Sustaining water use : stakeholders' strategies under different climate scenarios and need for interventions; the case study of Akaki river basin, Ethiopia
Date
2011-07
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Wageningen University
Abstract
The adverse impacts of climatic and non-climatic factors on water resourcethreaten the lives of people and nature. While adverse impacts of climate change can result in floods, droughts and tropical storms;non-climatic factors such as urbanization/population and land use change can result in erosion and various kinds of pollution withinthe boundary of a river basin. Akaki basin is located in the central highlands of Ethiopia harbouring the largest city of Ethiopia. Human intervention is relatively high in the basin compared to the other part of the country. The basin faces a number of challenges associated with the high human intervention on natural resources. Different stakeholders have different interest and mandate on water resource.This research is aimed at understanding water related challenges of Akaki basin associated withclimate change, population growth and land use change,and stakeholder strategy for the future challenge.
Climate change, population growth,urbanization andrelated land use change forms the environment for this research. The study is based on a theoretical frame work of socio-technical complexity of water related challenges. The research is implemented on quantitative and qualitative basiswith data generated by four methods, namely literature review, transect walk, individual and group interview. The results indicates that there had been several water related challenges over the last years, among which the water pollution and flood events are identified as a key challenges over the past years. The water pollution results in frequent infection of rural communities with cholera, typhoid and typhus and responsible for death of children. Farmers confront with loss of crop and yield reduction, consumers and field works are vulnerable to health risks, and the surrounding environment is contaminated. Flood is commonly resulting in loss of life and property damage during wet season. In the downstream area, all season floods due to the high wastewater inflow are also found as more challenging. The occurrences of flood aggravate health risks as contaminants spread over residential areas, grazing land and farm areas.
The rapid population is found as the key driver for these challenges because of the following reasons. One, the rapid population outpaced the capacity of responsible organization to provide water supply and sanitary services. Lack of instrument in contrast to rapid population on the other hand made the challenges worse. Two, the population exploit natural resources rapidly particularly forests. The depletion of forest reduces the water storing capacity of soil, increases the runoff and ultimately induces flood.
The study concluded that water pollution and frequent floods are the major challenges that stakeholder in the future. Therefore organizational and technical measures are needed to mitigate or reduce the adverse impacts of these challenges. Protecting and restorationforest cover, finding alternative energy source for domestic purpose, increasing safe water supply services for rural communities, controlling illegal settlement and strengthening capacity of responsible organization to control improper waste disposal are strongly recommended measures based on stakeholder suggestion and scientific judgement. It is also advisable to conduct further research to investigate the gap between available and required capacity so that further information for mitigating or reducing the challenges will be available. This facilitate a continues process of testing and improving the measures and will also give an opportunity to learn the situation while managing the challenges.
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Keywords
ETHIOPIA--AKAKI RIVER BASIN, CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION, HYDROLOGY, WATER POLLUTION, FLOODS, WATER MANAGEMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH, GROUNDWATER, WATER QUALITY