Strengthening water management in Rwanda through water tenure assessment, water productivity analysis and capacity development
The Rwanda KnoWat project technical advisory group (TAG) held in February 2021, their fourth meeting to review the progress of the project for year 2020. Although project activities were affected by the COVID-19 induced lockdown that limited field movements, a number of achievements were realized.
The project “Knowing water better: Towards fairer and more sustainable access to natural resources for greater food security” (KnoWat)”, is funded by the Government of Germany and implemented by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) and with close collaboration with Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB).
The officials of Rwanda Water Resources Board appreciated project achievements that have been accomplished thus far including updating the water users and uses assessment, crop data collection for water productivity assessment through remote sensing, and field activities demonstrating integrated water resource management in the Yanze catchment, Rulindo district.
“Water users and uses assessment is key in informing the situation on water uses and users as well as contributing to Rwanda government efforts of understanding how best water can be managed,” Bernard Musana, Head of Department in charge of Knowledge and Forecast Hub at Rwanda Water Resources Board said.
"Water is a very important natural resource and that all essential and strict measures need to be embraced to protect it,” Otto Muhinda, Assistant FAO Representative for Programmes said.
Water tenure Assessment
Sofia Espinosa, tenure governance specialist speaking on the significance of water tenure assessment under the KnoWat project, indicated that the assessment seeks to identify and compare different types of water tenure arrangements that exist within a given geographical area in the country, and assess how people access and use water resources. Water tenure is the relationship, whether legally or customarily defined, between people, as individuals or groups, with respect to water resources.It includes formal arrangements such as the water law, as well as customary rights and duties related to water resources.
The assessment of water tenure can provide key elements for inclusion in strategies to attain sustainable development goals and put into practice the 2030 Agenda principle of “Leave no one behind”.
Legal framework for water tenure
In the upcoming activities, all the existing primary and secondary statutory legislations for water tenure will be assessed to better understand water and water tenure arrangements and relationships in the country.
Also, to be assessed will be customary law and local issues for water tenure, by visiting local sites and interview local populations and representatives, including of women and other identified groups.
Water productivity data for improved agriculture activities
The KnoWat data collection to assess water productivity through remote sensing through FAO’s WaPOR tool was started in July 2020 during the Agriculture Season C and A (September to January 2021) through both remote sensing and groundtruthing. The activity will proceed in Agriculture Season B (March to July 2021).
Notably, in Rwanda WaPOR data is collected at 30 m resolution in two pilot sites; The Yanze basin (97 km2) and the Muvumba catchment (546 km2). Level-2 evapotranspiration data (100 m resolution) already exists for the whole country of Rwanda and has already been used in the National Water Accounts mapping.
The WaPOR data collected will be interpreted, packaged, and reported for eventual use by government institutions to improve water accounting at national level, as well as irrigation scheme and river basin scale.
“The WaPOR data is useful for the country to optimize water resources planning and advisory services to farmers, and at national and scheme levels to improve water accounting. The data is freely accessible and can easily be integrated into information systems of national institutions,” Benjamin Kiersch, KnoWat project Global Coordinator said.
Upcoming project undertakings
The TAG concluded the meeting by endorsing and appreciating the project planned activities and forthcoming events. More so, the KnoWat project in collaboration with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) will in 2021 undertake capacity development in Rwanda and Sri-Lanka through which training and technical advisory services will be given to project partners, including linking of WaPOR database to national information systems.
A series of trainings will be conducted on Use of remote sensing data sources including WaPOR for water resource assessments at national, basin, and scheme levels.
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