Download integrated water resource management democratic republic of

INTEGRATED WATER RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Project
Water Resources Management in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo
Project Progress
The general objective of the project is to support the development
of a comprehensive observational network for a hydro-information system, as well as technical capacity building that will promote sustainable planning, utilization, and management of the
DRC water resources.
The Congo River is the cornerstone of the economy and livelihood
of the Democratic Republic of Congo, facilitating water supply,
navigation, hydropower, agriculture, ecosystems, tourism, etc. It is
an important regional resource, extending into Angola,
Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon Burundi, Cameroon, Central
African Republic, Rwanda, Zambia, and Tanzania, offering potential for water and energy exports.
Challenges, however, are presented by poverty, disease, restricted
clean water access, deforestation and climate change. In addition
the country is facing a lack of adequate institutional and technical
capacity, of adequate and reliable observational data, hydro-informatics tools, and of trained human resources for holistic planning,
utilization, and management.
Results and further steps
Case studies in literature indicate that the people in the rural areas
of DR Congo perceive effects of climate change, notably by being
exposed to fresh water access limitations (83% of the respondents) and hydro-meteorological natural disaster threats during
the last 10 years (90%). Key climate risks of extreme rainfall, seasonal droughts, floods, heat waves and coastal erosion are all
increasing to varying extents.
Subsequent phases in the project concern building of a consensus
towards a new water law. The focus is on continued development
of the Congo Decision Support System, with models for rainfallrunoff, routing, hydropower facilities and economics. It also
includes flood and drought forecasting systems.
Groundwater, water quality and the impacts of agriculture developments and deforestation will be addressed later. In connection
to all project phases specific capacity building needs have been
identified.
Work initially focused on an inventory of available hydro-meteorological data, which are increasingly scarce, it should be definitively redirected to the use of satellite earth observation technology for water resource assessment for sustainable development.
The purpose of the water resources assessment is to quantify the
water resources, within the Congo River Basin. Outputs from the
study will be an essential input for the pre-feasibility assessment
and design of future development projects in the river basin as
well as environmental studies
PI
Dr. Dieudonné Nsadisa Faka, Institut Supérieur
de Techniques Appliquées (ISTA), DR Congo
Team
• Institut Supérieur de Techniques Appliquées
(ISTA), DR Congo
• Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation
and Tourism, DR Congo
• Faculty of Engineering and Geosciences, Delft
University of Technology (TUD-CiTG), the
Netherlands
Meteorological stations in the past (top) and present
(bottom).
The Tiger iniTiaTive → 2009-2012 reporT 27