What was once a huge lake now looks like a double-size football field, or rather a disused airport covered with bare sand with little shrubs and bushes scattered around. At a distance, you see what looks like a little stream – actually the remains of the Ruvu, a river of great importance in the lives of many Tanzanians.
COLLECTING WATER| Maasai villagers collect water from a tank at a water-collection point at a village on the Maasai Steppes in northern Tanzania.
The Ruvu is one of the two main rivers feeding water into the Nyumba ya Mungu reservoir, one of Tanzania’s main sources of hydroelectric power. Besides this, the river bank is home to the fishermen who have established permanent settlements just a few hundred metres from the water’s edge. Where there was once a thriving riverine community, the place is now empty save for a few people and some starving cows.
The same gloomy atmosphere greets us as we approach Lang’ata Bora, one of the many villages along the Ruvu. Everywhere groups sit around on corners doing nothing, mostly dreary-faced men, while women rush up and down the village streets. “We are going to try our luck in getting food aid. Almost the whole village is over there. I’m not sure even if we will get any maize today,” says Monica Chifuka, a resident of Lang’ata Bora. “How can we survive? The river is dry and we have no fish and no food.”
Widespread drought
The main reason the Ruvu is dry is the ongoing drought that has affected the whole of East Africa, not just the Pangani River basin and the Ruvu. But nature’s caprice has been compounded by the acts of man: illegal irrigation schemes and population growth have exacerbated the problem.
Not only are the people around the basin affected but the whole country is currently suffering.
The situation is no better in villages elsewhere in the Pangani River basin, which covers an area of about 43 650 square kilometres, mostly in Tanzania with only five per cent of it in Kenya. The Kikuletwa and Ruvu rivers are the two main tributaries of the river, which becomes known as the Pangani after it flows out from the Nyumba ya Mungu reservoir, and which drains into the Indian Ocean, 432 kilometres away.
Not only are the people around the basin affected but the whole country is currently suffering. Low water levels at the reservoir mean the 8 megawatt-rated hydropower plant can produce a mere 2.6 megawatts, and at night only. Power production at the other two plants within the basin, at Hale and Pangani, is no better. The whole country has been forced to ration power as a result.
SEVERE DROUGHT|A dry dam on the Maasai Steppes in northern Tanzania.
In response to this challenge, University of Dar es Salaam in collaboration with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and with funding from NUFU have designed a water management programme involving two PhD students who will study the Pangani basin as part of their PhD programme.
“We know the basin is in real bad shape, the rivers are losing water, the lakes are becoming much smaller, Mount Kilimanjaro is losing snow but we don’t have enough scientific data,” says Professor Felix Mtalo, head of the Water Resources Department of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Dar es Salaam. “We need data to help decision-makers to make proper policies and arguments to save the land.”
Professor Mtalo, who has been studying and supervising research students working on the Pangani River basin, says that for several years the basin has been prone to water-related conflicts caused by poor water resource management in the area.
“In order to suggest meaningful strategies on how to deal with these conflicts, we have to know how much water we have,” says Professor Mtalo. “There is a scarcity of water which cannot meet all the demand. What do we do?”
Making progress
Under the collaborative program other research projects are probing such matters as dam safety, the nature of the Lake Chala and Lake Jipe systems, stakeholder involvement in water management, Usambara rainfall patterns and groundwater in the Arusha region.
One PhD student has set up monitoring stations at Lake Jipe, Lake Chala and along the Ruvu River to record water levels and the rate of sedimentation. Using this data researchers will be able to predict the future rate of sedimentation and its effect on the storage capacity of the Nyumba ya Mungu reservoir.
CONCERNED| “We know the basin is in real bad shape, the rivers are losing water, the lakes are becoming much smaller,” says Professor Felix Mtalo at the University of Dar es Salaam.
The PhD research is done following the sandwich model where students get a chance to work with research groups at both the University of Dar es Salaam and NTNU. Key findings are expected to be used in improving the situation of the Pangani basin as well to be integrated into the ongoing Master’s programme in Water Management at the university.
The data collection exercise has already yielded some positive results. The project was able to provide scientific data on Lake Jipe, which is shared by Kenya, to prove that water volume from the rivers flowing into the lake on the Kenyan side had been drastically reduced by irrigation dams.
“Our team had a weapon – the data – to use in discussion with their colleagues from Kenya,” says Professor Mtalo. “It didn’t take long before they took up action to unblock the river. Now we see more water into the lake.”
Look at us no. I am not sure if I will be able to feed the family.
The project also allows exchange of staff and students where both parties get a chance to work in research and supervision. “The programme also gives Norwegian students who want to work in international development work a chance to get experience and exposure in Africa,” says Professor Ånund Killingtveit of the Department of Hydraulic and Environmental Engineering of NTNU.
Both Professors Killingtveit and Mtalo are very optimistic about the results of their joint effort to study the Pangani River basin. They may not produce an immediate solution to drying rivers and lakes in the basin, but rather suggest a long-term solution which may save the people of Lang’ata Bora and their neighbours.
A village of beggars
This couldn’t happen too soon for the people in Lang’ata Bora. Back in the village Chifuka, a mother of five, is not used to seeing her village this desperate. Not long ago, she was a prosperous businesswoman, buying and selling fish and maize. With income from the fish business, she and her husband built a modern three-bedroom house, paid school fees for their children and managed to live a very decent life. They were planning to put in electricity to complete their dream home.
“Look at us now. I’m not sure if I will be able to feed the family. My husband is out there looking for something to do to get money,” says Chifuka. “The whole village has turned into beggars where people have to fight for the little food aid we get from the government.”