The Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) with support of FAO’s KnoWat project and Best Associated Consultants, developed an approach to water users and uses assessment that allows information collected in the field to be entered directly into a central database from smartphones or tablets.

The approach enables the RWB, to continually update national-level data on water users and users.

RWB staff received on-the-job training in using and maintaining the software and tools for data collection and update. Data were collected in the twenty Level 2 catchments¹ in Rwanda and used to update the national database. In 2021, the results of the updated water use and users assessment were endorsed by key stakeholders in a national validation workshop.

The assessment recorded annual water use of about 608 million m³ in 2019 compared to 499 million m³ registered in 2017, an increase of 22 percent. This increase was partly due to higher water abstraction and partly to improved assessment methodology.

Hydropower is by far the biggest user of water resources, accounting for more than 3 382 million m³/year. The hydropower sector contributes about 55 percent of Rwanda’s capacity in energy production, particularly in the western part of the country. Water use for hydropower is considered non-consumptive.

Excluding hydropower, water is mainly abstracted for irrigation (363 million m³/year, 59.7 percent), and domestic water supply (235 million m³/year, 38.6 percent). The high abstraction by the agricultural sector can be explained by the importance of agriculture to Rwanda: agriculture contributes over 30 percent of the country’s gross domestic product; about 48 500 hectares of agricultural land are irrigated.