Meru - Kenya
DAAD Alumni Summer School "Water Demand and Participatory Watershed
Management", Meru /Kenya
17.-29.11.2008
Objective
The objective of the Summer School is to underscore the sharing of
water resources with collected data on the actual water demand, mainly
by human consumption, agricultural activities such as irrigation and
livestock keeping, as well as industrial use. Management options are
formulated to regulate the existing demand given available resources. A
further objective is to stimulate the Water resource User Oranizations
(WRUA) to monitor their activities regularly.
Ngakinya WRUA has outlined the following objective, amongst others, in their constitution:
To promote reasonable, equitable and priority-based sharing of water
resources between the environment, wildlife, livestock, commercial
activities and all the communities who rely on the Rivers Ngaciuma and
Kinyaritha and tributaries to always ensure the use of water resources
ranks in priority from the highest to the lowest as follows:
Domestic livestock, public environment, wildlife, fisheries;
Irrigation, power generation, industry; and recreation.
Field Assessment
The Ngakinya WRUA and the BWARUA reported on their activities on
implementation of the Sub-catchment Management Plan formulated during
the Summer School 2007 and. 2006 respectively. Following the
presentation, group work for one day has been carried out in the
Ngaciuma-Kinyaritha catchment to get an insight on the performance of
the WRUA within their area. Each group consisted of members of
WRUA, WRMA and Alumni representatives. A report writer, two or three
interviewers, a photographer were chosen within each group and guided
through specific areas within the catchment by a WRUA member. Results
of the group work were presented at the plenary.
It was not the aim of the Summer School to roll out a full monitoring
programme. Yet, the WRUA is encouraged to independently and regularly
update their implementation plan, as they have followed the steps to
carry out the monitoring and evaluation process during the Summer
School of 2007. Assisting this process, the Summer School formulated
recommendations for the WRUA.
Water Demand and Water Resource Allocation
Water demand assessment and water resource allocation concentrates on
three areas, namely on the resources of water, the uses of water and
the methodology on how to assess these. For assessment of resources,
data for rainfall, runoff, groundwater and temperature or
evapotranspiration are collected and analysed. Not all data are
necessary to be collected from the field. Relevant administration units
have a lot of regional data already collected and published.
Data from supply side, obtained from the water service provider MEWASS,
is only available for a small part of the Ngaciuma-Kinyaritha
catchment, because only part of the catchment is covered by the
services of MEWASS. Therefore, statistical data on population are used
to estimate an average demand. The domestic water use is divided into
rural population, urban population and institutions such as schools and
administrative offices.
The industrial sector in the Ngaciuma-Kinyaritha catchment is limited to the processing of agricultural products.
The agricultural sector uses water mainly for irrigation and livestock
production. Water is supplied by abstractions from the rivers in the
area. Rain fed irrigation is widely practised, yet is not taken into
account for the water demand estimation in this study. This would
require a water balance study, which would also have to include
environmental water demand.
Collected information was entered in Microsoft Excel, processed and
analysed. Spatial information was processed in GIS. Results are
presented in form of tables, graphs and maps.
Conflict Mapping
The relevant actors were identified through participatory conflict
mapping. Under the moderation of Nele Förch, Ngakinya WRUA in
cooperation with BWARUA, Kawaya WRUA and NYAWRUA were invited to
describe the kind of relationships they have in the catchment with
other entities. The activity consisted of mapping the relationship
between the relevant actors in the catchment for watershed management
and Ngakinya WRUA. Members of WRUA and WRMA were given cards of
different sizes standing for the significance of the relationship
between different actors. The criteria used as a basis for mapping was
mainly related to their relevance to the WRUA in implementing watershed
management. After defining the actors the link between the WRUA and the
respective actors was defined (e.g. strong or weak cooperation).
Participants
25
participants took part in the DAAD Alumni Summer School 2008.
15 DAAD Alumni were representing the member universities of the
regional network on Integrated Watershed Management (IWMNet) Eastern
Africa and functioned as resource persons and facilitators for their
respective institutions and disciplines. 10 experts from the concerned
local WRUA and the regional authority WRMA working in Meru Region were
selected by the GTZ Water Sector Reform Programme to integrate the
Sub-catchment Management Plan (SCMP) into the existing institutional
and legal framework and to ensure implementation of the planned
activities. 2 lecturers of Universität Siegen were participating
as organisers and lecturers.
Results
The elaboration and results of the summer schools can be downloaded here. They are handed over as document to the WRUA and WRMA being the implementing organisations.
Contact
Research Institute for Water and Environment
Water Resources Management Group
Universität Siegen
D-57068 Siegen
Germany
