African Journal of Community and Environmental Health
African Journal of Community and Environmental Health is a peer‑reviewed scholarly journal published under the Pan‑African Research Journals (PARJ) platform, advancing African‑centred and global research.
Urban Road Drainage Failure Analysis andRehabilitation Planning in Juba City, South Sudan
Urban road drainage systems in conflict-affected cities represent one of the most critically underexamined components of post-war infrastructure rehabilitation. This study presents a comprehensive, data-driven failure analysis of urban road drainage systems in Juba City, South Sudan, integrating hydrological field surveys, EPA SWMM v5.1 stormwater modelling, Intensity–Duration–Frequency curve development, and structured engineering interviews across 12 major arterial roads surveyed systematically between 2020 and 2024. A total of 148 drainage failure incidents were catalogued and classified into four primary failure modes: hydraulic overloading (73.0%), operational blockage (18.2%), structural deterioration (6.1%), and systemic design defects (2.7%). Pareto analysis confirms hydraulic overloading as the singular dominant failure mechanism. Rainfall IDF curves derived from 35 years of Juba International Airport meteorological station data, fitted to the Gumbel Extreme Value Type I distribution with regression coefficients a = 1847.3, b = 0.201, c = 14.7, e = 0.812 (R² = 0.94), reveal that the existing drainage network operates at a mean hydraulic capacity of only 37% of that required under the 25-year return period standard recommended for major urban arterials. Manning’s equation analysis of 47 surveyed cross-drain sections confirms a mean capacity deficit of 2.3 m³/s (SD = 1.87 m³/s), with 87.2% of sections exhibiting measurable underperformance. EPA SWMM simulation for the critical Gudele Ring Road catchment (138.7 ha) achieved a Nash–Sutcliffe Efficiency of 0.89, validating the hydrological modelling approach and predicting surface flooding depths of 0.34–1.12 m persisting for 4.2 hours post-storm peak. A GIS-based phased rehabilitation framework integrating composit
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Urban Road Drainage Failure Analysis and Rehabilitation Planning in Juba City, South Sudan: Integrating Hydrological Modelling, Failure Mode Diagnostics, and Cost-Benefit Optimisation
Juba, the capital city of South Sudan and home to an estimated 525,000 residents in 2024, has experienced a 200% increase in flood-related road closures between 2012 and 2024, driven by rapid unplanned urbanisation, expanding impervious surfaces, and a chronically under-maintained drainage network inherited from the pre-independence era. This study presents the first systematic engineering analysis of urban road drainage failure in Juba City, integrating drainage network condition assessment, hydrological modelling, failure mode analysis, and rehabilitation planning optimisation. A structured field survey of 26.4 km of drainage infrastructure across ten urban districts catalogued 1,166 failure events, of which Pareto analysis identifies inadequate hydraulic capacity, sediment and debris blockage, and structural collapse as the three dominant failure modes, together accounting for 64.1% of all events. Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves were derived from 42 years of pluviograph records at Juba International Airport using the Sherman equation, and design rainfall intensities for return periods of 2 to 100 years were calibrated against three independent gauge stations. The Rational Method was applied to compute peak runoff discharges for 28 sub-catchments, revealing that 15 sub-catchments exhibit drainage capacity ratios (Q_peak / Q_capacity) exceeding 1.5 — indicating systemic undersizing. OLS regression confirms a statistically significant relationship between impervious cover and runoff coefficient (r = 0.94, p < 0.001), underscoring the compound effect of urbanisation on drainage loading. Four rehabilitation scenarios — ranging from cleaning-only to a combined green infrastructure and full reconstruction approach — were evaluated using net present value (NPV) and
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Rural road networks are the backbone of livelihood, humanitarian access, and post-conflict recovery in South Sudan, yet decades of civil conflict have dismantled both the physical infrastructure and the institutional capacity required for systematic maintenance. This study investigates community-centred road maintenance (CCRM) approaches across six war-affected counties in Central and Western Equatoria, drawing on a mixed-methods research design combining structured household surveys (n = 412), key informant interviews with local road committees (n = 38), and field condition assessments of 214 km of rural earth and gravel roads. The study develops and validates a Community Road Maintenance Capacity Index (CRMCI) comprising five dimensions: labour mobilisation capacity, local funding mechanisms, technical knowledge transfer, organisational cohesion, and community ownership. Results demonstrate that counties with CRMCI scores above 65/100 showed road condition improvements of 38–54% over a three-year period, compared to 8–15% improvement in counties relying exclusively on government force-account or contractor-based approaches. A participatory action research framework incorporating gender-responsive labour division, performance-based incentive structures, and indigenous knowledge integration is presented as a replicable model for road maintenance governance in fragile-state contexts. The findings contribute to the evidence base for community-driven infrastructure maintenance in post-conflict sub-Saharan Africa and provide actionable recommendations for the Ministry of Roads and Bridges (MoRB), development partners, and county-level civil authorities.
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