Managing Urban Water Bodies for Sustainable Development in Rapidly Urbanizing West African Cities: Insights from Burkina Faso

Uncontrolled urbanizations, combined with lack of management strategies in low-income countries, have raised big concern about the sustainability of urban centers, particularly in West Africa. The increasing human pressures, climate variability, and inconsistency of policies have exacerbated the urban crisis in West Africa. For this reason, we have updated the reviews of potential threats in urban environments, including water bodies, and addressed holistic approaches for successful integrated management of urban centers. To do so, the method used in the study is based on a detailed tracking of specific keywords in the literature using Google Scholar, ResearchGate, Academia.edu, ScienceDirect, and Scopus. Based on recent relevant literatures, we have conceptualized knowledge on pressures in urban areas and their interactions with their relationships to water quality. We found that urban centers in West Africa are under severe threats, including water contamination by faecal and heavy metals, physical environment degradation by waste dumps resulting in smelling waters and undesirable air, and soiled vegetables. The results also showed that microbiological contamination in vegetables and water columns largely exceeded the reference standards. Therefore, following the conceptual framework of building a new paradigm, including policy implementation, creating a new urban landscape design through well adapted urban engineering and integrated water management, good management of municipal waste, and educating citizens about environmental responsibility are crucial for long-terms sustainability of urban centers. This research outputs may help to increase awareness and state-of-the-art development of suitable cities for the well-being of the population in Burkina Faso.