Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of four years as a result of change in governance involving leadership and
political non-interference (Biswas and Tortajada 2010). Improved service
provision and better governance directly affect the financing gap: increased
customer satisfaction improves willingness to pay for the service as well as
financial institutions' willingness to provide loans (Gurría 2009).
Effects of drought world-wide are severely under-recorded in spite of the
clear impacts on agricultural production, rural livelihoods, food security,
mortality, migration, conflict and ecosystem decline. It is claimed that
drought ranks as the single most common cause of severe food shortages in
developing countries (Below
et al.
2007).
This has implications for managing drought impacts through water
resource planning by considering water use efficiency, water storages, and
climate forecasting. For nearly all agricultural products, water requirements
for producing a unit of any product is 50-200 per cent more for non-efficient
farms as compared to their more efficient counterparts (Biswas 2009: 404).
Targeted interventions are necessary to reduce the risks associated with
rain-fed agriculture, especially those in marginal rainfall areas often managed
by poor smallholder farmers (Mati 2007). Man-made reservoirs play an
important role particularly where precipitation is seasonal or erratic, enabling
the storing of water for use in drier periods. Increasing the number of water
storages thus can reduce vulnerability due to climatic variability, especially
water risks associated with both floods and droughts (Mati 2007). Regions
with the highest likelihood of needing an increase in reservoir storages are
Asia and Sub-Sahara Africa, the latter for agriculture, domestic and industrial
needs (White 2010: 55). Storages can be a solution in some areas, however
the amount of land taken by storages and diminishing availability of good
sites can be a constraint, along with losses due to evapo-transpiration and
sedimentation over the short and long-term.
Box 1.1: Competing demands: Tana River, Kenya
The Tana River runs from Mt Kenya through national park and small
agricultural holdings, supplies Nairobi's water supply and hydroelec-
tricity through 4 dams, then provides water to small communities and
cattle in a semi-arid area to the coast near Lamu. With an emphasis
on Millennium Development Goals to provide potable water, the
government is encouraging water harvesting and development (another
large dam as well as local ones). Figure 1.1 (see colour plates) for
example, illustrates a small new 'sand dam' for local use in a rural
community in Kenya, with questionable longevity as a result of
sedimentation due to adjacent land use. A water planning process run
by government in conjunction with community-based organisations
