply coupling (r = 0.798, p = 0.006, R² = 0.637) and an inverse turbidity–chlorine relationship (r = −0.61) that drives wet-season disinfection failure. The integrated management scenario, combining a 10% efficiency improvement, a 25% solar PV capacity expansion, and NRW reduction to 20%, raises Rᵢ to 0.91, reduces diesel dependency from 56.2% to 28.0%, brings per-capita water use within the WHO recommended range, and lowers annual CO₂ emissions by 35.6%. Four priority interventions are recommended: variable-speed pump upgrades with pressure management, solar PV expansion with battery storage, automated in-line chlorine dosing linked to real-time turbidity sensing, and a multi-institutional Nexus Co-ordination Committee linking GUMA, EDSA, FBC, and the responsible ministries. The framework is transferable to similar hillside peri-urban communities in tropical West Africa and contributes to SDG 6, SDG 7, and SDG 17.