Water stakeholders in the country have called for better water and aquifers conservation and all other water resources to ensure continued water availability into the future generations.
The team was speaking in Garissa during a validation workshop today in Garissa aimed to prioritize Sub-Catchment Areas (SCAs) for the implementation of Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) infrastructure, conservation and livelihood activities in 5 counties.
The 5 counties include, Garissa, Wajir, Mandera, Marsabit and Turkana.
Around 1.5 million rural residents from the mentioned counties will benefit from the WRA project development objectives aligned with the United Nations Goal 6, seeking to achieve universal access to safe drinking water by 2030.
Water Resources Authority board chairperson David Murgor emphasized on the need to conserve water to safeguard the future of this country as well as improving the catchment areas in rural parts of the country.
Mugor said that the access of water is key to everything, including industrialization and production.
He warned that due to climate change, if the water resources and the ground water aquifers are not well recharged, water maybe instinct in the near future creating a big crisis.
“For our future generations we must start now to ensure that we conserve our catchment areas to combat the severe climate change,” Said Murgor
“We came to sensitize our people and we want to bring everybody on board, our youth, women and people living with disabilities, we want to move together in one direction as water is an important resource for the development of our country,” Added Murgor.
WRA CEO Mohamed Shuriye said there will be drilling of six exploitory boreholes across the five counties to monitor the behaviour and patterns of ground water.
Shuriye said that there will another borehole at the Indian ocean, which once successfully studied and approved will bring an end to water shortages in the coastol region which has not had fresh supply of water.
Garissa CEC for water and environment, Ahmed Ibrahim cited the importance of evaluating how the underground water behaves and the monitoring of the Aquifer Recharge to help in planning ahead to conserve water.
“This project that covers 5 counties bordering Ethiopia and Somalia will help in evaluating how our underground water is behaving as well as improving our catchment areas,” noted Ibrahim.
The Water Resources Authority aims to provide water for domestic use to 500,000 citizens through sustainable water resource management of groundwater in the Horn of Africa borderlands.
