Water Development Shortages in Urbanising Communities of the Western Highlands in Cameroon (Published)
Exploring and using water resources provided by nature for alternative purposes has been an age-old human enterprise. Though water is perpetually renewable and ubiquitous, its utilisation is a sustainable challenge for quality and quantity. This study probes into the water development transition from village community status of the 1980s to that of an ever increasing cosmopolitan status recently accelerated by an upshot of educational establishment-pulled stakeholder population in the second decade of the 21st century. Primary and secondary data collected and processed indicate a devastating pressure on the current water development constructions of the communities in Tubah that have been startled by the population inflow which the village water schemes did not project nor consider at the outset. Water consumption has become number and option-altered triggering water scarcities that past and present developments cannot adjust to. Current and even future trends in water shortage and quality degradation hold no hope for this community destined to develop thanks to the diversification of its educational offers. Averting this hopelessness is not discretionary but obligation in this irreversible development drive that must hand-stretch for succour mindful of intrinsic flaws.
Keywords: Community, Population Influx, Tragedy of the Commons, Tubah, Village Water Scheme, Water Shortage