After succesfully finishing the Bio-Physical Assessment and Hydrological Analysis for the Mukungwa and Akagera Lower catchments in Rwanda, FutureWater will remain active in Rwanda in a new project that has been granted to FutureWater and ENTREM Ltd. by FONERWA. In close collaboration with the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB), we will work towards Integrated Strategic Water Resources Plans and Management Guidelines that will help Rwanda maintain, adopt and improve sustainable water resources management.
The new project, with the name “Consultancy Services for Integrated Strategic Water Resources Planning and Management for Rwanda” has the general objective to develop integrated strategic water resources plans and management guidelines in order to meet Rwanda’s National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) and Vision 2050 targets. Specifically, the assignment will:
- Assess and evaluate the availability and vulnerability of the country’s water resources up to around 2050 taking climate change into consideration,
- Formulate sustainable and environmentally friendly water resources investment plans towards the year 2050 and guidelines for green development for each 20 Level two catchments,
- Prepare a revised water resources policy that is in line with water security and SDG 6,
- Carry out a cost benefit analysis of the proposed investment plans and prepare quick win projects
In order to meet this objective five tasks have been defined. The main activities of those Tasks are:
- Task 1 (detailed hydrological assessment) will result in the water availability per sub-catchment up to 2050. This task is technically oriented and will use available data and models as developed over the last decade by various studies.
- Task 2 (detailed water allocation assessment) will address water needs for the various users and will result in water needs up to 2050. This task is technically oriented and will use available data and models as developed over the last decade. It is expected that this component will need major upgrades compared to previous studies.
- Task 3 (strategic water resources conservation and development) will rely on Task 1 and Task 2 and can be considered as the scenario analysis task. Based on various projections water availability and demands will be evaluated. Focus will be on dry years and dry periods as it is known that the overall water resources are in general sufficient for Rwanda. From the evaluation, a selection of potential artificial and strategic storage development sites will be done.
- Task 4 (strategic water resources management options) will be stakeholder driven where stakeholders include technical water experts as well. Based on the results of Task 3 various options will be discussed and most likely some refinement of Task 3 (scenario assessment) is needed. The latter might include different priority settings fine tuning of demands and refinement of strategic storage development sites.
- Task 5 (revised national policy for water resources management) will focus on defining new policy statements and actions informed by the results from the previous tasks and developing a new water resources policy that will guide the country towards achieving the NST1 and Vision 2050 targets.
