Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, has
responded to a growing global demand for training
and the implementation of environmental flows.
Courses and assessments have taken or are taking
place in Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Turkey,
Bosnia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Pakistan,
India and China. Almost all of these countries have
completed, or are in the process of revising, their
water policy and legislation so as to include the
requirement for environmental flows.
The lessons that have come out of these
initiatives provide many insights into river
conservation theory and practice worldwide, and
some of these lessons will be described here,
concentrating on two recent projects in East
Africa. In both of these case studies, the main
emphasis of flow maintenance is for ecosystem
conservation, since both the Mara and the Great
Ruaha Rivers rise outside, but flow into and
through, national parks. In both cases the rivers
provide the only perennial water in the national
parks, and therefore there is a high degree of
dependence by the animal and vegetation diversity
on these rivers. In common with many national
parks worldwide, the failure to include the upper
catchments, from which much of the runoff is
derived, within the protected areas, means that
the sustainability of the parks is compromised by
upstream developments and water demands.
Rivers flowing through national parks
in East Africa
Two of the WWF projects above have taken
place on the Mara River (Kenya and Tanzania
from 2006 to 2008) and the Great Ruaha River
(Tanzania from 2007 to 2009). Although both are
East African rivers which flow into national parks,
they provide contrasting lessons for environmental
flows assessment and implementation. The Mara
River (Figure 4.1, Plate 6) flows from the Mau
34
°
0'0''E
34
°
30'0''E
35
°
0'0''E
35
°
30'0''E
36
°
0'0''E
36
°
30'0''E
Lake Nakuru
Ruma
K e n y a
1
Africa
Hell's Gate
Legend
Lake
Victoria
River
Protected Areas
National Boundary
Mara River Basin
Lake
2
T a n z a n i a
0
15
30
60
Mara River
3
Masai Mara
km
Sand River
N
Serengeti
34
°
0'0''E
34
°
30'0''E
35
°
0'0''E
35
°
30'0''E
36
°
0'0''E
36
°
30'0''E
Figure 4.1
The Mara River Basin, Kenya and Tanzania (Source: LVBC and WWF-ESARPO, 2010). 1, 2 and 3 are the
environmental flow assessment sites.
