Making water infrastructure climate-resilient

Across the Horn of Africa, climate change is a growing threat to water systems. Boreholes run dry, birkads crack in the heat, and floodwaters submerge the very wells communities depend on for safe drinking water. Under Water at the Heart of Climate Action (WHCA), National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies are responding by rethinking how water infrastructure is designed. In South Sudan and Ethiopia, they have worked with communities to co-design water points that are built to last through future shocks.

South Sudan: rebuilding Bor’s water points above the flood line

Bor sits close to the Nile and has been among the districts hardest-hit by flooding in South Sudan. Successive years of heavy rains and rising river levels have repeatedly displaced residents, submerged homes, and cut off access to essential services. Water infrastructure has been especially exposed: wells and hand-pump platforms built at ground level are quickly submerged when water rises, allowing floodwater and waste to mix with the safe water supply. For families already coping with displacement, this often means a choice between walking further for safer water, or relying on sources that put them at risk of cholera and other waterborne diseases.

To break this cycle, the South Sudan Red Cross brought together local experts and community members to look at how water points in flood-prone parts of Bor were built: where floodwater collects, how high it typically rises, which materials hold up, and who struggles most to reach a water point safely, including children, older people, and persons with disabilities. Out of these conversations came a modified design: a new water point platform which is raised well above expected flood levels, so the pump and drawing point stay clear of the water even when the surrounding ground is flooded. A stepped approach and a ramp with metal handrails were added on either side, keeping the water point accessible for everyone. A lined drainage channel carries spilled water away from the platform instead of letting it pool and contaminate the site.

Today, instead of reconstructing the same low-lying structure after every flood season, the South Sudan Red Cross and its partners are building water points designed to keep functioning through the flood — protecting both infrastructure and the people who depend on it.

Ethiopia: addressing two very different climate challenges

In Ethiopia’s Somali Region, more than half of the population relies on unsafe or seasonal water sources, and a large share of the region’s roughly 700 water schemes are non-functional. Whereas Harshin is defined by chronic drought, extreme heat, and a dependence on deep, costly-to-pump groundwater, Kelafo faces a flood-drought paradox: flash floods and saline groundwater sit side by side with recurrent dry spells, so infrastructure has to cope with too much water and too little, sometimes within the same year.

The Ethiopian Red Cross Society, the Netherlands Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and local experts identified why existing water source designs were failing under climate stress and co-developed improved versions, including factors like multi-hazard resilience, durability, cost, and ease of maintenance.

For Harshin, boreholes running on expensive diesel pumping are shifting to solar-powered systems, expected to cut operating costs and reduce dependence on unreliable fuel supplies. For Kelafo, where high groundwater salinity rules out boreholes, solar-powered river intake systems are being built with flood-protected underground pump housing, alongside improved and larger birkads to capture rainfall for communities further from the river. In both districts, the co-design process was extended beyond water points to climate-resilient latrines and shelters (raised platforms, heat-resistant materials, flood-anchored structures), so that water access gains are not undermined by failures elsewhere.

A shared lesson: resilience is designed, not assumed

The details differ, a raised platform with steps in Bor, solarized boreholes in Harshin, protected river intakes in Kelafo. But the approach behind them is the same. In both South Sudan and Ethiopia, Red Cross teams did not simply rebuild what climate hazards had damaged. They brought experts and the communities who use these systems every day into the conversation and let it shape the design. This solid foundation for infrastructure will keep serving communities through the next flood, the next drought, and the next heatwave.