In this week’s reflection for the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) Justice and Peace Series on the Season of Creation, Fr. Peter Knox SJ reflects on the theme of water insecurity and climate change.

Drawing on his recent experiences in the Philippines and South Sudan, the member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) describes how both excessive flooding and prolonged droughts are devastating vulnerable communities, destroying livelihoods, and threatening access to clean drinking water.

Water Insecurity and Climate Change

I was recently in two situations where global climate change is causing havoc with people’s supply of water. In both of them, the people are suffering not from a lack of water, but from being flooded because of excessive rainfall. Too much water can be as dangerous as too little water. In floods, people face the multiple perils of drowning, having their entire livelihood washed away, and of waterborne diseases. In some places entire populations have to be moved permanently because the floods will not recede.

In The Philippines, where I was working from August to December 2024, there were 17 typhoons in the space of those five months. The slums of Manila, the capital city, were awash with water. Goods and livelihoods were simply swept away by the flood waters. In other areas of the country, it was not possible to know exactly how many people had drowned, because the population records are not always kept accurately. In the slum in which I occasionally celebrated Mass, shacks were sometimes built two or three on top of each other. And it was the poorest of the poor who lived in the lowest, street-level shacks. They were the most vulnerable to having floods disrupt their lives year after year after year.

No sooner do they rebuild, than the next typhoon season is on them. In the 2023 typhoon season, there were 21 of these severe weather events. As the oceans are warming, clouds sweeping in from the heated Pacific Ocean, dump heavier and heavier cargoes of rain. These clouds then continue blowing westwards towards mainland Asia, picking up more water vapour over the West Philippine Sea, and deluging other countries of South East Asia.

Imagine 17 Cyclone Idai’s hitting Southern Africa in one season. However, in The Philippines, the municipalities are getting wise, and in order to make the people more resilient, local authorities have designated typhoon shelters where people can be provided with food, clothing and bedding while they try to put their lives together again. There is heavy machinery to move collapsed buildings, trees and utility poles. Sometimes people go for weeks without electricity or clean water. This creates a different problem, because millions of discarded plastic water bottles end up blocking drainage channels or rivers, making them ineffective in the next heavy storms. Also, without clean water, people suffer from all sorts of diseases, which can be fatal if they are not treated properly.

Since climate-change induced typhoons will get worse in the foreseeable future, there are two possible permanent solutions to this annual problem. The government at all levels must invest heavily in civil engineering solutions to ensure that the waters flow into seas and not through populated areas. And, people need to move out of the low-lying, flood-prone areas to safer, higher ground. Both of these solutions are part of the enormous cost of climate change for the developing world.

Much closer to home, in mid-January 2025 I was working with the Comboni Missionaries in South Sudan on how they can implement Pope Francis’s two major documents on the environment, Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum. This impressive band of missionaries, from many countries around the world, following the example of their founder, St Daniel Comboni, are working among some of the most marginalised peoples in Africa. Ironically, large swathes of the country are under water as the Nile has flooded its banks since 2020, while other parts of South Sudan are under regular threat of drought. The Combonis live in the Sudd Wetland on floating islands, and go by canoe, or wade through armpit-deep water to evangelise in dozens of Mass centres. The Combonis also work among the nomadic pastoralists and livestock farmers who make up an estimated half of the country’s population. Millions of cattle, the most prized assets of the people of South Sudan, have died, either from flooding or from drought. Some respectable organisations are stating that this is the first example of a permanent displacement of masses of people, because it is not expected that the floodwaters will recede.

Some industry experts maintain that oil extraction in South Sudan is the dirtiest and most polluting in the world, because there is almost no enforcement of legislation to protect the environment. In large parts of the country, the water has been poisoned by oil which is spilled on the ground. Once water has mixed with toxic chemicals from the extraction of oil or other minerals, it is useless for humans or animals. Women, who out of necessity drink the chemical-laden water, are more likely to give birth to babies with defects, or to have miscarriages. And because there is very little formal infrastructure for sanitation, human waste also contaminates the drinking water, leading to all kinds of stomach diseases. Like in The Philippines, water is sold in millions of bottles, which end up polluting the environment.

So we see that an excess of water can be just as harmful for people as too little water. As climate change worsens, the supply of clean drinking water will become more and more unreliable, and people will face greater threats to their security in both rural and urban areas. What can we, and our neighbours, do to make sure that we are safe from the powerful natural force of water?

Originally published in New People (Nairobi) in March-April 2025

Prof. Peter Knox SJ, PhD

New People

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