Assessing the impact of Covid-19 on Water demand patterns and system hydraulics in Kampala city.

Abstract

COVID-19 hit the world at the beginning of 2020 and due to its widespread led to the issuance of restriction measures such as the lockdown. These restrictive measures affected almost all sectors. Our study focuses on the effect of these restrictive measures on the water demand patterns and the system hydraulics on the selected network in Kampala City. It has been found that the overall water demand decreased by 24% during the lockdown with a 5% decrease in the residential water demand and a 33% decrease in the non-residential demand. This came with a shift in the daily morning peak from 8 am to 9 am due to the delay in the occurrence of the different activities which involve the use of water. The COVID-19 restrictive measures also affected the people’s behaviors that involve the use of water that is; cleaning, cooking, and handwashing increased during the lockdown. The change in the demand and demand patterns was applied on Naguru – Ntinda sub-network to check its performance before and during the COVID-19 restrictions. It has been observed that the flow velocity decreased by about 13% during the lockdown while the pressure increased by about 1.5% at the beginning of the network and by about 25% at the far end of the network. This report is subdivided into five chapters which include the introduction, literature review, the methodology used, analysis and discussion of results plus the conclusions and recommendations