Projects
Reserve Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan, Rufiji River Basin, Tanzania
According to national law, all major river basins in Tanzania must implement an environmental reserve to protect important aquatic ecosystems and provide for basin human needs of those communities dependent on the river. To help determine what this reserve should be, an environmental flow assessment was conducted in the Kilombero sub-basin of the Rufiji River Basin in 2016. As a way to promote proper implementation and understanding of the environmental flow recommendations, project managers wanted a monitoring and adaptive management plan in place for the Kilombero. In thinking towards future environmental flow recommendations being created in other sub-basin, the plan was expanded to the entire Rufiji River Basin. Working in collaboration with the Rufiji Basin Water Board, USAID, CDM Smith, and IHE-Delft, ZEME is responsible for the development and implementation of this monitoring and adaptive management plan.
To effectively and efficiently create a plan that was useful to river basin managers yet implementable given current resources constraints, multiple steps were taken and relationships leveraged, including:
The Reserve Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan for the Rufiji River Basin was completed in late 2018.
To effectively and efficiently create a plan that was useful to river basin managers yet implementable given current resources constraints, multiple steps were taken and relationships leveraged, including:
- Developing a thorough understanding of the current management structures and objectives, data collection efforts and constraints, and barriers to implementation of management objectives
- Connecting with partners who could provide collaborative resources to help with data collection or river basin management actions, including other national resources management agencies, national research institutions, and international conservation organizations
- Utilizing the knowledge of local experts in the fields of hydrology, ecology, and social sciences to create a plan that is specific to the conditions in the Rufiji River Basin and builds connections between these fields in relation to river management
- Testing out potential monitoring methods and monitoring sites in the field with local water board staff to get an honest assessment of how feasible these techniques and locations would be to include in a long-term monitoring plan
The Reserve Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan for the Rufiji River Basin was completed in late 2018.
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Reserve Monitoring and Adaptive Management Plan, Mara River Basin, Kenya
As part of her MSc thesis, Lauren Zielinski of ZEME undertook the development of a monitoring and adaptive management plan for the Kenyan portion of the Mara River Basin. Foreseeing the need to create similar plans in other river basins in Kenya, she also created a framework for creating these plans based in the experience creating a plan for the Mara. Working closely with the local staff from the Water Resources Management Authority, a three-component plan was created, which fed into a three-phase framework for creating these types of plans. See the video below for more details on this structure.
This project was funded by the MaMaSe Sustainble Water Initiative and undertaken as a graduate student at UNESCO-IHE (now IHE-Delft) Institute for Water Education. The plan was developed in September 2016 and data collection efforts began in early 2017.
This project was funded by the MaMaSe Sustainble Water Initiative and undertaken as a graduate student at UNESCO-IHE (now IHE-Delft) Institute for Water Education. The plan was developed in September 2016 and data collection efforts began in early 2017.
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