To see what upstream water management looks like, I travel inland to Wote, the headquarters of Makueni County, about 414 kilometres by road from Mambrui. Water scarcity has long shaped life in Makueni, where unreliable rainfall and recurring drought threaten livelihoods. The county’s 2024 Participatory Climate Risk Assessment, published by the Makueni County Government, identifies drought as a major climate-related hazard, alongside flash floods and strong winds.
These hazards threaten water supplies, crop and livestock production, and household incomes. In its February 2026 bulletin, the National Drought Management Authority reported that households travelled an average of 4.6 kilometers to access water. In areas where people depend on both crop farming and livestock keeping, the average distance was even longer, at 7.8 kilometres.
Joseph Kioko, the Makueni Civil Society County Coordinator, describes a local approach to deal with the challenge of water scarcity in the County.
“We have a lot of sand in Makueni, actually the best quality in the country,” he says.
“When we conserve this sand, we find that the water table will rise, which encourages agriculture and the availability of water in many households.”
Construction of sand dunes
In Makueni County, there is the construction of sand dams which help communities capture and store water in seasonal river channels.